Ritual and Religious Experience in Early Christianities

1. Introduction

2. Exegetical Methodology
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Acts: The Dual Problems of Historicity and Intelligibility
2.3 Methodological Problems
2.4 Methodological Solutions
2.5 Acts and History Again: Which Historical Audience?
3. Exegesis
3.1 Pauline Epistles
3.2 Luke-Acts

4. Interpretation
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Understanding Notions of Culture and Their Relationship to Spirit Possession
4.3 What's So Special About Initiation? Ritual Form Theory and Lukan Baptism(s)
4.4 Spirit Impartation as Performative Ritual
4.5 Commitment Signalling Theory: Costly and Charismatic
4.6 Identity Fusion in the Early Christian Sect: How Initiatory Spirit-Possession Formed Social Bonds Among the Early Christians
4.7 Sacred Values and the Early Christian Sect
4.8 Emotion and the Early Christian Sect
4.9 Mediation in the Early Christian Sect
4.10 Why Did People Become Christians in the First Century?

5. Conclusion