The Bible as a Document of the Church: A Personal View 1

As a document of the church, the Bible has a long history, and at times differences over interpretation have occasioned bloodshed. Happily, in our present privileged context we can venture our interpretations without fear of bloodshed or even the heresy trials of the not-so-distant past, although there remain certain unfortunate seminary situations where faculty are required to affirm a doctrinal statement that restricts academic freedom to the extent that its breach can lead to dismissal. ² For the church, the fact that interpretation can give rise to strong differences of opinion remains a problem today.

James Barr once observed that “[t]he Bible takes its origin from within the life of believing communities” and “is interpreted within the continuing life of these communities”. ³ While that is much to the point, it is only part of the story, as Barr himself certainly would have admitted. From originating times until now, different communities have regarded different collections of books as authoritative or biblical. Moreover, considerable discontinuities of time, place, custom, worldview, knowledge, and the like, all of which have had considerable impact on how those books have been and are now understood, lie between the originating communities and those communities that interpret the version of the Bible they hold as authoritative today.

The Bible has long since left its origins behind. Even if it was first the possession of synagogue and church, it also has its place in the public domain so that anyone might interpret it, although not every interpretation is equally valid or of equal importance. For two millennia it has inspired art and literature, music and drama, as well as faith and the way people live and worship. As Ebeling put it, “whether one studies philosophy or literature, history or art, music, psychology, or sociology, everywhere one encounters the Bible”. ⁴ However, my present interest is not with such broad cultural uses of the Bible; neither is it with liturgical, devotional, or spiritual uses within the church, or even with theological reflection on the biblical texts. Rather, I am concerned with how the interpretation of the Bible as a document of the church might sit alongside the biblical studies developed in the academy, an issue that is complicated by the fact that disagreements over interpretation can be as strong in the academy as in the church, not least because not all readers are equally critical in their reading.

Recently Finkelstein charged Eilat Mazar with an attitude towards the biblical texts that is “highly literal and uncritical”, ⁵ citing

Decades after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 b.c.e., the city appears to have remained desolate and in ruins. A change occurred with the surrender of the Babylonians to the Persians and the decree of Cyrus, king of Persia, in 538 b.c.e., which allowed exiled Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. ⁶

That quotation could be a summary of what I was taught in the mid-1970s about a period thought to be much less well known than the times that preceded it, the efforts of Ackroyd, Smith, Plöger, and Hanson notwithstanding. ⁷ If it reflected current research accurately, the conclusion that nothing much had happened subsequently in biblical or archaeological studies would be unavoidable. Yet the reality is very different; since then the focus has in many respects moved from the pre-exilic to embrace subsequent times down to the Persian and Hellenistic periods. Not that the pre-exilic period has become unimportant or uninteresting, although it appears more opaque since much that was considered certain in the 1970s has been brought into question; the patriarchs, exodus, wilderness wanderings, conquest, amphictyony, and united kingdom, are all now much in doubt, while the texts that relate to these events and institutions are widely attributed to later periods than formerly. Yet as these certainties have receded, other matters have become more certain, not least that the biblical characters, their god, and the events in which they are involved, belong to a story that owns a sometimes tangential and occasional relationship to events that may or may not have happened. ⁸

As a result, the gap has increased between the biblical representation of Israel’s story and the critically reconstructed history that perhaps awaits writing and may not be completed satisfactorily until the present focus establishes more of a consensus. Indeed, while histories will continue to be written, the paucity of corroborating evidence external to the Bible exacerbates the difficulty of the task and suggests stringent limitations to what can be claimed with certainty. Nonetheless, one must not take easy recourse—in the manner of earlier scholarship—to talking about a historical nucleus or kernel underlying individual biblical narratives; such talk does not produce history, it merely paraphrases the biblical text. Such trends will exacerbate the gulf that exists between academy and church with respect to biblical interpretation, not least because critical reconstruction of the histories of Israel and Judah, although incomplete, now looks very different compared with the biblical story and the histories of earlier generations. A further complication arises. Whether because religious commitment among scholars varies or appears to impinge upon the work of some to a greater degree than it does on others, where it impacts on the application of critical method and its outcome, mixed signals are sent to those whose work lies outside the academic guild but nonetheless relies to some extent upon its guidance.

