Theatrics in Patristic Preaching and Biblical Exposition
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Paul M. Blowers uncovers how early Christian preachers transformed biblical interpretation into theatrical performance, captivating congregations with dramatic retellings of sacred stories. Theatrics in Patristic Preaching and Biblical Exposition, based on the 2025 Chadwick-Oden Lectures, explores how Church Fathers such as Chrysostom, Basil, and Romanos the Melodist used vivid rhetorical techniques—like impersonation, characterization, and ekphrasis—to breathe new life into Scripture.
Paul M. Blowers is Dean E. Walker Professor in the Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan University in Tennessee. He is a former President of the North American Patristics Society and a Henry Luce III Fellow.
Paul M. Blowers is Dean E. Walker Professor in the Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan University in Tennessee. He is a former President of the North American Patristics Society and a Henry Luce III Fellow.
Endorsements
The pulpit, Paul Blowers reminds us, is a site of theater performance. Theatrics in Patristic Preaching and Biblical Exposition analyzes with both lucidity and intellectual rigor ancient rhetorical techniques and biblical interpretation, tackling the power of tragedy that often strikes in biblical drama.
--Hans Boersma, author of Pierced by Love: Divine Reading with the Christian Tradition.
This powerful pair of lectures bears the marks of the very thing it discusses: the drama of Christian proclamation. . . The lively exchanges in the Q&As, also reproduced here, are testimony to the participation of a larger cast of characters, into which readers of this valuable book are now invited too.
--Ben Quash, Professor of Christianity and the Arts, Director of the Centre for Arts and the Sacred at King's College London.
--Hans Boersma, author of Pierced by Love: Divine Reading with the Christian Tradition.
This powerful pair of lectures bears the marks of the very thing it discusses: the drama of Christian proclamation. . . The lively exchanges in the Q&As, also reproduced here, are testimony to the participation of a larger cast of characters, into which readers of this valuable book are now invited too.
--Ben Quash, Professor of Christianity and the Arts, Director of the Centre for Arts and the Sacred at King's College London.