1. What were the four social/sectarian parties within Judaism during Jesus' life? How did Jesus' teachings reflect or oppose the ideas held by these parties?
2. What message did Jesus preach? Why did Jews and Romans find that message challenging?
3. How did Jesus' followers transform his teachings from a branch of Judaism into a distinct faith? What role did the Apostle Paul play in this transformation?
4. What changes in Greco-Roman culture prepared the ground for Christianity? What did Christianity offer that traditional Greco-Roman ideas and values could not? What did Christianity borrow from Greco-Roman thought and from competing religions?
5. How did the Roman Empire both facilitate and oppose the spread of Christianity? What did the Roman state finally do about Christianity?
6. How did the early church hierarchy develop? What did this hierarchy borrow from Roman administration? How did Christian monasticism evolve into a more hierarchical institution?
7. How did early Christianity both challenge and adapt to Greco-Roman society? What conventional attitudes did Christianity adopt and justify through its doctrine?
8. What are the links between Christianity and Judaism? Why did early Christians work to deny those links and separate themselves from Jews?  How did they do so?
9. What are the New Testament Scriptures? What doctrinal controversies rose from the interpretation of those texts? How were those controversies resolved?
10. How did Christianity absorb Greek philosophy? What did Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and the great Church Fathers contribute to this process?
11. How did early Christian art and architecture adapt Greco-Roman myths, forms, and techniques to its religious purposes? How did the art produced during periods of persecution differ from that produced after Christianity gained official toleration?
12. What principles do classical humanism and Christianity share? How does Christianity represent a fundamental break with humanism?