Against the scholarly consensus that assumes early Christians were involved in a rivalry for converts with contemporary Jews, this book shows that the target of

As Christian leaders in the first through fifth centuries embraced ascetic interpretations of the Bible and practices of sexual renunciation, sexual slander—s

The book, which consists of some previously published and unpublished essays, examines a variety of issues relevant to the study of ancient Judaism and Christia

Originally an ascribed identity that cast non-Jewish Christ-believers as an ethnic other, “gentile” soon evolved into a much more complex aspect of early Ch

A compelling account of Christianity’s Jewish beginnings, from one of the world’s leading scholars of ancient religion How did a group of charismatic, apoca