Collection of texts partly published previously.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Pauline churches, Jewish communities and the Roman Empire : introducing the issues -- "Do we undermine the law?" A study of Romans 14.1-15.6 -- Paul and Philo on circumcision : Romans 2.25-29 in social and cultural context -- Matching theory and practice : Josephus' constitutional ideal and Paul's strategy in Corinth -- Money and meetings : group formation among diaspora Jews and early Christians -- Deviance and apostasy : some applications of deviance theory to first-century Judaism and Christianity -- Who was considered an apostate in the Jewish diaspora? -- Hostility to Jews as cultural construct : Egyptian, Hellenistic, and early Christian paradigms -- Thessalonica and Corinth : social contrasts in Pauline Christianity -- [Pneumatikos] in the social dialect of Pauline Christianity -- "That you may not grieve, like the rest who have no hope" (1 Thess 4.13) : death and early Christian identity -- Ordinary but different : Colossians and hidden moral identity -- There is neither old nor young? Early Christianity and ancient ideologies of age -- The politics of contempt : Judaeans and Egyptians in Josephus' Against Apion -- The empire writes back : Josephan rhetoric in Flavian Rome -- Who's the toughest of them all? Jews, Spartans and Roman torturers in Josephus' Against Apion -- Snarling sweetly : a study of Josephus on idolatry -- Paul, Roman religion and the emperor : mapping the point of conflict -- Why the Roman Empire was insignificant to Paul.