This Prodigious New Six-Volume series presents the results of interdisciplinary research between New Testament, Jewish, and classical scholarship. Working to place the Book of Acts within its first-century setting, well-known historians and biblical scholars from Australia, the United States, Canada, Russia, and the United Kingdom have collaborated here to provide a stimulating new study that replaces The Beginnings of Christianity and other older studies on Acts. Starting with the understanding that the Book of Acts is rooted within the setting of the peoples and cultures of the...

This volume explores the nature of leadership in the Christian community, especially as it was variously taught by Paul and practiced in the congregations of the first century. Exploring valuable ancient source material as well as the New Testament texts, Andrew Clarke describes the theories and practices of organization and leadership in key areas of first-century society-the city, the colony, associations, Jewish synagogues, the family-and discusses the extent to which these models influenced the first-century Christians as they sought to define the parameters and distinctives of their own...

This volume traces the influences of first century Corinthian secular leadership on local church leadership as reflected in 1 Corinthians 1-6. It then shows how Paul modifies the Corinthian understanding of church leadership.
By comparing secular leadership in first century Corinthian society with leadership in the Corinthian church, it has been argued that one of Paul's major concerns with the church in Corinth is the extent to which significant members in the church were employing secular categories and perceptions of leadership in the Christian community.
This volume has adopted the...