In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance

by Richard A. Horsley (Editor)

The Bible tells the stories of many empires, and many are still considered some of the largest of the ancient and classical the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, and finally the Romans. In this provocative book, nine experts bring a critical analysis of these world empires in the background of the Old and New Testaments. As they explain, the Bible developed against the context of these empires, providing concrete meaning to the countercultural claims of Jews and Christians that their God was the true King, the real Emperor. Each chapter describes how to read the Bible as a reaction to empire and points to how to respond to the biblical message to resist imperial powers in every age.

Genres: Politics, Religion, History, Biblical Studies

208 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 2008

Reviews

[Mark Sequeira]

Horsley is excellent on understanding the Imperial dynamic in much of Jesus' understanding and teaching. It's a shame we don't understand better how much Rome had permeated Jewish thought and teaching either in compromising with it or violently reacting to it.

[Steve Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful collection of nine essays examining themes of Empire and faithful resistance throughout different sections of the Bible.

[Chris Halverson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A series of biblical scholarship/reflections responding to Neo-conservativism and the invasion of Iraq.

[Donald Linnemeyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, the book was alright. It started out fairly strong, with Gottwald and Brueggemann (very interesting stuff on the economics of the ancient world), but went downhill from there, especially with some of the New Testament essays.

Not that they didn't have any interesting observations. Warren Carter's claim that the devil's temptation of Christ had anti-imperial undertones, since it implies Satan is the power behind the kingdoms of the world (Rome), added a nice new spin to the story. Overall, though, you could tell most of the authors were just reaching most of the time, trying to unearth empire everywhere they could. Efforts like that produce some gems, but more often you get pretty forced interpretations and a general flattening of the bible's complexity on the issue.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In the Shadow of Empire" helped explain Jesus as a human being and the world he lived in.

Ignore the liberal bent saying that Operation Iraqi Freedom was imperialistic. We went in and stopped a tyrant who was filling mass graves, gassing whole towns, closing hospitals, and cutting off food supplies and utilities.

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting look into the influence of the bible in its resistance of violence.

[Thomas Keller · Rating 5 out of 5]

The way I started to explore the Empire traces.