Abstract
Considering the overt or sublime connections biblical scholars increasingly indicate between biblical texts and empires, this contribution engages the need for the theorisation of empire beyond material depiction. It is suggested that empire is primarily of conceptual nature and a negotiated notion, a constantly constructed entity by both the powerful and the subjugated, to which the concomitant responses of subversion and attraction to empire attest. The discussion is primarily related to the first-century CE context, arguing also that postcolonial analysis provides a useful approach to deal with (at least, some of) the complexities of such research.
Highlights
Considering the overt or sublime connections biblical scholars increasingly indicate between biblical texts and empires, this contribution engages the need for the theorisation of empire beyond material depiction
First-century CE Mediterranean life was largely determined by the omnipresent and ostensibly omnipotent Roman Empire in its various forms and guises
Plotting its influence is from the outset complicated by the presence of material and discursive imperialism, as well as their interrelatedness
Summary
Empire and New Testament texts: Theorising the imperial, in subversion and attraction. Like other (earlier and later) empires, it propounded a sense of moral virtue and beneficence, claiming to exist and function with a vision of reordering the world’s power relations for the sake and betterment of all.2 The totality of this socio-political framework (discursive imperialism) was more powerful and certainly more pervasive than its material enactment alone, even if accounting for its possible relation to the New Testament is not necessarily easier. Acknowledging the complexities involved in theorising empire at both material and discursive levels requires an appropriate grammar and vocabulary to plot first-century power relations and its structural organisations. Regardless of how the material or historical realities of Empire are arrayed, its pluriform materiality remains a first important – even if not the most vital – focus
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