Review of Choat's Belief and Cult in Fourth-Century Papyri

In the latest Review of Biblical Literatur, David Frankfurter reviews Malcolm Choat, Belief and Cult in Fourth-Century Papyri (Studia antiqua Australiensia 1; Turnhout: Brepols, 2006).

Frankfurter is highly appreciative of the work - here is an exctract from the opening praise:

"Malcolm Choat has performed the immeasurable service of showing us the problems and challenges that papyri—letters, administrative documents, random fragments of writing—pose the historian interested in the growth of Christianity or the shift in religious forms during this transitional century. It is not a work of history but a manual for historical understanding, and as such it should serve as an essential textbook for any graduate course on papyrology or Christian primary sources and as a handbook for any scholar of early Christianity or late antiquity. Choat’s familiarity with an enormous range of papyri and especially the rich corpus of early Manichaean documents gives him an unusual vantage on the problems and prospects of fourth-century papyri,while his lucid writing make him an especially good teacher in their use."

Read the whole review here.