Fifteen essays explore how ideas and experiences of transformation were expressed in early Christianity. Topics include the relationship between the resurrection and the ascension stories in Luke-Acts and the significance of spatial movement and the qualities of Christ's resurrected body, strategies developed by the Christians for reconciling the mutability of aging with the belief in the human potential for immortality, the parallels and differences between Pauline and Platonic conceptions of change, the relationship between Paul's cognitive and physical transformations in Corinthians, how early Christians understood the transformation of the body in resurrection, "metaphorical blends" and doctrinal understandings of resurrection in the Treatise on the Resurrection by Athenagoras of Athens, grotesque stories of inter-species metamorphosis in the writings of the early Christians, gender transformation in Christian martyrdom accounts, and bodily experiences of transformation and heavenly realities in the letters of Ammonas, among other topics. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)