Willi Braun is Associate Professor of Religion and Director of the Interdisciplinary Programme of Religious Studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. . He is the author of Feasting and Social Rhetoric in Luke 14 (Cambridge University Press, 1995), editor of Persuasion and Performance: Rhetoric and Reality in Early Christian Discourses (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2004), major contributor to Merrill Miller and Ron Cameron (eds), Redescribing Christian Origins (Brill, 2004), and editor (with Russell T. McCutcheon) of the Guide to the Study of Religion (Cassell, 2000; Greek translation Vanias, 2003). He has been a long-time editor of the international journal Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, and is the former managing editor of the Canadian scholarly journal Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses.

• Preface Chapter 1: Past, Present, and the Politics of Narrative Chapter 2: It's Just Another Story: The Gospel of Mark Chapter 3: The Past as a Simulacrum in the Canonical Narratives of Christian Origins Chapter 4: When Women Were Just Women Chapter 5: The Past as Proxy and Portrait Bibliograhy

Willi Braun is Associate Professor of Religion and Director of the Interdisciplinary Programme of Religious Studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. . He is the author of Feasting and Social Rhetoric in Luke 14 (Cambridge University Press, 1995), editor of Persuasion and Performance: Rhetoric and Reality in Early Christian Discourses (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2004), major contributor to Merrill Miller and Ron Cameron (eds), Redescribing Christian Origins (Brill, 2004), and editor (with Russell T. McCutcheon) of the Guide to the Study of Religion (Cassell, 2000; Greek translation Vanias, 2003). He has been a long-time editor of the international journal Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, and is the former managing editor of the Canadian scholarly journal Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses.

• Preface Chapter 1: Past, Present, and the Politics of Narrative Chapter 2: It's Just Another Story: The Gospel of Mark Chapter 3: The Past as a Simulacrum in the Canonical Narratives of Christian Origins Chapter 4: When Women Were Just Women Chapter 5: The Past as Proxy and Portrait Bibliograhy