When asked to come up with a cluster of short book reviews, one has the opportunity to grab a book on a topic that has been of interest, but for which there has never been time to read.  Stone and Story, written by an expert in both the texts of the New Testament and the archeology of the period, opens up the time capsule that resulted from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE and the burial of Pompeii and Herculaneum with volcanic pumice and ash. Humans and their animals were instantaneously fixed in place by the flow of lava within the material culture of the two urban centers. The world of the first Jesus-followers is illuminated in rich detail and the language of their written texts is given an “interpretive bridge” by preserved texts as well as graffiti on the walls of the uncovered ruins. We are given glimpses of the quest for status within Roman culture; the various slave identities including that of the forced prostitute; the ubiquitous worship of both predictable deities such as Venus and mystery deities such as Bacchus; the subtleties of Emperor worship as a “potent life force”; the numerical codes that denote the name of a person as in 545 or 666; and the deadly “games” that were held in an amphitheater before 20,000 spectators. Throughout his book, Longenecker demonstrates the “polemical edge” of New Testament language against its Greco-Roman background. For example, Isis’s sovereignty is denoted by, “I am all that has been, and is, and shall be” versus John the Seer recording the Lord God saying: “I am…who is, and who was, and who is to come.” In a world full of deities, the Christian “good news” was the message of a Creator who was bringing life to the whole cosmos through “One Lord, Jesus Christ.” Full of colour illustrations, this accessible book is a feast.