The Arrogance of Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire (Paul in Critical Contexts)

About this book

Elliott offers a fresh and surprising reinterpretation of Pauls letter to the Romans in the context of Roman imperial ideology bringing to the text the latest insights from classical studies rhetorical criticism postcolonial criticism and peoples history. By setting the letter alongside Roman texts (Cicero Virgil the Res Gestae of Augustus Seneca poets from the age of Nero as well as later historians and satirists) Elliott provides a dramatic new reading of the letter as Pauls confrontation with the arrogance of empire - and with an emerging Christianity already tempted by the seductive ideology of imperial power. The Arrogance of Nations explores such topics as: Empire and the obedience of faith; Justice and the arrogance of nations; Mercy and the prerogatives of power; Piety and the scandal of an irreligious race; Virtue and the fortunes of peoples; and Paul and the horizon of the possible.