Abstract
A distinct conceptualisation of the imperial cult is common in NT scholarship, in which worship of the emperor is portrayed as a “foreign” development which served primarily political aims, with little integrity and no serious religious significance. This depiction does not do justice to the evidence and is basically ethnocentric. That the imperial cult provides us with a crucial window on the mentality of the Roman Period comes closer to the truth. A few aspects of early Christian literature and history which might be reinterpreted in the light of a more comprehensive understanding of the imperial cult are briefly noted.
Highlights
We cannot possibly understand the words and actions of other people if we examine them with our preconceptions; the interpretation of their behaviour and texts must be in the light of their motives, convictions and outlook
I wish to deal with this problem by adopting a stance of pluralism which leads to critical understanding; a pluralist who believes that understanding is real: “I have tried to argue not from abstractions about the universe but from the facts of our lives as critics, facts which turn out to be values we share with, and derive from, a human critical life that predates and nourishes the life of literature and criticism
Justice, and understanding, accepted as goods-in-themselves in all human life, lead us into pluralism as critics, just as they led each of us ... out of our initial infantile ideocentrism into the recognition of a world built of many centers, irreducible to any one” (Booth 1979:348)
Summary
We cannot possibly understand the words and actions of other people if we examine them with our preconceptions; the interpretation of their behaviour and texts must be in the light of their motives, convictions and outlook. Cultural relativism brings a moral challenge to the task of interpretation because we are dealing with people. Cultural relativism does not obviate or minimise interpretation, but turns interpretation into the arduous and difficult task of finding the “better” explanation. This demands thinking, consideration and application precisely to say something about the “intentions” and values of others. To argue that the imperial cults provide us with powerful insights into the “mentality” of the Roman Period;. To point to some aspects of the New Testament writings and early Christian developments interacting with imperial cult practices which might be reinterpreted in the light of a more comprehensive understanding of the imperial cults
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