Bowing before Christ - Nodding to the State?: Reading Paul Politically with Oliver O'Donovan and John Howard Yoder (The Library of New Testament Studies)

Bertschmann, Dorothea H.

ISBN 10: 0567234738 / ISBN 13: 9780567234735

Published by T&T Clark, 2014

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Bowing before Christ - Nodding to the State?: Reading Paul Politically with Oliver O'Donovan and John Howard Yoder (The Library of New Testament Studies)
• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Publication Date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0567234738
• ISBN 13: 9780567234735
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Does the apostle Paul sponsor political conservatism? A growing number of scholars dispute this perception, arguing that Paul's political imagery and in particular the confession that "Jesus Christ is Lord" directly challenge the proud Roman emperor.This book critically engages these proposals, seeking to point out with greater precision the function of political imagery within the Pauline narrative. Dorothea H. Bertschmann starts by conversing with the works of John Howard Yoder and Oliver O'Donovan, two modern political ethicists and theologians. She argues that both thinkers in all their distinctive emphases wrestle with a similar difficulty: How can Christ the Lord be meaningfully related to earthly lords without betraying the otherness of Christ's Lordship? But how does Paul deal with this problem?

In order to answer this question Bertschmann offers a close reading of two key texts, Philippians 2:5-11 and Romans 13:1-7.She argues that despite the many-faceted political imagery of the "Christ hymn", Paul does nothing in his explicit narrative to engage existing rulers positively or negatively with the message of Christ's rule.Paul's focus is entirely on the church, which he seeks to construct as a "community under authority". While there is no emperor in the Christ hymn, there is no Christ in Paul's political admonition of Romans 13.Paul deliberately keeps political rule at the periphery of God's salvific actions in Christ, while not totally dis-connecting it from the overall divine act.This strategy has its limitations, but also the potential to offer fresh impulses in theological deliberations about "church and state".

About the Authors

Dorothea H. Bertschmann is Lecturer in New Testament at Durham University, UK.

Chris Keith is Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society, Norway. He is the author of The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John and the Literacy of Jesus, a winner of the 2010 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise, and Jesus' Literacy: Scribal Culture and the Teacher from Galilee. He is also the co-editor of Jesus among Friends and Enemies: A Historical and Literary Introduction to Jesus in the Gospels, and was recently named a 2012 Society of Biblical Literature Regional Scholar.