becoming

Thank you Vincent for getting me the books from UT:

Richard A. Horsley, Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder

Richard A. Horsley (Editor), Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society

What Wright said about Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society.

The evidence now available, including that from epigraphy and archaeology, shows that the cult of Caesar was not simply one new religion among many in the Roman world. Already by Paul’s time it had become the dominant cult in a large part of the Empire, certainly in the parts where Paul was active, and was the means whereby the Romans managed to control and govern such huge areas as came under their sway. Who needs armies when they have worship?

The book thus invites us to approach what has been called Paul’s theology, and to find in it, not simply a few social or political "implications", to be left safely to the final chapters of a lengthy theological tome, but a major challenge to precisely that imperial cult and ideology which was part of the air Paul and his converts breathed. His missionary work, it appears (I am here summing up in my own way what I take to be the book’s central thrust), must be conceived not simply in terms of a traveling evangelist offering people a new religious experience, but of an ambassador for a king-in-waiting, establishing cells of people loyal to this new king, and ordering their lives according to his story, his symbols, and his praxis, and their minds according to his truth. This could only be construed as deeply counter-imperial, as subversive to the whole edifice of the Roman Empire; and there is in fact plenty of evidence that Paul intended it to be so construed, and that when he ended up in prison as a result of his work he took it as a sign that he had been doing his job properly.

Sounds like it will be a very interesting read.