"A team of distinguished specialists introduces the Jewish, Hellenistic, and Roman backgrounds necessary for understanding the New Testament and the early church"--Publisher's summary.
Tells the story of the heir to the murdered Julius Caesar who, as Rome's first emperor, brought peace and stability to the empire and presided over a new system of government.
This study investigates why 'faith' (pistis/fides) was so important to early Christians that the concept and praxis dominated the writings of the New Testament. It argues that such a study must be interdisciplinary, locating emerging Christianities in the social practices and me…
Scientists, journalists, novelists, and filmmakers continue to generate narratives of contagion, stories shaped by a tradition of disease discourse that extends to early Greco-Roman literature. Lucretius, Vergil, and Ovid developed important conventions of the western plague nar…
Roman reflections: studies in latin philosophy
Despite the long-held notion that the early Christians were meek and mild, going to their martyr's deaths singing hymns of love and praise, the truth, as Catherine Nixey reveals, is very different. Far from being meek and mild, they were violent, ruthless and fundamentally intol…