Todd D. Still
— Truett Seminary, Baylor University
“What do you get when you bring together human geographers, classicists, and Neutestamentlers to consider how ancient cities impacted the growth and thought of early Christian communities? Taken together, and along with the work of skilled editors and a strong press, you get The Urban World and the First Christians—a fascinating collection of learned, transdisciplinary essays by leading scholars in their respective fields. These substantive studies will shape your thinking about the urban landscape of the earliest Christ-followers and will lead you to think afresh about Christianity, whether ancient or modern, as an urban phenomenon.”
Peter Oakes
— University of Manchester
“This book brings together an excellent collection of New Testament experts and historians to make fruitful inroads into a range of significant issues in the study of the urban context of early Christianity. Especially valuable is the juxtaposition of studies of particular cities and texts with studies of the idea of city among early Christians and their contemporaries. This will undoubtedly be a key resource in the field.”
The Catholic Biblical Quarterly
“A rich, accessible, and critical collection.”
Theology
“Overall, this is an excellent collection of essays that, with its marked level of interdisciplinarity, and especially its engagement with theories of place and space, takes the study of urban Christianity to a new level.”