Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-Roman World

Abstract

Early Christianity took shape through its texts, and is only available to us in the earliest centuries through its texts. Using contemporary models of how identity is constructed, the construction of Christian identity through texts of the first two centuries can be placed alongside that of Greeks, Romans, and Jews. Particularly important are a sense of history, defining boundaries, a distinctive practice, conceptualized space to inhabit, constructions of gender, the use of ethnic categories, and the manipulation of ‘the other’, alongside the explicit development of a technical terminology. Close analysis demonstrates the strong continuities in strategies in identity-construction between overtly Christian texts and those of their contemporaries, and provides a clearer framework for considering texts and situations that resist easy categorization. This approach offers a radical alternative to explanations of the development of early Christianity through the growth of institutions, doctrine or ritual, and allows exploration of diversity without prejudice regarding orthodoxy or canonicity. It also offers a way forward towards an understanding of the continuities of Christianity across time and place.