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  • From: "Jeffrey B. Gibson" <jgibson000 AT mailhost.chi.ameritech.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: the occasion of Rom 13. Jon Peter's scenario
  • Date: Wed, 07 Jul 1999 14:19:25 -0500


I know I said that I was not going to say anything else on why I felt Jon
Peter's
exegesis of Rom 13 is suspect, let alone on why I find his assumptions on what
necessitated Paul's engaging in "disinformation" questionable. But I find
that certain
of his remarks to Mark Nanos' post should not be let to pass unchallenged.

Jon Peter wrote:

> Mark wrote:
> >
> > I must agree with
> > Jeffrey that if Paul was worried about such readers, then his referring to
> > this figure Jesus as the king is at cross-purposes.

> Quite the contrary! Paul is better able to write "Christ Jesus is Lord" --
> which he must do, as his duty and calling from Christ -- without risking an
> accusation of sedition for it, precisely because he goes on to write
> approvingly of submission to secular authorities. The "sedition" of "king
> Jesus" becomes quite acceptable to Rome this way
>

Unfortunately for your case, this ignores the fact that within the Roman
world calling
Jesus "Lord" is something which is even more politically significant and
seditious
than calling him King, since such a confession devalues the claim made by
Romans in
similar confessions of allegiance to the Emperor that only Caesar was Lord.

> >
> > Jeffrey has noted some data that does suggest that Romans were not aware
> of
> > any institutions that were Christian/Christianity, but only in 64ce of
> > christianoi in a reference that seems to some experts to imply they were a
> > certain kind of Jewish group. (Note too the Acts reference to "Christians"
> > is about where, not when!).
>
> If you accept Acts, you can date the Christian label to pre-Claudius (41)
> see Acts 11.28
>

What you are ignoring here, Jon, is that the issue is *not* the fact that
Christians
were called Christians before Claudius (if that is indeed what the Acts text
indicates), or even that they existed in Rome and elsewhere before 64, but
whether
there was **knowldege** of the existence of this group called Christians on
the part
of Nero and the elites of Rome before 64. The Acts text cannot be used as
evidence in
support of this assumption (nor, by the way, nor does it say anything about
whether
"those of the way" were regarded by Antiochines as anything other than a
Jewish sect).
Nor can the text of Tacitus, let alone Seutonius, which seem to acknowledge
that there
were Christ believers in Rome before the fire be taken to indicate that
before that
event Roman elites **knew** that they were there.

And even if there was knowledge of their existence among Nero's (or
Claudius') court,
it does *not* follow from this that Roman officials regarded Roman Christ
believers as
politically suspect. And it must be acknowledged that even if the did regard
them in
this manner, Roman officials took steps to infiltrate or gather intelligence
against
this group. We know of a number of groups -- actors, astrologers, gladiators,
Germans,
Gauls, Isis worshipers -- who *were* regarded as public menaces, many of whom
were not
Roman citizens and therefore not under the Law's protection, and some of whom
were
even subject to orders of expulsion -- but there is not a **single scrap of
evidence**
to indicate that *they* were even unofficially infiltrated or targeted by
your
vaunted Roman political operatives. This being the case, then, Mutatis
Mutandis,
your scenario and assumptions about what Roman officialdom must have been
doing with
respect to Jews and the Christ believers among them, many of whom *were* Roman
citizens , just does not hold water. And this being the case, then your
exegesis of
Rom 13 -- an exegesis that can only be true if the scenario is true -- must
be judged
as lacking.
--
Jeffrey B. Gibson
7423 N. Sheridan Road #2A
Chicago, Illinois 60626
e-mail jgibson000 AT ameritech.net





  • the occasion of Rom 13. Jon Peter's scenario, Jeffrey B. Gibson, 07/07/1999

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