Galen recognized, with some considerable puzzlement it seems, that Christians exhibited the virtues that he associated with the discipline of philoso….

Early Christianity, like Roman-era philosophical traditions, laid emphasis on everyday behavior, about how to live your life..

Galen's observations reflect one of the distinctive features of early Christianity. Roman-era religion was mainly about ritual actions vis-à-vis the ….

"Religions" of the Roman world varied. Most of it was ritual practices. There were periodic occasions when cities honored their guardian deities with….

[Christians] practiced moderation and chastity in marriage, for example, and Galen was puzzled at how they were able to do so. His comments are a kin….

In its Roman-era setting, for example, Christianity was so different that critics of the time referred to it as a "superstition" (meaning a bogus or ….

I think that Rodney Stark puts his foot wrong on some things where he simply wasn't sufficiently current on scholarly developments..

Justin Martyr says that he was impressed in his study of the Old Testament, at the seriousness and contents of these writings, and became convinced t….

I think Rodney Stark makes a substantial contribution to the study of early Christianity in posing the kinds of questions that he pursues (which refl….

Studies of the people named and described in earliest Christian texts show that, right from the earliest years, they included craftsmen, merchants, a….

Some modern scholars contend that in terms of what "religion" was in that [Roman-era setting], you can't even call Christianity a religion..

In Destroyer of the gods I focus on several major features of early Christianity that made it distinctive, even odd or bizarre .We don't today realiz….

I think that Rodney Stark studies of new religious movements in the modern world give us some insights into the kinds of questions that we can ask ab….

I offer early Christianity as a case-study to show that the phenomena that we group under "religion(s)" comprise a somewhat artificial category, and ….

In the Marquette Lecture volume, I focus on the question in the title. I emphasize the social and political costs of being a Christian in the earlies….

Justin's testimony about becoming a Christian is that he had been searching various philosophical traditions of the time, and then accidentally encou….