Throughout Raised by Christian Milk, Penniman highlights how the symbolic power of milk is linked to sociocultural values of women's bodies and how this power of nurturance is appropriated by male authors. . .Penniman's careful analysis of the text chastens any assumptions that minimize the power of symbols and offers clarity about how those symbols take on formative power and shape entire traditions.-Amy Brown Hughes, Church History
An admirable model of a creative, synthetic approach to doing reception history-Matthew V. Novensten, The Expository Times
In this engagingly written study, Penniman pulls off an exceptionally tricky balancing act as he insists on the degree to which ancient Christians understood the noetic to be shaped by material and corporeal practice.-Jennifer Glancy, Le Moyne College
Penniman's fascinating study explores how Paul's metaphors of milk, meat, and solid food were engaged by Christian authors of the first four centuries CE to articulate their views of Christian identity, spiritual formation, and social belonging. A fine analysis of how food practices in the real world intersected with early Christian writers' deployment of food imagery to further their diverse theological visions and pedagogical aims.-Elizabeth A. Clark, Duke University
Raised on Christian Milk is an impressive, well-written book that shows how the rhetoric of food in antiquity encompasses spiritual, educational, and caloric nourishment.-Laura Nasrallah, Harvard Divinity School
John Penniman's account of early Christian food symbolism, focusing particularly on the Pauline trope of milk opposed to solid food, offers an insightful interpretation of ancient eating well that by turns satisfies and stimulates the scholarly appetite.-Andrew McGowan, Yale University
In this engagingly written study, Penniman pulls off an exceptionally tricky balancing act as he insists on the degree to which ancient Christians understood the noetic to be shaped by material and corporeal practice.-Jennifer Glancy, Le Moyne College
-- Jennifer Glancy
Penniman's fascinating study explores how Paul's metaphors of milk, meat, and solid food were engaged by Christian authors of the first four centuries CE to articulate their views of Christian identity, spiritual formation, and social belonging. A fine analysis of how food practices in the real world intersected with early Christian writers' deployment of food imagery to further their diverse theological visions and pedagogical aims.-Elizabeth A. Clark, Duke University
-- Elizabeth A. Clark
Raised on Christian Milk is an impressive, well-written book that shows how the rhetoric of food in antiquity encompasses spiritual, educational, and caloric nourishment.-Laura Nasrallah, Harvard Divinity School
-- Laura Nasrallah
John Penniman's account of early Christian food symbolism, focusing particularly on the Pauline trope of milk opposed to solid food, offers an insightful interpretation of ancient eating well that by turns satisfies and stimulates the scholarly appetite.-Andrew McGowan, Yale University
-- Andrew McGowan
