The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, and: The Encyclopedia of Early Christianity (review)
1998; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 6; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/earl.1998.0074
ISSN1086-3184
Autores Tópico(s)Theology and Canon Law Studies
ResumoReviewed by: The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, and: The Encyclopedia of Early Christianity Joseph F. Kelly The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, third edition. Edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp. 1,824. $125.00. The Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, second edition. Edited by Everett Ferguson. 2 vols. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1997. Pp. xxvii + 1,213. $175.00. Reviewing books like these is like visiting an old friend. You want to know what is new and different, but you hope that not too much has changed. I am happy to tell JECSreaders that these old friends have only changed slightly and for the better. Since 1958 the ODCChas been the best one-volume dictionary of Christian history but also one which paid attention to theological issues. Since the editors came from the field of Early Christianity, the previous volumes contained a strong emphasis on that period and so does the current edition. Some articles are verbatim similar to entries in the second editions and do not even have updated bibliographies, while others are repeated verbatim but with updated biblographies. In yet other cases, where scholarship has made significant advances since that date, the articles have been expanded with updated bibliographies, for example, Nag Hammadi. As with past editions, this one contains neither illustrations nor photographs. Comparing a new edition to its earlier version is the only way to find out how new it is. I did this for several letters, including F. Eight new articles have been added and only one (Fogazzaro, Antonio) has been dropped. The new articles deal primarily with recent church history, for example, Focolare, Feminist Theology, Samuel Fisher. ODCCremains what it has always been, a valuable ready-reference tool which belongs in every personal and institutional library. The same can be said for the revised EEC, first published in 1990. The work is considerably enlarged and now comes in two volumes instead of one. Many articles remain the same but have updated bibliographies; in some cases, the authors made minimal additions (one article or book). One helpful change between this edition and the first one is that the authors are now identified by name instead of only by initials, thus freeing the reader from having to look to the front of the book (or of volume one if the reader is using volume two) to find out who wrote the article. The expansion of the work to two volumes allowed the publisher to increase the size of the illustrations, which is especially helpful for architectural and archaeological entries. It also made it possible to add illustrations, for example, an almost full-page reproduction of the central mosaic of S. Apollinaris in Classe in Ravenna (unfortunately, the reproduction is in black and white). As with the ODCC, I compared the entries under several letters, such as L. No articles were omitted, but eleven were added, including some which can only be called surprising omissions from the first edition: Lérins, Libanius, Libellus. [End Page 701] The complete entries in these volumes present a remarkably full picture of Early Christianity, and the contributors are all known specialists in their fields. This valuable work is a must for the scholar and the institutional library. The publishers brought out a paperbound edition of the first edition. We must hope that they will do so for this edition as well, in order to put the book within the price range of graduate students and seminarians. Joseph F. Kelly John Carroll University Copyright © 1998 The Johns Hopkins University Press
Referência(s)