Looking from the church towards the academy, we can see that there appear, in summary, to be three significant trends in biblical (Old Testament) studies—the later dating of texts, loss of confidence in the historicity of events recorded therein, and a much stronger emphasis on the exilic and subsequent periods than formerly, and these are supported by considerable reflection on historiography, the social sciences, the Ancient Near East, and archaeology. All this constitutes a serious problem for the church. The church cannot with integrity pretend that academic biblical study has not happened, nor can it simply embrace those aspects of criticism that are conducive to its message while discarding others that are not so conducive. Yet in the church there are some who have completely discounted their theological training. In an earlier article published in this journal, I suggested that failure to address the gulf between its own interpretation of the Bible and the academy’s damages the credibility of the church, not least when matters that can be disproved or cast into doubt are proclaimed as if bulletproof, endangering the church’s integrity and its future. ⁹ Within days of publication, I received a lengthy email from the rector of a Church of England parish insisting that the persistence of the gulf between academy and church is inevitable. In a particularly telling passage he wrote:

Essentially, the Christian and the liberal critic dwell in different universes. This is an extremely painful position for those of us who have to live in both universes (if only while we are studying for the ministry!). I guess most of us get through by setting aside our faith in the living Word whilst writing essays and answering examination questions and ignoring the aridity of biblical criticism when we worship, pray, preach or teach.

So he, and others like him, had exercised a strategy of going through the motions, using what they heard in lectures and read in books to pass examinations so that they might emerge ‘qualified’—at least in the sense that they had satisfied or deceived their examiners—at the end of their course. Besides admitting deception, his disparaging contrast between ‘the Christian’ and ‘the liberal critic’ is insulting to his teachers as well as colleagues and others who engage in biblical criticism within the church. It is tantamount to denying that such critics may be Christian.

For the church, the fact that some of its ministers may be misrepresenting what critical study has shown the Bible to be should be a concern. When the Bible, whether in part or in whole, is represented as other than what it can easily be shown to be, it would be unsurprising if its target audience mistrusted other, perhaps more reliable, aspects of the accompanying message. In that case, failure to address the issue must surely run counter to the church’s mission so that remedies are required if the situation is not to persist or deteriorate further. Without doubt, many candidates for ministry face serious difficulties in their encounter with biblical criticism, with some, like my correspondent, discounting entirely its usefulness for understanding biblical texts. James Barr expressed the matter movingly in a reflective passage that perhaps owes something to his own experience as well as that of others:

Nothing is more difficult for young and active Protestant believers than to learn that the Bible seriously conflicts with even one or two of the principles which they have been brought up to regard as central. The process of such learning is acutely painful and may require long years of agonized inner conflict. Even if the biblical data are quite clear and, at times, unanimous, this does not alleviate the pain. For many people, even if they are fervent believers in biblical authority and inspiration, religious conviction is far more powerful than biblical data. When scripture is read, religious conviction simply filters out from the consciousness the data, the evidence, the possibilities that seem to conflict with what is already believed to be essential and certain. Thus it is extremely difficult for the actual material of the Bible to overcome the dominion of the inherited convictions with which people approach exegesis. ¹⁰

Having grown up within congregations of the United Free Church, I recognize something of my own experience in that description of inner conflict, although in Robert Davidson and William Barclay I had teachers who were sensitive to the background of many of their students and in their lectures ensured that the positive aspects of biblical criticism were not neglected. Davidson, too, knew the experience at first hand, having begun life “in narrowly conservative circles which held strongly to the infallibility of the Bible”. ¹¹ He believed that the point of theological education as practised in the Church of Scotland is that students should “learn to think about theology, learning indeed to face their own inbuilt theological assumptions and prejudices, not least about the Bible”, and held that this system “only fails…when a student exits the course with exactly the same beliefs as he or she had on entering”. ¹²

The fact that there are some who retain at ordination much the same set of beliefs they had when they began their theological education suggests that, despite a general acceptance within the Church that ministerial candidates should complete a theological education that includes instruction in biblical criticism and its results, there is in some quarters a resistance to this and perhaps also to other aspects of theological education. Many students can testify to warnings received before and during their training not to allow it to ‘damage’ their faith, while it is not unknown for ‘alternative’ reading lists, supportive of a more conservative position, to circulate among those students who are keen to find reasons to counter what they are being taught.

