This book takes another look at the relationship of the so-called Apostolic Fathers (the term originated in the seventeenth century to describe a body of non-canonical early to mid second-century Christian sources, although scholars differ as to the precise contents of the corpus; Jefford takes a broad view, which includes the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the fragments of Polycarp and the Epistle of Diognetus) and the New Testament. The author is not interested in establishing which New Testament sources individual Apostolic Fathers may have known, nor is he interested in a straightforwardly thematic study. The book begins with a helpful survey of the dates and provenance of the Apostolic Fathers (nothing surprising here except perhaps Jefford's championing of a pre-70 date for 1 Clement) and continues with chapters on the authority of texts and traditions, ethics, the imagery of what Jefford terms the New Testament faith, Jews, Chistians as citizens, and ends with a more geographically specific analysis of the texts, looking a Syria, Asia Minor, Greece and Rome.

This book demonstrates a sound knowledge of recent scholarship on the subject it tackles even if nothing obviously original emerges from it – the view that ‘[i]n the final analysis, it is clear that the world, the authors, and the issues that served to frame the structure of the New Testament are essentially the same as those that provided direction to the production of the apostolic fathers’, is much as one would have expected. There are inevitably some omissions from the bibliographies – Lampe's From Paul to Valentinus should certainly have got a mention and Charles Hill's recent From the lost teaching of Polycarp could have been referred to, although it may have appeared too late to be included. One also wonders whether Jefford's discussion of Judaism and Christianity could have been informed by some of the more sophisticated contributions of more recent times, particularly those which critique the model of the parting of the ways. Other details could be mentioned but in general this is a helpful book which should help in particular students new to the subject of the Apostolic Fathers.