Crafting the Brill Encyclopedia: Author Selection and Editorial Challenges

The Brill Encyclopedia of Early Christianity: Authors, Texts, and Ideas (Brill, 2024) focuses on the history of early Christianity, covering texts, authors, ideas, and their reception. Its content is intended to bridge the gap between the fields of New Testament studies and patristics, connecting a number of related fields of study including Judaism, ancient history and philosophy, covering the whole period of early Christianity up to 600 CE.

The BEEC aims both to provide a critical review of the methods used in Early Christian Studies and also to update the history of scholarship.

The BEEC addresses a range of traditions, including iconographic, martyrological, ecclesiastical, and Christological traditions, as well as cultic phenomena, such as the veneration of saints. The history of the transmission of texts and the reception of early Christian writers are also addressed. The BEEC focuses on early Christianity from a historical perspective in order to uncover the lasting legacy of the authors and texts until the present day.

David G. Hunter is the Margaret O'Brien Flatley Chair of Catholic Theology at Boston College.

Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network.

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