Introduction Judith Lieu and James Carleton Paget; Part I. Contexts: 1. Empires, diasporas and the emergence of religions Greg Woolf; 2. The Mediterranean Jewish diaspora in the second century Tessa Rajak; 3. The Rabbis and their rivals in the second century CE Philip Alexander; 4. Church and synagogue vis-à-vis Roman rule in the second century William Horbury; Part II. Discerning Continuity and Discontinuity in Early Christianity: 5. The second century from the perspective of the New Testament James Carleton Paget; 6. Continuity and change in second century Christianity: a narrative against the trend Lewis Ayres; 7. 'The Gnostic myth': how does its demise impact twenty-first century historiography of Christianity's second century? Karen King; 8. The Gnostic myth Mark Edwards; 9. Modelling second century Christian theology: Christian theology as philosophia Winrich Löhr; Part III. Interpreting Texts and Engaging in Practice: 10. Galen and the Christians: texts, authority, and orthodoxy in the second century AD Rebecca Flemming; 11. 'Authoritative texts' and how to handle them: some reflections on an ambiguous concept and its use in second-century Christian literature Joseph Verheyden; 12. Belief and practice in Graeco-Roman religiosity: Plutarch, De Iside and Osiride 379c Teresa Morgan; 13. Dice oracles and fate: on early Christianity among others in the second century Laura Nasrallah; Part IV. Modelling Identities: 14. Christians as 'third race': is ethnicity at issue? Erich Gruen; 15. Ethnic discourse in early Christianity Oskar Skarasuane; 16. Pagan attitudes John North; 17. Away with the atheists! Tim Whitmarsh; 18. Modelling the second century as the age of the laboratory Judith Lieu.