John and Empire: Initial Explorations
Warren Carter
T & T Clark, 2008-04-15 - 423 pages
In
this significant and innovative contribution, Warren Carter explores
John's Gospel as a work of imperial negotiation in the context of
Ephesus, capital of the Roman province of Asia. Carter employs multiple
methods, rejects sectarian scenarios, and builds on other Christian
writings and recent studies of diaspora synagogues that combined
participationist lifestyles with observance of distinctive practices to
argue that imperial negotiation was a contested issue for late
first-century Jesus-believers. While a number of Jesus-believers
probably lived societally-accommodated lives, John's Gospel employs a
"rhetoric of distance" to urge much less accommodation and to create an
alternative "anti-society" for followers of Jesus crucified by the
empire but vindicated by God. In addition to establishing this tense
historical setting, chapters identify various arenas and strategies of
imperial negotiation in wide-ranging discussions of the gospel's genre,
plot, Christological titles, developing traditions, eternal life, the
image of God as father, ecclesiology, Jesus' conflict with Pilate, and
resurrection and ascension.
No comments:
Post a Comment