(2004) hinged on questions of the ‘truth’ and ‘historical reliabil-
ity’ of the New Testament accounts upon which it was ostensibly
based.^1 As we saw in the last chapter, however, the various texts
that make up the New Testament present many difficulties of inter-
pretation. For all that, most people, whether they are Christians
or not, would seem to agree that the basic picture of Christian
origins is reasonably uncontroversial. That picture might look
something like this: Christianity developed as an off-shoot of
Judaism, from which it inherited some things, but rejected
others; and Christianity was fired by a missionary zeal that saw
it expand successfully and rapidly into the Mediterranean world
of the Roman empire, leading rather inevitably to the conversion
of Constantine at the beginning of the fourth century.
In this chapter I want to examine this picture, suggesting that
in some respects it may not be as uncontroversial as it might seem
at first. Of course, this is a large subject, so I will rein in the dis-
cussion to a few strictly defined themes. I will concentrate on the
context – perhaps it might be better to think in terms of multiple
contexts – in which Christianity developed in the Roman empire.
I will begin with aspects of the Jewish background to the world
of the early Christians, in terms of both the Palestinian context of
Jesus himself and the nature of the relationship between emerg-
ing Christianity and contemporary Judaism. Next I examine the
spread of Christianity, suggesting ways in which an understanding
of the society and culture of the Roman empire can help explain
how Christian expansion occurred. The chapter will conclude with
a case study of one instance of Christian expansion, the mission-
ary journeys of the apostle Paul. My aim will be to explore how
our understanding of Paul’s activities as they are described in the
New Testament can be enriched by what classical scholars have
elucidated about the social, cultural, and religious life of the
eastern Mediterranean world in the first century AD.Christian origins and the problem of Judaism
These days it is customary to speak of the Jewish background of
Christianity. Books on Christian origins, especially on the periodCONTEXTS FOR THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY
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