Early Christianity

Chapter 4

Judaism, and the relationship of early Christianity to it, has
prompted a vast amount of scholarship. For general orientation
on Judaism in this period, Horbury, Davies, and Sturdy 1999 is
up-to-date. Other useful surveys are Smallwood 1976, especially
for political history, and, covering a vast range of material in
immense detail, the modern revised edition of Schürer 1973–87.
Lieu, North, and Rajak 1992 assemble an extremely valuable set
of essays.
For Jesus’ immediate historical context, the bibliography is
similarly enormous, but useful starting points are provided by
Vermes 1981 and 2000 (among many works by him), Rowland
1985, Sanders 1993, Fredriksen 2000. For Galilee, see Freyne
1988 and Reed 2000. The question of banditry is treated in detail
by Horsley 1987. The topic of messianic expectation is eluci-
dated by Nickelsburg 2003, and in useful collections of essays
edited by Charlesworth 1992, and Neusner, Green, and Frerichs

1987. Horsley 1992 is a penetrating analysis of messianism in
      connection with banditry in the age of Jesus.
      For the relationship of emerging Christianity to Judaism,
      particularly the question of the ‘parting of the ways’, see Georgi
      1995, Lieu 1996 (and many other works by her), Dunn 1999. The
      concept of a dialogue, whereby Judaism was as much influenced
      by Christianity as vice versa, can be approached via the works
      of Boyarin 1999 and 2004, and, on the origins of missionary
      ideology, Goodman 1994.
      Descriptions of Christian expansion in the Roman world are
      given in MacMullen 1984 and Lane Fox 1986. The sociological
      model was advanced by K. Hopkins 1998 and Stark 1996; for
      critique of Stark see Castelli 1998 and Klutz 1998, with a tren-
      chant response in Stark 1998. The extent to which Christianity
      might have appealed in times of duress is examined from a cross-
      cultural perspective in Reff 2005. Early Christianity at Rome,
      before 200, is examined in immense detail by Lampe 2003.

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