In theory, those who receive a theological education should form a conduit through which the results of academic biblical studies can filter into the church. Yet the resistance, both of those who are resistant to the challenge a theological education poses to their beliefs and those who admonish them not to allow that education to damage their faith, imposes limitations on the effectiveness of that conduit. Certainly there are encouraging signs that in the academy there are those who are motivated to communicate the fruit of their labours to the wider community, not least to the churches. For example, at the summer 2016 meeting of the Society for Old Testament Study a panel of five members introduced discussion on the question “What should the relationship be between biblical scholarship and faith communities in the 21st century?” Another example is provided by the recent publication of a collection of essays by members of the University of Nottingham’s Centre for Bible, Ethics and Theology reflecting on the question “Why Does the Bible Matter?” ¹³ In an attractive magazine-style format, twelve members of the Centre contribute their reflections on that question, each from the perspective of their own specialism, ranging from Hebrew Bible across a broad variety of theological disciplines down to modern music.

Although I have emphasized the importance of critical method, I do not suggest that it is the only means by which biblical interpretation may properly be addressed. That would be as untenable as denying its validity and would fly in the face of the variety of approaches to the biblical texts that has increasingly characterized the past forty years, much to the enrichment of biblical studies. Nonetheless, critical method retains an essential function at least so far as it enables those who would interpret the Bible to understand more clearly its origins and nature. More than that, even if many of the questions addressed by critical study remain open to debate, there is good reason to believe that in a general sense it has shown that the biblical documents are not what they were thought to have been prior to the rise of the method. Not only has the antiquity and authorship traditionally attributed to the biblical books been shown to be false, but it is now clear that most if notall of them were subjected to a complex process of composition and editing on their way to attaining their present form. Indeed, recent study has suggested that, even in the late Second Temple period, texts that no doubt were already regarded as authoritative were still being subjected to scribal activity that, even if it was directed largely towards clarifying meaning, nonetheless demonstrates that the text was not treated as if it was so finalized that no alteration to it could be made. ¹⁴

Turning briefly to the official documents of the church—here only the church to which I belong—the constitutional position of the Church of Scotland with respect to matters spiritual is set out in the Articles Declaratory of the Constitution of the Church of Scotland, acknowledged as rights already inherent within the Church by Parliament in the Schedule to The Church of Scotland Act, 1921. ¹⁵ The first article sketches briefly those doctrines that comprise the essential minimum that would define a Christian Church; affirming in its closing sentence

The Church of Scotland adheres to the Scottish Reformation; receives the Word of God which is contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as its supreme rule of faith and life, and avows the fundamental doctrines of the Catholic faith founded thereupon.

Although the article’s definition of the “Word of God” as being “contained” in the scriptures may appear ambiguous, suggesting that the “Word of God” may not be coterminous with the scriptures but rather is “contained” therein—an interpretation increasingly influential since the publication of Douglas Murray’s Chalmers Lectures ¹⁶ —the question whether such ambiguity was intended by those who framed the articles is debated. For example, in the 2013 Report to the General Assembly of the Theological Commission on Same-Sex Relationships and the Ministry, the interpretation was adopted by the “revisionist” members of the Commission (Report, p. 33), but was disputed by “traditionalist” members who maintained that this was “an entirely novel argument, with no historical credibility” (p. 66) and that the phrase has the same meaning in the articles as in the Shorter Catechism of 1647.

The first article affirms the fundamental doctrines of the Catholic faith as these find foundation in scripture. Thus it speaks of the Church

worshipping one God, Almighty, all-wise, and all-loving, in the Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the same in substance, equal in power and glory; adoring the Father, infinite in Majesty, of whom are all things; confessing our Lord Jesus Christ, the Eternal Son, made very man for our salvation; glorying in His Cross and Resurrection, and owning obedience to Him as the Head over all things to His Church; trusting in the promised renewal and guidance of the Holy Spirit; proclaiming the forgiveness of sins and acceptance with God through faith in Christ, and the gift of Eternal Life; and labouring for the advancement of the Kingdom of God throughout the world.

Yet it neither defines these doctrines nor expands on their content, so that it is not clear how far this statement provides an account of “the substance of the faith”. Further, although the second article might seem to rectify this deficiency where it states, “The principal subordinate standard of the Church of Scotland is the Westminster Confession of Faith approved by the General Assembly of 1647, containing the sum and substance of the Faith of the Reformed Church”, in current practice it does not. The ‘Preamble’ to the ordination to ministry of Word and Sacrament provides for the recognition of “liberty of opinion on such points of doctrine as do not enter into the substance of the faith”. As the “substance of the faith” is not further defined, either in the declaratory articles or in the ordination service, and has not been tested in the courts of the church, it appears that in practice the liberty of opinion granted to ministers may be considerable. As a result, while these documents lay down that the Bible is indeed a document of the church, they provide little indication of how it is to be interpreted.

