The social and religious roots of this community are almost certainly to be traced to the Jewish quarters and to participation in the life of a hellenistic synagogue. Several lines of evidence tend to support this deduction. Their source of authority is the Bible in an old Greek version, especially where its textual tradition is distinguished from the Hebrew text. They have an easy familiarity with the stories of the Bible, to which the writer can refer without elaboration (cf. 12:17, “for you know