This is a study of a number of physical and scribal characteristics of early Christian manuscripts (defined as copies of early Christian texts, of the New Testament and other early Christian writings, with some possible copies of the Septuagint), produced in the second and third centuries. The purpose of the book is, as the author expresses it, ‘to illustrate the larger historical significance of several particular features of early manuscripts’ (p. 189), for example that the dimensions of a codex may indicate the use for which it was intended. There are five chapters. The first deals with a survey of the texts in question; the second discusses ‘the early Christian preference for the codex’; the third deals with the nomina sacra (the practice of abbreviating certain names with a horizontal stroke above); and the fourth with the staurogram. The fifth, ‘other scribal features’, examines codex size (i.e. questions about the page size), number of columns, margin size, number of lines in a page or column, aids to the reader and corrections. There is a bibliography, and an appendix listing 246 items, giving for each the date, format and occasional brief comments. There are also nine black-and-white plates, an index of authors and an index of manuscripts. Chapters ii–v are the heart of the book, in which Hurtado lists and discusses different theories, dealing in particular with the origin of these phenomena and the reasons for their adoption by early Christians. The discussions of the nomina sacra and the staurogram (as the author states) develop earlier published work. It is a pity that some of the equally interesting but less fully-explored questions dealt with in chapter v are covered comparatively briefly.