This riveting and groundbreaking collection of essays, by a distinguished group of scholars, examines the ways in which early Christian writers practiced mimesis--the conscious imitation of literary models from the Greco-Roman world. While the study of intertextuality has deeply influenced the study of the Synoptic Gospels and other early Christian texts, few scholars of early Christian literature have enriched their observations with studies of mimesis. The apocryphal Acts of Andrew, for instance, contains extensive imitation of Homeric and Euripidean poetry, and both Luke-Acts and Mark contain extensive imitaion of the Homeric epics. These essays examine the phenomenon of mimesis and intertextuality through an in-depth examination of particular texts, ranging from the apocryphal book of Tobit to Luke-Acts and the Synoptic Gospel.
