In this original study, Vernon Robbins brings together social-scientific and literary-critical approaches to explore early Christianity. Treating its canonical texts as ideological constructs, Robbins investigates Christianity as a cultural phenomenon, and expounds and develops a system of socio-rhetorical criticism.

The Tapestry of Early Christian Discourse first establishes a concept of culture and then combines it with Geertz' anthropological concept of 'thick description'. Subsequently, the relation of texts to society and culture is discussed. In this manner, multiple methods of interpretation are used in an organized and programmatic way, allowing the reader distinctly new insights into the development of early Christianity.