too much background information becoming the foreground of one’s historical analysis;1 nonetheless, a thick description of the social and religious setting can help provide the necessary context for the proper interpretation of the various words and deeds of Jesus and his followers. For example, the aphorism “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17) in its original setting is not likely to have meant an endorsement by Jesus of the notion