Understanding the Early Development of the House Churches in Rome, part 1

One of the most significant works on this topic is Judaism and Christianity in First-Century Rome , Edited by Karl P. Donfried and Peter Richardson (Grand Rapids, MI, Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company ©1998). I’m going to cite from this work for the next several posts.

William L. Lane [Wesleyan University (B.A.), Gordon Divinity School (B.D.), Westminster Theological Seminary (M.Th.), and Harvard Divinity School (Th.D.), who has written a commentary on Mark for the New International Commentary on the New Testament series and a two-volume commentary on Hebrews in the Word Biblical Commentary series]; contributed a paper to this work, entitled “Social Perspectives on Roman Christianity during the Formative Years from Nero to Nerva: Romans, Hebrews, 1 Clement.”

In this paper, he provides “a fresh evaluation of the evidence bearing on a Christian presence in Rome over the span of approximately 40 years, from the time of Paul’s letter to the Romans in 57 AD to the writing of 1 Clement.” In his introduction, Donfried summarizes this work: