Explores the socio-economic background of people in the New Testament using papyrological evidence from Roman Egypt.

Sabine R. Huebner is Professor of Ancient History and Head of the Doctoral Program in Classical Civilizations at the Universität Basel, Switzerland. Her research focuses on social and religious history and the everyday life of common people in antiquity. She has published monographs including The Family in Roman Egypt (Cambridge, 2013) and is co-editor of Growing up Fatherless in Antiquity (Cambridge, 2009), The Encyclopedia of Ancient History (2012), Inheritance, Law and Religion in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds (2014), Mediterranean Families in Antiquity (2016) and The Single Life in the Roman and Later Roman Worlds (Cambridge, forthcoming).

1. Egypt and the social world of the New Testament; 2. The social milieu of the early Christians in Egypt: who were the first readers of the Gospels?; 3. 'In those days a decree went out ...': the Herodian Kingdom and the Augustan provincial census system; 4. 'But these words seemed to them an idle tale': discrimination and the struggle for women's equality in early Christianity; 5. 'The carpenter's son': the family and household of a craftsman; 6. 'In those days Mary set out ...': travel by the lower classes in Roman times; 7. 'In that region there were shepherds living in the fields': an occupation on the margins of society; 8. Afterword.