Chapter II identifies the first readers of the New Testament gospels in their social and economic environment. Who were the people who met to read and study the accounts of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, who owned or had access to these manuscripts, and who were able to read these texts? What use did they make of these texts in their daily lives and to what extent did these writings influence their own prose? Knowing more about the early readers sheds light on how contemporaries in the second and third centuries CE understood and interpreted these New Testament texts. What associations, memories or feelings did the stories of the life of Jesus elicit in them? Which elements of these accounts did they consider ordinary or exceptional—potentially contrary to those a modern reader would identify?