kata ta biblia

a blog exploring Christian origins, biblical studies, social/cultural history, method, education and the journey through academia

Paul as Complicit in Empire

I’m looking into the whole “Paul and empire” banquet of goodies these days, trying to categorize the scholarship. In my last post, I asked for scholars who might fall into the category of seeing the empire as a bad thing and Paul as complicit in that empire in some way — especially with the undisputed letters. Some scholars make the case that Paul himself in the undisputed letters is a revolutionary and is “domesticated” (so to speak) one step in Colossians/Ephesians (household codes) and still further in the Pastorals (1 Tim 2 and whatnot).

I’d like to ask a related but different question in this post. Namely, what are the specific passages that scholars typically use (or might use) to argue for Paul’s complicity with empire? [I'm not asking whether or not they are correct in their interpretations of these texts.] We can take this topically. I’ll start it off and add more as you all suggest more. Perhaps later we can fill in the specific scholars associated with the complicity argument with these texts.

Political: Romans 13

Slavery: 1 Cor 7:21

Women: 1 Cor 11 & 14

Violence: 2 Cor 10:1-6

“Anti-Judaism”: 1 Thess 2

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4 Comments by Patrick George McCullough  /  November 4, 2009  /  Posted in: empire, imperialism, paul of tarsus
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  • http://www.thegoldenrule1.wordpress.com Mike Koke

    This is a very interesting exercise Pat. I wonder where Philemon would fit into this: on the one hand Paul does not outright condemn slavery but sends the slave Onesimus back to his owner Philemon, but on the other hand Paul implicitly undermines the rationalle behind slavery when he encourages Philemon to receive Onesimus as a brother in Christ. So do we see Philemon as an example of Paul as being complicit with the system of imperialism or undermining it?

  • http://ntgeeks.blogspot.com Greg

    Romans 13:1-7 is an obvious passage for this conversation, but the passages from 1 Corinthians all have notorious text/translation/interpretation problems. How 1 Thess 2 bears on empire, I’m not really sure.

  • http://patmccullough.com/ Patrick George McCullough

    Thanks, Greg. I’m not saying that they’re good texts for the complicity argument. I’m just trying to see what might be out there. At least one person suggested “Anti-Judaism” as a possible route for imperialistic thinking. From what I have read, some scholars have gone that route.

    Do you have any texts to add to the list?

  • Jeremy

    In the slavery category: Harrill argues that Paul’s slave metaphor in Rom 7 reinforces the Roman stereotype of slaves as useless and therefore worthy of abuse. Glancy argues similarly from the Hagar/Sarah allegory of Gal 4.