This article describes the main contours of Greco-Roman and Jewish friendship trad- itions, and considers some of the ways that these traditions were adopted and adapted in New Testament texts. The survey suggests that early Christian writers drew on friendship traditions as a way of articulating certain important values relating to the need to establish a distinctive social identity and forms of ethical practice. In emphasiz- ing the relationship between identity, practice and relationship with God, some New Testament authors locate friendship in a broader covenantal framework in which God is the ultimate benefactor, often acting through mediatory figures to whom the commu- nities can relate as ‘friends’.