From Roman to Early Christian Thessalonikē

Laura Nasrallah is Associate Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School. Charalambos Bakirtzis is former Ephor, Byzantine Antiquities, Thessaloniki, Greece. Steven J. Friesen is Louise Farmer Boyer Chair in Biblical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Helmut Koester was John H. Morison Professor of New Testament Studies, Emeritus, and Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Emeritus, at Harvard Divinity School.

• * Introduction * Late Antiquity and Christianity in Thessalonike: Aspects of a Transformation * Voluntary Associations in Roman Thessalonike: In Search of Identity and Support in a Cosmopolitan Society * Of Memories and Meals: Greco-Roman Associations and the Early Jesus-Group at Thessalonike *"Gazing Upon the Invisible": Archaeology, Historiography, and the Elusive Women of 1 Thessalonians * Second Thessalonians, the Ideology of Epistles, and the Construction of Authority: Our Debt to the Forger * Early Christian Interpretation in Image and Word: Canon, Sacred Text, and the Mosaics of Moni Latomou * Social Status and Family Origin in the Sarcophagi of Thessaloniki * Locating Purity: Temples, Sexual Prohibitions, and "Making a Difference" in Thessalonike * Egyptian Religion in Thessalonike Aristotelis Mentzos Reflections on the Architectural History of the Tetrarchic Palace Complex at Thessaloniki * Christianization of Thessalonike: The Making of Christian "Urban Iconography" * Civic Identity in Christian Thessalonike * Glassware in Late Antique Thessalonike: Third to Seventh Centuries C.E.

From Roman to Early Christian Thessalonikē: Studies in Religion and Archaeology is a rich resource not only for the light it sheds on Thessalonikē but also for the interpretive case studies it offers for an impressive range of ancient materials—architecture, inscriptions, texts (canonical and non-canonical), sarcophagi, ceramics, glassware and mosaics.