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fernando F. Segovia and R. S. SUGIRTHARAJAH (eds.), A Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament Writings (Bible and Postcolonialism 13; London/New York: Clark, 2007). Pp. x + 466. $160.
Scrutiny of the NT in light of Roman imperial institutions, honorific titles, and rhetoric is as old as historical criticism - evident in works such as Ernst Lohmeyer 's Christuskult und Kaiserkult (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1919) and Werner Kümmel's much-used Introduction to the New Testament (Nashville: Abingdon, 1966). The Greek word euangelion ("gospel"), for example, names the central NT proclamation but also inhabits the annals of imperial propaganda (so Kümmel). Where Jesus is called "Lord" (kyrios), "Master" (despotes), "Savior" (soter], or other such titular amplifications (e.g., "Lord of Lords"), which are reminiscent of the emperor's ceremonial, critics would infer a strategy of subverting Caesar.
If we accent the word "commentary," then this Postcolonial Commentary traces its methods and concerns to such ancestry. The commentary follows a historical-critical format, providing, for each of the NT writings, close exegesis, philological data, and historical background information. Geared more toward students and pastors than academic specialists, this commentary serves as a compact reference book. The format, however, is not an entirely auspicious vehicle for exploring the theoretical potential of postcolonialism. Calling for minute literary-exegetical analyses, the commentary format tends to foster an opposition and an asymmetry between NT texts and their extratextual contexts. The opposition lends itself, in some of the essays, to didacticism if not apologetics. The NT communities are styled as countercultural, that is, anti-imperial, whether in fidelity to the revolutionary-egalitarian ethos of Jesus (e.g., in the Sermon on the Mount) or by adapting an inherent radicalism, in the manner...