Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- Foreword
- The Zealots and Jesus
- The revolution theory from Reimarus to Brandon
- The date and character of Mark
- Some observations on Tendenzkritik
- Argumentum e silentio
- The Poor and the Zealots
- The opposition between Jesus and Judaism
- Judaeo-Christianity and the Jewish establishment, A.D. 33–66
- A.D. 70 in Christian reflection
- The trial of Jesus in the Acta Pilati
- Christ as brigand in ancient anti-Christian polemic
- Jesus as a political agent in a version of the Josippon
- The Feeding of the Multitude
- The coin of ‘Render unto Caesar …’ (A note on some aspects of Mark 12: 13–17; Matt. 22: 15–22; Luke 20:20–26)
- Render to Caesar
- The Temple tax
- ‘Not peace but a sword’: Matt. 10:34ff; Luke 12: 51ff
- The decision of the Supreme Court to put Jesus to death (John 11:47–57) in its context: tradition and redaction in the Gospel of John
- The ‘triumphal’ entry
- The two swords (Luke 22: 35–38)
- The titulus
- Romans 13
- Biblical criticism criticised: with reference to the Markan report of Jesus's examination before the Sanhedrin
- The political charge against Jesus (Luke 23: 2)
- The trial before Pilate
- ‘His witness is true’: A test of the Johannine claim
- Index of Authors
- Index of References
Romans 13
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Abbreviations
- Foreword
- The Zealots and Jesus
- The revolution theory from Reimarus to Brandon
- The date and character of Mark
- Some observations on Tendenzkritik
- Argumentum e silentio
- The Poor and the Zealots
- The opposition between Jesus and Judaism
- Judaeo-Christianity and the Jewish establishment, A.D. 33–66
- A.D. 70 in Christian reflection
- The trial of Jesus in the Acta Pilati
- Christ as brigand in ancient anti-Christian polemic
- Jesus as a political agent in a version of the Josippon
- The Feeding of the Multitude
- The coin of ‘Render unto Caesar …’ (A note on some aspects of Mark 12: 13–17; Matt. 22: 15–22; Luke 20:20–26)
- Render to Caesar
- The Temple tax
- ‘Not peace but a sword’: Matt. 10:34ff; Luke 12: 51ff
- The decision of the Supreme Court to put Jesus to death (John 11:47–57) in its context: tradition and redaction in the Gospel of John
- The ‘triumphal’ entry
- The two swords (Luke 22: 35–38)
- The titulus
- Romans 13
- Biblical criticism criticised: with reference to the Markan report of Jesus's examination before the Sanhedrin
- The political charge against Jesus (Luke 23: 2)
- The trial before Pilate
- ‘His witness is true’: A test of the Johannine claim
- Index of Authors
- Index of References
Summary
Chapter 13: 1–7 of Paul's letter to the Romans became perhaps the most influential part of the New Testament on the level of world history. This happened in spite of the fact that the interpretation of the passage has never been found easy and is nowadays more disputed than ever before.
While the interpretations of the patristic period ranged from the identification of the superior powers with evil angels to respect for them as ecclesiastical officials; while, already in pre-Constantinian time an interpretation that lends dignity to the state became dominant, although T. Müntzer turned that into a kind of revolutionary manifesto by maintaining that the governments are instituted to execute the will of God and, conversely, if they fail to do so, those who do the will of God are bound to take the sword into their own hands, nowadays it is asserted that the pericope contains nothing but a ‘devastating undermining’, the Divine verdict on the Powers that be; and if indeed it were of a positive nature Paul's statement would be in need of radical demythologising.
Scholars have noticed the unusually isolated character of the passage, and have made the most varied attempts to explain this, ranging as far as interpolation hypothesis (A. Pallis, E. Barnikol). The advice contains elements of a basic understanding of the state, which both in its semi-philosophical terminology and in its point of departure from a theology of creation has no equal in the Corpus Paulinum.
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- Jesus and the Politics of his Day , pp. 365 - 384Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1984
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