Hidden Criticism of the Angry Tyrant in Early Judaism and the Acts of the Apostles
Ebook
Hidden Criticism of the Angry Tyrant in Early Judaism and the Acts of the Apostles adds to the current literature of imperial-critical New Testament readings with an examination of Luke’s hidden criticism of imperial Rome in the Acts of the Apostles and in Paul’s speech on the Areopagus in Acts 17. Focusing on discursive resistance in the Hellenistic world, Drew J. Strait examines the relationship between hidden criticism and persuasion and between subordinates and the powerful, and he explores the challenge to the dissident voice to communicate criticism while under surveillance. Strait argues that Luke confronts the idolatrous power and iconic spectacle of gods and kings with the Gospel of the Lord of all—a worldview that is incompatible with the religions of Rome, including emperor worship.
Chapter One—The Acts of the Apostles and Empire
Part I: Objects of Resistance
Chapter Two—Profiling Power: Divine Honors and Kingship Literature
Chapter Three—Hybrid Divine Honors in the Epigraphic Record
Part II: Strategies of Resistance
Chapter Four—Jewish Discursive Resistance
Chapter Five—The First Commandment and Hellenistic Monarchy
Chapter Six—The Second Commandment and Hellenistic Monarchy
Chapter Seven—The Wisdom of Solomon and Empire
Part III: Discursive Resistance and the Acts of the Apostles
Chapter Eight—The Politics of Luke: Acts and the Cosmology of Empire
Chapter Nine—The Areopagus Speech and Political Idolatry
Chapter Ten—The Areopagus Speech as Resistance Literature?
This is meticulous scholarship, good background for teachers of undergraduates and contributory to the more focused work of graduate seminars. . . meticulous work like Drew Strait’s deserves to endure and be made accessible to future scholars.
This book provides a very sophisticated and fresh reading of Paul’s famous Areopagus speech. Drew J. Strait excels in displaying his easy command of a broad array of sources, including the epigraphic habit, but also gives due weight to Philo and the Wisdom of Solomon with their icon parodies and idol satires. The ancient rhetorical device of figured speech is used as an analytical tool to good effect throughout. Thus a thick web of allusions is created for Acts 17 that allows us to read this speech as subtle criticism of the dominating political ideology of the day. An important book and a must- read for everyone, not only for Lukan scholars.
Framing the New Testament’s position regarding the political hegemony of the day has taken many forms. Strait’s proposal that Acts invokes a longstanding criticism within Jewish circles against political domination, brings an important and socio-politically accountable perspective to bear on articulating the relationship between early Jesus followers and the Roman Empire and making sense of biblical texts.
Drew Strait helps reshape the scholarship around a central question in the study of Acts by calling scholars to be more precise in their understanding of the shape of political resistance. Drawing together the political and religious dimensions of Paul’s famous speech in Athens, Strait nuances how we might understand the sometimes ambivalent, always challenging negotiation of imperial power Acts narrates. No study of Acts and its political vision can now neglect this innovative study and its careful study of the cultural matrices that nurtured Luke’s political imagination.
- Title: Hidden Criticism of the Angry Tyrant in Early Judaism and the Acts of the Apostles
- Authors: Drew J. Strait, David P. Moessner
- Publisher: Fortress Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2019
- Logos Release Date: 2023
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781978700734, 9781978700727, 1978700725, 1978700733
- Resource ID: LLS:9781978700734
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-05-07T07:51:17Z
Drew J. Strait is assistant professor of New Testament and Christian origins at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary.