The Upper Register Blog

Seyoon Kim, Christ and Caesar: The Gospel and the Roman Empire in the Writings of Paul and Luke (Eerdmans, 2008). xvi + 288 pp. Paperback $24.00.

As many of you know, there is a new trend in New Testament scholarship that attempts to read the message of Paul as a critique of the Roman Empire. Paul’s gospel is interpreted as the antithesis of the Roman imperial cult and its propaganda. In the past I have followed John M. G. Barclay’s label and referred to this trend as the “Paul and Empire” coalition. Others speak of “counter-imperial” readings of Paul.

Some of the names associated with this coalition are Richard Horsley, N. T. Wright, Neil Elliott, Robert Jewett, John Dominic Crossan and others. Richard Horsley is the first of this group because he edited three books on the subject in the last 11 or so years:  Paul and Empire (1997), Paul and Politics (2000), and Paul the Roman Imperial Order (2004). N. T. Wright seems to have jumped on the bandwagon in recent years, as evidenced by his book Paul in Fresh Perspective (2005) in which he continues his advocacy of “the New Perspective on Paul” but with the added factor of the “Paul and Empire” approach, resulting in what he now terms the “Fresh Perspective on Paul.”

The “Paul and Empire” coalition may be a recent phenomenon in NT scholarship, but like all intellectual trends, it has its antecedents. For example, early in the 20th century, Adolf Deissmann wrote:  “It must not be supposed that St. Paul and his fellow believers went through the world blindfolded, unaffected by what was then moving the minds of men in great cities,” namely, the imperial cult (quoted by Kim, p. xv).

Another important antecedent is the postcolonial school of hermeneutics in the second half of the 20th century which self-consciously interprets texts (including the Bible) from the point of view of the various “subaltern” people groups that have historically been oppressed and exploited by the great European powers such as Britain, France, and Spain. Postcolonial theory is responsible for the rise of the vague concept of “imperialism” as something that allegedly continues today in various subtle ways – e.g., in the economic and cultural influence of the U.S., as well as its foreign policy – even after the literal colonial empires of the 19th and early 20th centuries have come to an end.

In the preface, Seyoon Kim says that his latest book, Christ and Caesar, grew out of his forthcoming commentary on 1 and 2 Thessalonians (an overhaul of F. F. Bruce’s Word Biblical Commentary). Kim says that he was initially impressed by the parallels between Paul’s theological terms and those of the Roman imperial cult, and so he began his study with the expectation that the counter-imperial approach would help uncover the neglected political dimension of Paul’s gospel. After looking into the matter more carefully, however, he concluded that the terminological parallels are more superficial than real, and that the concerns of Paul in the use of these terms lies not so much in countering the Roman empire as in proclaiming a transcendent salvation in Christ.

After a brief introduction, the book is divided into two main sections:  (1) The Epistles of Paul (pp. 1-71), and (2) The Writings of Luke (pp. 73-190). The book concludes with a Summary and Conclusion (pp. 191-99), an Epilogue titled, “Some Implications for Today” (pp. 200-3), and finally a select bibliography and two indices.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 2nd, 2009 at 10:44 pm and is filed under Paul & Empire. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.