During the time that was referred to by Peter Brown as the “Late Antiquity”, the Christian church was slowly taking over the Greco-Roman world.  However, since people are mainly focused on how the Roman empire declined during that time, the movement of Christianity is constantly overshadowed.  In the chapter “The Conversion of Christianity” from Peter Brown’s book The World of Late Antiquity, Brown focuses his writing on highlighting the ancient Christian impact on that time.  Additionally, in the chapter “The Early Christian Preference for the Codex” from Larry Hurtado’s book The Earliest Christian Artifacts, Hurtado focuses his writing on the same era of Christianity as Brown.  While Brown and Hurtado both write about similar topics, their distinctive uses of evidence and their appeals to their audiences ultimately set them apart.

Peter Brown is an expert in this subject, and it is clearly evident in his work.  Instead of using quotes, statistics, or other pieces of evidence, he writes this entire chapter nearly all from his knowledge.  He purposefully rattles off facts from the top of his head because he wants his audience to take him seriously and respect his different view on the subject.  For example, Brown writes, “This is probably the most important aggiornamento in the history of the Church: it was certainly the most decisive single event in the culture of the third century (The World of Late Antiquity, page 82).  He uses pictures, but they are mainly there to help the reader visualize the time period in which he is talking about.  Given that he feels no need to prove that his evidence is valid, he must be assuming that his audience is also familiar with the historical facts that he is using.  Brown is directing this book towards people who are potentially already knowledgeable about the Fall of the Roman Empire, but not as familiar with the Christian aspect of it.

Larry Hurtado, on the other hand, focuses on one specific part of the Christian conversion, which is that the Christians chose to write their literature on codices as opposed to the common roll that was the standard at the time.  Unlike Brown, Hurtado backs nearly every single statement he makes with some sort of evidence.  For example, Hurtado writes, “In what follows I draw upon data readily available online in the Leuven Database of Ancient Books (LDAB), especially for reviewing the wider patterns of ancient book forms and texts” (The Earliest Christian Artifacts, page 44).  While he may also be an expert on this subject, he wants his audience to know that he is credible and not making anything up.  Like Brown, he also uses pictures in the chapter, but they are there to be used as evidence to support his claims.  While Brown assumed that his audience was already familiar with his subject, Hurtado is clearly writing towards people who might have less prior knowledge about what he is trying to convey.