Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #407348 in Books
• Published on: 1997-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Review
"...outstanding collection of essays. To understand the New Testament -- in the case of this book, Paul -- the reader is immediately drawn into a highly charged political atmosphere. The Horsley collection provides an assembly of groundbreaking, almost classical articles that are in many cases not readily available." -- Trinity Seminary Review, Fall/Winter, 1999

"Encompassing both Christian sources and general Roman socio-political issues relevant to our understanding of earliest Christianity, it will be informative for pastors and general readers with a solid background in New Testament history." -- Currents

"Reading through a political lens, these authors explore the political dimension of key Pauline terms and suggest how Paul engages imperial, political rhetoric. All will profit from exploring the political aspects of Paul's context and letters." -- Religious Studies Review

"Richard Horsley has collected from a variety of mainly published sources a set of fourteen essays illuminating Paul in the setting of the Roman Empire as re-established and stabilized by Augustus shortly before the apostle's lifetime.Substantial and masterly introductions to the various sections are provided by the editor. The whole work is to be highly recommended." - -- Theology

"Tired of traditional descriptions of Paul? Then spend some time with Paul and Empire. Paul, you'll find, is not just the theologian you knew, but a political and religious activist, too. Paul and Empire provides a handy introduction to the work of some of the most respected scholars in Roman and New Testament studies." -- Biblical Archaeology Review

"a set of informative essays (most of them previously published) that emphasize that Paul's concern was not driven simply by specific doctrinal issues such as justification nor only by relationships to Judaism or the Gentile world. Rather, Paul's ultimate concern was confrontation with Roman imperial power and all that it entailed." -- The Bible Today

Customer Reviews

Well Done!
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.

A Useful anthology
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.

Empire or Paul?
This book is in two halves, only one of which I was really interested in and enjoyed. I have enjoyed some of Horsley's other books but this one, while having good material was too bogged down in the first section on Roman religious practice, mainly of interest to the academic I suspect. I was also disappointed to discover that much of the material has been published before elsewhere.

Nevertheless there is some great material here that should be of value to those interested in the origins of Christianity and the work being done by the Jesus Seminar. Of particular interest to me was the point that Paul was not setting up a religion and cannot be called a Christian by today's definition.