I think Rodney Stark makes a substantial contribution to the study of early Christianity in posing the kinds of questions that he pursues (which reflect his social-science background).

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.

In the Marquette Lecture volume, I focus on the question in the title. I emphasize the social and political costs of being a Christian in the earliest centuries, and contend that many attempts to answer the question are banal. I don't attempt a full answer myself, but urge that scholars should take the question more seriously.

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.

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

Galen recognized, with some considerable puzzlement it seems, that Christians exhibited the virtues that he associated with the discipline of philosophy.

Studies of the people named and described in earliest Christian texts show that, right from the earliest years, they included craftsmen, merchants, and owners of businesses. Of course, there were also slaves and poor among believers. By at least the second century, there were also believers from upper levels of Roman society.