Christ and Caesar: The Gospel and the Roman Empire in the Writings of Paul and Luk

by Seyoon Kim

The slogan “Paul and the Empire” is much in vogue in New Testament scholarship today. But did Paul truly formulate his gospel in antithesis to the Roman imperial cult and ideology and seek to subvert the Empire? In  Christ and Caesar  Seyoon Kim first examines five epistles of Paul exegetically and shows how the dominant anti-imperial interpretation is actually difficult to sustain.

Next he examines the Lukan writings (Luke-Acts) to see how Luke talks about the encounters of Paul and other gospel preachers with Roman imperialism. Kim explores why it is that Luke makes no effort to present Christ's redemption as materialized in terms of political liberation. Finally, Kim compares the exaltation Christologies of Luke, Revelation, Paul, and Hebrews and inquires about the hermeneutical possibility of developing a political Christology in our present-day context.

Genres: Theology, History

244 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2008

Reviews

[Timothy Bertolet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book. A worthy read for those who are encountering the anti-Empire readings of Scripture (whether from Biblical scholarship or certain emerging church authors). Kim gives a worthy overview of the issues and proponents of the views. He spends the majority of his time working through the texts. He is excellent at his handling of the texts as he not only deals with the details but places them in their context drawing on standard NT scholarship. He shows where attacks have against the Roman empire have merit to a degree but then explain why most adherents have taken the conclusions too far. He shows that Paul and Luke's primary focus was not an attack against empire.



A must read. A good debunking of the anti-empire exponents.



The reader may wish to supplement their study with Denny Burk's article "Is Paul's Gospel Counterimperial? Evaluating the Prospects of the "Fresh Perspective" for Evangelical Theology" in the Journal of Evangelical Society, vol 51, no.2 pp.309-37.

[Eddie LaRow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kim offers a scathing critique of implicit Roman imperial criticism. He spends half of his time arguing against Pauline Empire criticism. However, seeing as this work is from 2008, there have been some major contributions that he does not deal with. I find his guidance a helpful warning to not seek “parallels” for the sake of parallels. Furthermore, he rightly points out that studies in Empire criticism have started with a concept and then searched for a word to connect and thereby draw out theological implications. Kim argues that the exegete must arrive at a natural conclusion about Empire criticism [from the text] before tying in the relevant Imperial Cult contexts.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book in that it provides an important corrective to those NT interpreters who over-read anti-empire rhetoric in the writings of Paul and Luke. I particularly appreciated the epilogue which raises the "so what?" question. How the early church interacted with Rome should inform how the 21st century church interacts with political kingdoms of today.