The Confession places a strong emphasis upon scripture, as the “most necessary” commitment to writing of “those former ways of God’s revealing his will unto his people being now ceased”, and lists thirty-nine Old Testament and twenty-seven New Testament books. While the treatment of scripture is brief, more summary still is its account of inspiration, which is limited to an acknowledgement that the scriptures “are given by inspiration of God, to be the rule of faith and life”, its authority resting wholly upon God who is “the author thereof”. With respect to the interpretation of scripture, which “being immediately inspired by God, and by his singular care and providence kept pure in all ages”, it is argued that scripture is best interpreted by scripture itself and enlightened by the Holy Spirit. Plainly this account has scant regard for the contexts out of which the documents that the church recognizes as scripture arose, whether in their final form or in the several traditions and layers out of which that form was constructed. Moreover, a sample of the Confession’s use of proof texts shows clearly that those who framed it inhabited a world very different from ours, which has been informed by critical method and a historical consciousness unavailable to them.

The Westminster Confession is a document of its time, undergirded by pre-critical assumptions. Two observations are sufficient to demonstrate that its approach has become untenable. First, from a perspective informed by biblical criticism one can scarcely hold that scripture is “best interpreted by scripture itself”, a procedure that effectively controls the variety of voices that undergird the texts, compelling them to conform to a narrower range of meanings and possibilities than they contain and thereby silencing them. Second, the appeal to proof texts would be cogent only if one could demonstrate unequivocally that they do in fact “prove” that of which they are held by the Confession to be “proof”.

The Bible is the common heritage of church and academy, and both have a stake in commending interest in it to a broader readership, although the purpose each has for developing such interest may be different. Yet that difference is not so distinct as it might be, in so far as a broad range of perceptions surrounding what the Bible is and how it may be used can be found in church and academy alike. In each there are some who tend to discount completely the use made of the Bible in the other, while there are many whose interests straddle both institutions, reminding us that communication between church and academy should not only be maintained but also strengthened.

I am convinced that the church’s discourse should begin with a rigorous appraisal, fully informed by the results of academic study, of the sort of document the Bible is. That is to say, it should include a properly informed awareness that the Bible is a human construct, in its present form largely the product of the post-exilic/Second Temple period, although containing elements of older material to an extent that is often difficult to determine. Such an appraisal should include recognition of the complex processes and contexts out of which the texts that comprise the Bible grew, as well as the fact that the biblical account of Israel’s and Judah’s history does not correspond to their history so far as that can be reconstructed by critical method, a conclusion that is in large measure supported by archaeological research, always remembering that the data of archaeological research also require interpretation, while its conclusions remain open to scrutiny and revision.

Beyond such appraisal lies the task of the theologian, a task that, although of vital importance for the church, lies for the most part outside the scope of this paper. Here, although admittedly there are biblical scholars who possess considerable competence in theological issues and theologians who likewise are competent interpreters of the Bible, I emphasise the distinctiveness of the biblical and theological tasks. The doctrines of scripture, inspiration, and authority belong more properly to theology than to biblical studies, although any formulation that does not take proper account of tradition and text history is likely to be flawed, perhaps seriously. Among issues that should impinge on a modern discussion of such doctrines, account must be taken of when and how the texts acquired authority, how the corpus of authoritative texts grew and developed, what it means that different communities within early Judaism and Christianity apparently treasured quite different versions of some books as well as different collections of books, the processes that led eventually to canonization, and the light shed on late developments in the texts by discussion of so-called “rewritten scripture”, both biblical and extra-biblical, while some reflection on the continued recognition by different traditions of different canons is also required.

Within the church, since the interpretation of the biblical texts for the present remains an important task, those who would interpret them should have sufficient knowledge of their background, the circumstances in which they were generated and developed and the communities they addressed. Only then, having given consideration also to the context out of which they now are interpreted, is it possible to address with some confidence the theological task in so far as it relates to ministry. While that may sound simple, I have an impression that theological interpretation is sometimes too quickly incorporated into biblical studies. In undergraduate lectures, Robert Davidson spoke of the failure of the then key figures to identify in their theologies a central unifying concept that paid sufficient attention to the whole of the Old Testament. Von Rad could find no place for the Wisdom tradition while Eichrodt could not relate every part of the Old Testament to the idea of covenant. I retain a suspicion formed then that the best one might hope to detect among the disparate voices that lie behind the texts is a conversation between the more dominant theological voice and various criticisms of that theology, although discussion of how that conversation would work out in practice would require considerably more attention than might be given here.

