Content area
Full text
Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society
Edited by Richard A. Horsley
(Harrisburg, PA: Trinity, 1997), 257 pp., $19.00 (paperback)
Reviewed by Steven Friesen
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. At least that's what is proposed by this recent anthology edited by Richard Horsley, professor of classics and religion at the University of Massachusetts and author of two social histories of Galilee.
Horsley maintains that the imperial cult and the patronage system were the mortar that held together the far-flung Roman Empire. By renouncing Roman patterns of power, patronage and propaganda, Paul and his international network of churches promoted a social vision at odds with the core values of dominant society.
The first half of this volume features essays on Roman imperialism, emperor worship, propaganda and the way patronage tied people into oppressive social hierarchies of domination. The second...