Papyri and the Social World of the New Testament

In this book Sabine R. Huebner explores the world of the New Testament protagonists and the early Christians using the rich papyrological evidence from Roman Egypt, a resource which gives us unparalleled insights into the everyday lives of a nonelite population. What were the daily concerns and difficulties experienced by a carpenter’s family or by a shepherd looking after his flocks? How did the average man or woman experience a Roman census? What obstacles did women living in a patriarchal society face in private, in public, and in the early church? Given the flight of Jesus’ family into Egypt, how mobile were the lower classes, what was their understanding of geography, and what costs and dangers were associated with travel? This volume gives us a better understanding of the structural, social, and cultural conditions in which figures from the New Testament lived.