My misgivings go deeper. Reading for an undergraduate essay included Ellis Rivkin, The Shaping of Jewish History. Rivkin argued that there is “no reason why the Pentateuch should not be studied as the evolution of power and authority in Israel from semi-nomadic times till the fifth century [bce]”. ¹⁷ He concluded that the culmination of that “evolution” was the fashioning of the Pentateuch by a class of priests who sought to solve the problems confronting the community after the return from exile in Babylon by having Yahweh and Moses assign absolute power to Aaron and his sons. In so doing, these priests compiled the Pentateuch so that “a class that had never exercised power previously was now to enjoy it as a God-given monopoly. The promulgation of the Pentateuch was thus a revolutionary act launching a form of Judaism that had never previously existed”.

Much in Rivkin’s argument is untenable; neither its analysis of the history of Israelite religion nor its close identification with the classic documentary hypothesis bear scrutiny. Yet the notion that “these texts are differentiated…by power criteria”, Rivkin, The Shaping of Jewish History, 30 and culminate in that priestly/Aaronide revision seemed important, although it would have required a more detailed argument to support it. Nonetheless, it suggested that so far as they might be considered a means of underwriting and controlling power, the documents of the Pentateuch were related more closely to ideology than to theology. That is not to suggest that the texts do not include theological themes and motifs or that they are not replete with notions that may be construed theologically. However, if such notions, motifs, and themes have been used for ideological purposes, it is possible that they do not correspond exactly with the theology of their authors. They may correspond partly, yet if they are to command the required response of their target audience they must also resonate sufficiently with that audience’s world view to carry conviction. There must be some sort of meeting point between the message the texts carry and the expectation of their intended audience, although I shall not speculate here on its identity since that could not in any case be determined without taking account of factors such as the extent of literacy, the occasion of public readings (if any), and the levels of society that would have to be persuaded by the text.

It is not self-evident that the communication of either historical or theological information was the primary intention lying behind the construction of all the literary forms that comprise the Bible. Theological terms and motifs that appear on, or lie close to, the surface of texts do not necessarily imply that they were always written and transmitted with an overtly theological purpose, or that the theological information they convey corresponds closely to the theology of their authors. ¹⁸ I do not deny that the authors/redactors of biblical writings held theological opinions or utilized theological motifs or at times reflected on issues theologically, nor do I deny that the Bible contains much that is appropriate for sustained theological reflection—clearly it does. It would be surprising if people of that time and place did not harbour beliefs about the gods; but the fact that those who produced the texts may have held such beliefs carries no decisive implication concerning the purpose of their written product. It does not demonstrate that their purpose was entirely and unambiguously theological, or that in their work theological themes and motifs were never placed at the service of another purpose.

Before speaking confidently about the theology or the theological intention of those who composed, transmitted, or redacted the biblical texts or any putative source or stratum thereof, it would be appropriate to establish how far such talk is meaningful. The fact that the biblical writings are full of references to a deity and his activities, both on behalf of and against his creation and its inhabitants does not of itself constitute theology. God is represented as a character in narrative, sometimes interacting with other characters, sometimes from the background taking action that strongly influences their fate, sometimes involving himself in activities that may appear morally dubious, sometimes acting in ways that are inconsistent with his character so far as it has been established elsewhere in the biblical texts. Such material certainly provides occasion for theological reflection; yet it may not provide straightforward access to the theology of particular writers or layers of tradition. Therefore, caution is advised whenever one attempts to extrapolate the theological intention or the theology of the biblical writers.

No doubt certain beliefs were shared by the authors, redactors, and compilers of tradition and those they sought to address, but we should not assume that the texts we have necessarily provide an accurate or even adequate reflection of the extent to which beliefs were shared. There is no straightforward access to such matters. Much effort is required to establish to what extent the biblical texts reflect beliefs that were shared and how far they include innovative ideas, created to utilize elements of shared belief and direct them towards an ideological purpose such as the creation of community and identity or to underwrite power structures. To achieve such a purpose it is probable that at least some aspects of the body of shared belief would have to be reformatted by the biblical authors. Too many competing voices coexist in the Hebrew Bible to permit the assumption that it is constituted throughout by beliefs that are shared. Texts testify to discontinuity as well as continuity; the story they tell witnesses to several transitions, whether imagined or real—patriarchs, Egypt, exodus, conquest, judge, king and priest, exile and the end of kingship—transitions that had to be managed, not by the repetition through succeeding periods of shared belief, but by subjecting that shared belief to the ‘spin’, the ideologies, necessary to underwrite such transitions.

