The various versions of the Infancy Gospels illustrate how stories about the Virgin and Child lend themselves to be told and retold - much like the stories in the canonical Gospels. This first translation of the full text of the Armenian Gospel of the Infancy, itself derived from a sixth-century Syriac text that no longer exists, provides two variants of the famous narrative and several recensions or ancient editions. Stories about Jesus, many of them unique to this gospel, are included to show how he exercised his sovereign and divine will even as a child. This edition also contains three early Armenian versions of the Protevangelium of James, which with other ancient sources dependent on it (like the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew) constitute the basic tradition in the formation of the later Infancy Gospels. These writings are our earliest sources about the parents of the Virgin Mary (Joachim and Anne) and her miraculous birth. They also form the basis for the dogma of her Immaculate Conception and perpetual virginity after the birth of Jesus, and lay the ground for certain of the Marian feasts celebrated since the fourth century. Terian's engaging introduction and annotation of the texts place this rare document clearly in its cultural and historical context and provide extensive references to the surrounding textual tradition. These extraordinary stories will appeal to all with an interest in the early church.

The text's elaborate illumination also brings to life a vibrant artistic center, the Monastery of Gladzor, which long ago disappeared." "The Armenian Gospels of Gladzor includes sixty color reproductions of the manuscript's illuminated pages, ten black-and-white illustrations, and two maps along with an essay that explores the book's artistic richness and theological complexity."--BOOK JACKET.

The First Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ describes the life of the child Jesus as written by Thomas the Israelite and translated many years later by Henry Sike.

This is the first monographic study of the Glajor Gospel, a 14th-century illuminated Armenian manuscript. In addition to critical studies of the iconography of the illuminations, the authors provide the history of the manuscript and the political and cultural setting in which it was produced, and the history of the monastery and school of Glajor.

This synopsis sets out in a clear and readily understandable way the principal early Christian texts, most of them apocryphal, that reveal the growth and changes in a range of influential stories about Jesus' birth and upbringing.

"An emerging field of study that explores the Hispanic minority in the United States, Latino Studies is enriched by an interdisciplinary perspective. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, demographers, linguists, as well as religion, ethnicity, and culture scholars, among others, bring a varied, multifaceted approach to the understanding of a people whose roots are all over the Americas and whose permanent home is north of the Rio Grande. Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies offers an authoritative, trustworthy, and up-to-date intellectual map to this ever-changing discipline."--Editorial page.