Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts

In a comment on Michael Bird's post 'Papyri and Christian Origins', Prof. Larry Hurtado, Edinburgh, informs us of his forthcoming book: The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Eerdmans, Autumn 2006). He says that it 'focuses on the artifactual significance of early Christian mss (widely overlooked) for wider questions about early Christianity. One chap[ter] deals with the texts copied (including number of copies of each text, etc.).' I am grateful to Prof. Hurtado for sending me some extracts from the book. It observes that while manuscripts tend to be looked at by palaeographers and textual critics they receive less attention from historians. Yet they are our earliest Christian artifacts and contain a wealth of information that may be used to ask and answer historical questions. Here is the table of contents:

Preface
Introduction
Chapter One: The Texts
Chapter Two: The Early Christian Preference for the Codex
Chapter Three: The Nomina Sacra
Chapter Four: The Staurogram
Chapter Five: Other Scribal Features
Concluding Remarks
Select Bibliography
Appendix 1: Table of Manuscripts
Appendix 2: Photographic Plates of Selected Manuscripts