Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society

Rating:
Summary: Well Done!
Review: Professor Horsley's anthology of essays (primarily by other authors), and his introductions, do much to appropriately redefine Saint Paul's writings within social and political contexts. Explicitly rejecting the notion that Paul is to be read exclusively as religious literature intended for a religious community, Horsley (et al.) painstakingly demonstrates that the preaching of the crucified Christ was a direct challenge to the Roman Empire. Similarly, the building of Christian communities around the proclamation of the resurrection were intentional rejections of secular values and order.

Living in an age when religion has too often been high-jacked by fundamentalists of all denominations and faith groups, to serve only petty theological agendas, Horsley's collection stands for us as a useful reminder that faith can be something more.

Rating:
Summary: Genesis of a world religion
Review: This book presents a series of essays on Paul in relation the Roman imperial world in which he moved and the result is a refreshingly different view of the onset of 'Christianity', something that didn't really exist yet at the point of discussion. The supposedly 'a-political' Paul focussed on the transcendent is suddenly living and surviving in highly stressed world of the Romans where the response to need, the revolution that is impossible, is met by rising 'ekklesia', which doesn't yet mean church, of the not yet 'Christians'. In the words of the editor, Christianity was a product of empire, but what became the established church of the empire started as an anti-imperial movement.

Rating:
Summary: A Useful anthology
Review: This is a useful anthology on an important subject in Pauline studies. Although the fourteen essays presented here have been published elsewhere, it is very helpful to have them collected in one place. Further, Richard Horsley's introductory material offers a significant synthesis of the material. In short, the collection depicts St Paul as developing an explicitly anti-imperial movement, in opposition to the all-pervasive emperor cult of Rome. Three aspects of this movement are focussed on: Theology (Parts 1 and 3), Patronage (Part 2) and church as an alternative society (Part 4). I would recommend this book to undergraduate students of the Bible, and indeed to anyone who doesn't see what politics has to do with the New Testament. I would also recommend Neil Elliott's 'Liberating Paul', some of which is reproduced in this volume.