ABSTRACT
This chapter will explore the astonishingly diverse range of ancient source materials available to those studying early Christianity. I should say at the outset that this will not be in the form of a catalogue: further guidance on accessing the sources will be provided in chapter 7. Rather, my aim here is to point out the character of the available evidence, to highlight problems of interpretation that it presents, and to indicate the sorts of questions that can be most usefully asked of the different sorts of sources. This will provide background to the topics investigated in chapters 4-6. It makes sense to begin with what Christians themselves wrote about the origins and development of their movement. Next I will consider what information can be gleaned from sources written by contemporary pagan and Jewish observers. Then I will turn to various categories of artefacts, ranging from archaeological remains to papyrus texts, that also shed light on the early history of Christianity. At the end of the chapter, I will reflect briefly on some questions of methodology.