In discussion concerning the purpose of a biblical text, it is better that the terms “theology” and “ideology” are not used interchangeably; they should be distinguished clearly. Ideology, although it may be, and often is, expressed with theological overtones, should apply to the political purpose towards which the texts (including their theological themes, motifs, and the like) may have been addressed. Let me be clear, I do not suggest that all biblical writings are purely ideological in purpose; some, perhaps many, may come closer to theology or may even be purely theological in purpose, while others that in origin may have been devoid of theological or ideological purpose have become sources for theological reflection by virtue of their inclusion within the canon of scripture. However, the point remains: ideology and theology should not be confused and, where an ideological purpose can be identified, considerable care should be applied when moving from the identification of that purpose to an assessment of underlying theology.

One final observation: the several texts that comprise the Bible have passed through and survived various processes on their way to becoming canonical and so also a document of the church. Because of the complexity of these processes the temptation to quickly take recourse to some form of ‘canonical’ reading/criticism as a means of ignoring, disguising, or discounting these processes should be resisted. There is not space here to develop the observation, but I would suggest that too often canonical methods attain their goal at a significant cost. They tend, in a manner perhaps analogous to the Westminster Confession’s use of proof texts noted above, to control the variety of voices that undergird the texts, compelling them to conform to a narrower range of meanings and possibilities than they in fact contain. In so doing, they tend to diminish the breadth of human experience to which the Bible testifies and upon which it invites us to reflect.

The New Testament and Empire

Adam Winn (ed.), An Introduction to Empire in the New Testament (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2016. $49.50. pp. xvii + 348. ISBN: 978-1-62837-133-8).

As editor Adam Winn states in the opening essay of this important collection of essays: ‘[F]ew interpreters [have] considered the way in which the Roman Empire and its ubiquitous power and influence might be a background for understanding Christian theological expression, mission, and practice’ (p. 1). Winn and his colleagues offer readers an assessment of the New Testament writings with this background in mind.

In a masterful essay B. Longenecker looks at Roman imperial propaganda that favoured the wealthy elite and often marginalized the poor and powerless. R. A. Horsley considers in what ways Jesus’ public activities and sayings challenged Roman power. W. Carter sees Matthew critizing and subverting Rome throughout his Gospel. Winn probes in what ways the evangelist Mark responds to imperial propaganda, especially in reference to Vespasian, drawing special attention to the Gospel’s incipit (Mk 1.1), an incipit, he says, that ‘seems tailor-made for rebutting Roman imperial claims that usurp the commitments of the early Jesus movement’ (p. 105).

E. D. Barreto looks at Luke-Acts, finding that the evangelist’s subtle, indirect language requires readers ‘to read between the lines’, inferring that the Jesus movement, which has turned ‘the world upside down without an army’, is ‘the most serious challenge to Roman power one could imagine’ (p. 119). B. M. Sheppard offers fascinating parallels between the key women of the fourth Gospel and Roman tradition concerning elite women. N. Elliott finds in Paul the conviction that ‘God’s justice would ultimately triumph over and against all earthly powers’ (p. 162). In a second essay on Paul’s letters J. R. Harrison investigates how the apostle punches holes in the imperial doctrine of the divine emperor. He rightly underscores the subversive message of the Christ hymn in Phil 2, which redirects divine glory to God (pp. 178–79). J. A. Whitlark believes the author of Hebrews calls on the faithful to endure with patience the oppression and suffering they are experiencing at the hands the imperial system. D. C. Lopez argues that although the allusion to Rome as the great whore ‘Babylon’ (Rev 14:8; 17:5; 18:20) would have been readily perceived by Judeo-Christian readers (1 Pet 5:13), Revelation’s portrait of the Roman Empire is complex and may be alluding to other threatening empires, such as the Parthian Empire.

An Introduction to Empire in the New Testament provides what its title promises. The book also makes a compelling case for interpreting early Christian literature against the background of the Roman world.

C. A. EvansHouston Baptist University