Hanson and Oakman's landmark and award-winning text, now available in a thoroughly revised, updated, and expanded edition, has served for a generation to introduce students and other interested readers to key concepts and findings of social-scientific research, enormously illuminating the social context of Jesus and the movement that grew in his name.

The social domains and institutions at work in first-century Palestine are here explored in depth, employing both anthropology and macro-sociology. This entails construction of models that fit the Palestinian agrarian culture in terms of kinship, politics, political economy, and political religion. Included are bibliography, three topical glossaries, sidebars, numerous photos and figures, and suggestions for further research.

Eminently readable, the new edition incorporates a large amount of newer historical, archaeological, and social-scientific work. It also updates the bibliography, revises the models as needed, integrates the latest in archaeological and social analysis, adds to the discussion questions, and creates new sidebars.

Praise for earlier editions:

"This really is a key resource. . . Anyone who ignores or discounts this treasure-house of material on the New Testament in relation to first-century society in Judaea and Galilee is doing themselves a great disservice." --Peter Oakes, Journal for the Study of the New Testament