The First Urban Churches 2

Investigate the challenges, threats, and opportunities experienced by the early church

Volume two of The First Urban Churches focuses on the urban context of Christian churches in first-century Roman Corinth. An investigation of the material evidence of Corinth helps readers today understand properly the challenges, threats, and opportunities that the early Corinthian believers faced in the city. The essays demonstrate decisively the difference that such an approach makes in grappling with the meaning and context of the Corinthian epistles in the New Testament.

Features:

• Analysis of urban evidence of the inscriptions, papyri, archaeological remains, coins, and iconography
• Proposed reeconstructions of the past and its social, religious and political significance
• A nuanced, informed portrait of ancient urban life in Corinth

James 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 at Fordham University and Macquarie University. He is the author of Politics and Rhetoric in Corinth (1997) and An End to Enmity: Paul and the 'Wrongdoer' of Second Corinthians (2011).