In Destroyer of the gods I focus on several major features of early Christianity that made it distinctive, even odd or bizarre .We don't today realize just how different early Christianity was in that context.

I offer early Christianity as a case-study to show that the phenomena that we group under "religion(s)" comprise a somewhat artificial category, and that "religions" are not "all the same."

I think that Rodney Stark puts his foot wrong on some things where he simply wasn't sufficiently current on scholarly developments.

Justin Martyr says that he was impressed in his study of the Old Testament, at the seriousness and contents of these writings, and became convinced that Jesus fulfilled these texts.

Early Christianity, like Roman-era philosophical traditions, laid emphasis on everyday behavior, about how to live your life.

Galen's observations reflect one of the distinctive features of early Christianity. Roman-era religion was mainly about ritual actions vis-à-vis the gods, and there was little to do with ordering behavior otherwise.

Some modern scholars contend that in terms of what "religion" was in that [Roman-era setting], you can't even call Christianity a religion.