from Cascade books
Imagining Luke-Acts in Roman Britain by Richard Cleaves will shortly be published by Cascade Books in their Matrix series: the Bible in Mediterranean Context. With the conquest of Britain beginning in 43 CE, the Mediterranean world of the Roman Empire arrived in Britain. It can be seen in the documents left by the traders, merchants and financiers of London's Bloomberg tablets, by the women as well as the men from the frontier fort of the Vindolanda tablets, and by the Uley tablets' women and men of a rural community who turned to their local temple for help in times of crisis. In these writings we glimpse the world of the New Testament. Each section of this website is linked to a chapter of the book and provides a guide to further reading and links to external resources should you want to explore this fascinating world further.
The book itself can be ordered from your local bookshop, or ordered online using the link below before 31st July 2026 with a 40% discount, using the coupon LUKEACTS40 before proceeding to the checkout.
The discovery of handwritten documents from the ancient world, dating to New Testament times, is a rare event. Three such exciting discoveries have recently been made in Britain. In London's Bloomberg tablets (2016) we meet some of the Apostle Paul’s contemporaries as they arranged loans and drew up contracts. In the professional and personal correspondence of the Vindolanda tablets (1983–2019) we get to know the women and men of a frontier fort. In the prayer requests of the Uley tablets (2024) we meet people from a rural community who turned to their local temple in times of trouble.
Telling the story of the discovery of those three sets of tablets, Imagining Luke-Acts in Roman Britain by Richard Cleaves introduces us to the kind of people who appear in Luke-Acts and who were its first readers. We are invited to imagine how people such as these—merchants and traders; centurions and women of standing; ordinary farmers—might have understood Luke-Acts had they become followers of the Way of Jesus. Serving as a guide to the world of the New Testament in Roman Britain, it brings Luke-Acts to life in unexpected ways and throws new light on the way the first followers of Jesus negotiated the Empire.
