"If I had to pick one introduction to the sociology of the New Testament, it would be this one". -- Theology Today

This work by two New Testament scholars is the first comprehensive social history of the earliest churches. Integrating the historical and social data, they locate the ancient Galileans, Judeans, and the Jesus movement in their respective matrices. The Stegemanns deal with such issues as conflict between the messianic communities and the rest of Judaism, religious pluralism, social stratification, group composition, gender division, ancient economics, and urban/rurual distinctions.

Need for sociology in New Testament studies - Social level of first Christians - Early Christianity as a millenarian sect - Correlations between symbolic and social structures - Use of sociology in New Testament exegesis.

Scot McKnight's careful study of Jesus' relationship with his followers reveals that elements of all three contemporary models of conversion--the personal decision, the sociological, and the liturgical--are present within the Gospel accounts. But because the Gospel narratives themselves are insufficiently explicit to support only one contemporary model of conversion, McKnight suggests that an enhanced reading of the Gospels should engender an appreciation for each of the models in the church today.

"Professor Theissen aims to construct a sociological analysis of the world of Jesus and Palestinian communities generally. This approach to Exegesis poses fruitful new questions without "explaining" the Christian movement in a reductionist way. After spelling out the methods of this sociological approach to the Gospels, the author first looks at typical social phenomena of the times: wandering charismatics and the settled communities which received them, and the role of the Son of man in these communities. He then considers the economic, ecological, political, and cultural factors of Jewish society in Palestine and their effects on earliest Christianity. Finally, he proposes a psychoanalytic interpretation of the effects of the renewal movement of Jesus on his society." -Publisher

Sociologist Anthony Blasi analyzes early Christianity using multiple social scientific theories, including those of Max Weber, Georg Simmel, Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Max Scheler, Alfred Schutz, and contemporary theorists. He investigates the canonical New Testament books as representative of early Christianity, a sample based on usage, and he takes the books in the chronological order in which they were written. The result is a series of "stills" that depict the movement at different stages in its development. His approaches, often neglected in New Testament studies, include such sociological subfields as sect theory, the routinization of charisma, conflict, stratification theory, stigma, the sociology of knowledge, new religions, the sociology of secrecy, marginality, liminality, syncretism, the social role of intellectuals, the poor person as a type, the sick role, degradation ceremonies, populism, the sociology of migration, the sociology of time, mergers, the sociology of law, and the sociology of written communication. Needing to treat the New Testament text as social data, Blasi uses his background in biblical studies and a review of a vast literature to establish the chronology of the compositions of the New Testament books and to present the "data" in a new translation that is accessible to non-specialists.