'I am a Christian' is the confession of the martyrs of early Christian texts and, no doubt, of many others; but what did this confession mean, and how was early Christian identity constructed? This book is a highly original exploration of how a sense of being 'a Christian', or of 'Christian identity', was shaped within the setting of the Jewish and Graeco-Roman world. Contemporary discussions of identity provide the background to a careful study of early Christian texts from the first two centuries. Judith Lieu shows that there were similarities and differences in the ways Jews and others were thinking about themselves, and asks what made early Christianity distinctive.

• 1: Introduction: The Emergence of Christian Identity


• 2: Text and Identity


• 3: History, Memory, and the Invention of Tradition


• 4: Boundaries


• 5: The Grammar of Practice


• 6: Embodiment and Gender


• 7: Space and Place


• 8: The Christian Race


• 9: `The Other'


• 10: Made Not Born: Conclusions

Judith Lieu is Professor of New Testament Studies at King's College London.