This volume advances our understanding of early Christianity as a lived religion by approaching it through its rites, the emotions and affects surrounding those rites, and the material setting for the practice of them.

List of figures; List of tables; List of contributors; Acknowledgments; List of abbreviations; Introduction, Soham Al-Suadi; 1 Theorizing ritual, emotion, and material, Sharday C. Mosurinjohn; 2 Emotional display in the necropoli at Roman Thessalonike, Richard S. Ascough; 3 Water Rites in the world of the New Testament: Archaeological Highlights, Klaus-Michael Bull; 4 Water rites in Greek and Roman associations, Richard S. Ascough; 5 Water rites, emotions, and epiphanic encounters in the literary and material record of the Roman east, Richard E. DeMaris; 6 Ritual experience and emotions: The right place for water rites in Luke-Acts, Soham Al-Suadi; 7 Early Christian ritual from the perspective of affect and emotion studies, Richard E. DeMaris; 8 Precious, powerful, and pernicious: The polyvalence of water and water symbolism in early Christianity, Peter-Ben Smit; 9 Scared disciples: Emotions of fear in Mark 4:35-41 and 6:45-52, May-Britt Melzer; 10 "Let the children be fed first" (Mark 7:27): Rituals, emotions, and identity in the Synoptic tradition, Soham Al-Suadi; 11 Water rites as structuring elements in ancient meals: An examination of foot washing in John 12 and 13, Henrike Dilling and Frank Krüger; 12 Physical affect and ritual as starting points of Pauline paranaesis, Peter-Ben Smit; Conclusion, Richard S. Ascough; Indices, Modern authors, Subject index, Ancient sources