The Gospel as Manuscript
An Early History of the Jesus Tradition as Material Artifact
Chris Keith
Reviews and Awards
"The Gospel as Manuscript raises questions so fundamental that few scholars are bold enough to even ask them: why were gospels written at all — and what were the consequences, intended or not, of writing down early Jesus traditions? Chris Keith reminds us that there was nothing inevitable about writing gospels, and shows how the self-conscious choice to do so shaped early Christian identity and practice around physical manuscripts — objects whose symbolic power extended far beyond their contents. At once magisterial and accessible, fine-grained and theoretically astute, Keith's The Gospel as Manuscript is poised to become the new standard work on early Christian book culture, and will be required reading for scholars of ancient reading cultures and book history more broadly." - Eva Mroczek, author of The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity
"The Gospels did not first exist as disembodied texts but as manuscripts. In this book, Chris Keith explores with sophistication and verve that deceptively simple observation, and demonstrates convincingly that the material aspects of early Christian gospel production illuminate the growth of the gospel tradition and its identity-forming function in liturgy. A wide-ranging and compelling set of interlocking arguments that is sure to be much discussed." - David Lincicum, Rev. John A. O'Brien Associate Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame
