Investigate the challenges and opportunities experienced by the early church

This fourth installment of The First Urban Churches, edited by James R. Harrison and L. L. Welborn, focuses on the urban context of Christian churches in first-century Roman Philippi. The international team of New Testament and classical scholars contributing to the volume present essays that use inscriptions, papyri, archaeological remains, coins, and iconography to examine the rivalries, imperial context, and ecclesial setting of the Philippian church.

Features:

• Analysis of the material and epigraphic evidence relating to first- and second-century CE Roman Philippi


• Examination of important passages from Philippians within their ancient urban context


• Investigation of the social composition and membership of the Philippian church from the archaeological and documentary evidence

James R. Harrison is a professor at Sydney College of Divinity and Honorary Associate, Macquarie University. He is author of Paul’s Language of Grace in Its Graeco-Roman Context (2003) and Paul and the Imperial Authorities at Thessalonica and Rome: A Study in the Conflict of Ideology (2011).

L. L. Welborn is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Fordham University and Honorary Professor of Ancient History at Macquarie University. He is the author of Paul, the Fool of Christ: A Study of 1 Corinthians 1–4 in the Comic-Philosophic Tradition (2005) and An End to Enmity: Paul and the “Wrongdoer” of Second Corinthians (2011).