The Formation of Christianity in Antioch: A Social-Scientific Approach to the Separation between Judaism and Christianity

One of the major puzzles of Western civilization is how early second-century Christianity was transformed into a non-Jewish, Gentile religion, when Christianity began as one of many Jewish factions in the diverse Judaism of the period. Magnus Zetterholm uses theoretical insights from the social sciences to deal with the complex issues raised by the accompanying rise of Christian anti-Semitism in ancient Antioch. Where previous attempts to solve this problem have focused mainly on ideology, his study emphasizes the interplay between sociological and ideological elements.