"When did Christianity become established as a new religion? What was the early faith's relationship to Jewish and Greek culture? How did early-doctrines come to be? These and many other questions are examined in this introduction to the formative centuries of Christianity."--BOOK JACKET. "Written for those who are new to the subject, The Shaping of Christianity surveys the development of the Christian movement in the context of the political, social, and religious milieux of the second through eighth centuries."--BOOK JACKET.