Includes bibliographical references (p. [459]-492) and indexes.

Ch. 1. The story of the storytellers -- Ch. 2. Entering the world of Jesus -- Ch. 3. Religion and society in the Roman world -- Ch. 4. Judaism at home and abroad -- Ch. 5. The historical figure of Jesus -- Ch. 6. Before they were Christians : the beginnings of the Jesus movement -- Ch. 7. Paul : his life and significance -- Ch. 8. Paul : the Aegean mission -- Ch. 9. The first Jewish revolt and its aftermath -- Ch. 10. Sectarian tensions and self-definition : gospel trajectories -- Ch. 11. Accommodation and resistance : a footing in the Roman world -- Ch. 12. Christology and conflict : the beginnings of normative self-definition -- Ch. 13. With the voice of an apostle : a new generation of leaders -- Ch. 14. Legitimacy and order : a new scrutiny -- Ch. 15. Networks of faith : literary trajectories and regional trends -- Ch. 16. The dilemma of diversity : delineating heresy and orthodoxy -- Ch. 17. Closing ranks : the New Testament takes shape.

"Now, for the first time, L. Michael White, one of the world's foremost scholars on the origins of Christianity, provides the complete story of how Christianity grew from the personal vision of a humble Jewish peasant living in a remote province of the Roman Empire into the largest organized religion in the world." "Rather than reading the New Testament straight through in its traditional order - Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and so on - White takes a historical approach, looking at the individual books in the sequence in which they were actually written. He explores what these books divulge about the disagreements, shared values, and unifying mission of the earliest Christian communities. White digs through layers of archaeological excavations, sifts through buried fragments of largely unknown texts, and examines historical sources to discover what we can know of Jesus and his early followers."--BOOK JACKET.