Author: Alex Poulos

Software Developer and Scholar of Greek and Latin Literature

Thoughts on Rosetta Stone

~ Alex Poulos ~ 4 Comments

I’m now about a week into Rosetta Stone’s Latin. It’s been a largely positive experience. Rosetta Stone is truly a remarkable program. The software is completely “Latin driven,” in that none of the instruction is in English. The only English you see is the “click here to continue” or similar items from the interface. The program has you do quite a bit of reading, listening, and speaking. There’s not been much writing so far, though I’m expecting that to increase as I get farther. The speaking uses a microphone to capture your voice and then tests it against their samples. Occasionally this is frustrating, but most of the time it works well.

After a week in, I’ve completed the first two units of level one. The breakdown is something like this: Each level has four units. Each unit consists of four “core lessons.” These core lessons have grammar and vocabulary components (though it’s all taught inductively through pictures). In addition to the core lessons, there are supplements to each which focus specifically on areas like pronunciation, reading, or writing. The program has time estimates for each exercise. The “core lessons” are estimated at 30 mins, and the supplements range from 5-10 mins in estimated length. I often complete the core lessons in less than 30 minutes (I make a point to move quickly), though the estimates have been more accurate for the supplements. Each unit concludes with a mock conversation of some sort where much of the dialogue you’re supposed to generate yourself from context. These are actually quite challenging, though I haven’t had to repeat one yet (I’ve only done two).

Note that the program chooses the supplements based on the focus you choose at the beginning of the level. I chose to do the “standard” focus, which is a good mix. However, I kinda wish I had done the “reading and writing” focus since many of the exercises seemed superfluous. Thankfully, the program allows you to deviate from the plan and skip exercises if you so choose (as well as do exercises the “focus” would otherwise have you skip).

I’ve been pleased with my progress so far. I’m starting to get a feel for basic Latin sentence structure, and my vocabulary is growing. But so far, the vocabulary has been my single biggest complaint. Rosetta stone is targeted primarily at people who want to be able to communicate in the language. This is terrifically sensible for languages like Spanish, French, and Russian. It’s even useful to an extent for languages like Latin, in that you engage the language like you would any other. Latin is something that real people spoke, wrote, sang, and prayed. However, I don’t care about most of the vocabulary I’ve learned so far. Knowing that coffee is ‘potium arabica’ isn’t going to help me work through Cicero or Tertullian! I can’t fathom how knowing words like ‘telehorasis’ (TV) and ‘radiophonia’ (radio) will ever aid my study of ancient texts! At points, they do try to take a word and relate it back to it’s ancient context (through handdrawn pictures of Romans, or by people dressed up in togas!), but this is not terribly frequent.

For this reason, I’m glad that I’m combining Rosetta Stone with a more traditional textbook (Wheelock’s Latin). Here, I get to flex my analytical and textual muscles more. I get to see the standard metavocabulary (genitive, ablative, etc.), and learn more useful vocabulary. Working through both a textbook and Rosetta Stone has worked well so far, though I am anxious to see how it goes in the future. I hope that I’ll soon be able to make sense of some actual Latin text, though I suppose we’ll see.

Deo gloria!

~alex

Reading Old Texts

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Ben, over at Dunelm Road, has created a list of recommended background reading for the NT and Patristics study. I’m quite thankful for the list: there’s a lot of good recommendations! However, I’m also sad that my Greek and Latin aren’t better. I want to read those texts in their original languages! I’m currently working my way slowly through the Greek Psalms and Ignatius of Antioch. It’s terrific fun, but it is slow going. My Greek is improving, but I’m still a long ways off from being able to read like I can in French. I’ve found that reading outside the NT is quite helpful for Greek practice. I’m simply too familiar with most of the NT in English for it to benefit my Greek knowledge, ironically enough. I can’t say the same regarding the Psalms or Apostolic Fathers. Hopefully my Latin will progress quickly so I can actually start reading stuff. I’ve printed off a few pages of Tertullian but I can’t tell the verbs from the nouns yet ;-).

May God continue to empower our study of His languages!

~alex

A few days into Latin

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I’m now a few days into Latin. I got my Rosetta Stone license from the school on Friday: I have access to it for two months. The Rosetta Stone is fun, but somewhat frustrating. For someone who prefers text to images, all of the pictures can be overwhelming. I know that it’s necessary to the learning process, but I am a bit overwhelmed at times. Also, I’m rather impatient. Currently, it’s doing basic vocabulary and really basic grammar (nominative + accusative, verb conjugation, simple adjective agreement). I wanna move on to more complicated stuff!

However, I know that I need to be patient. One doesn’t learn a language overnight, especially one like Latin. It’s a bit boring right now, but hopefully it will pick up soon. I’m planning to do some work from Wheelock’s famous textbook. I also ordered the reader, which hopefully I’ll be able to work through sooner rather than later ;-). I’m planning to devote my morning to Greek and my evenings to Latin this Summer, so by the grace of God I’ll progress quickly (I’ll definitely need a good dose to do so!).

Finally, I’d love some suggestions for Latin texts to read. Eventually I’d love to work through some of Augustine’s confessions in Latin, but I know that’s a long way off. I also expect that Tertullian would be difficult for a beginner, though I’m not sure. I’d appreciate if anyone could point me toward some simple Latin texts (perhaps in the same way that John’s gospel is a starting place for Greek students). Pagan writers are okay, but I’m especially interested in Christians.

Suggestions?

~alex

Latin versus German: la langue la plus utile?

~ Alex Poulos ~ 7 Comments

I’m currently debating which language to study next. I’m currently focusing on Greek, and I’ve studied French for years. Both will be necessary before I (God willing) do doctoral work, but I’m currently leaning toward Latin.

The crux is this: I’m on a waiting list at school for a free Rosetta Stone license. I get to pick any one I want to use for 2 months, and they have both Latin and German options. I’m leaning toward Latin for several reasons. First, I think I want to do research on the early Church, and not just the New Testament. Thus, Latin is obviously important when dealing with the Western Church. Second, I don’t think Latin will be too terribly difficult. Vocabulary-wise, I expect to know quite a bit from French. Grammar wise, I expect a lot of similarities with Greek (though I could be totally off base here…). Third, Latin just seems more interesting ;-).

Of course, German has its plus. You open yourself up to a load of secondary literature, but I’m wanting to read the primary literature first!

Any thoughts?

~alex

Church Fathers (in French!)

~ Alex Poulos ~ 2 Comments

I got a few books from the library today. Among them was a sources chrétiennes edition of Origen’s Commentary on Romans. This is a critical text with French translation, and loads of helpful commentary. I’m pleasantly surprised at my French. I’m able to follow along quite nicely and get the gist of what’s being said. Reading in a foreign language can be a mystical experience at times… Now, if only I could read Greek like I do French ;-).

Oh, and I must say, the “source chrétiennes” series is phenomenal, if this work is any indicator. I hope to get my hands on more.

Duh moments in Greek

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So, I had a Duh! moment today while reading the Greek version of Psalm 2. The verse in particular was the 2nd:

“καὶ οἱ ἄρχοντες συνήχθησαν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ
        κατὰ τοῦ κυρίου καὶ κατὰ τοῦ χριστοῦ αὐτοῦ”

For some reason, it never occurred to me that when my English Bible says, “and the rules gather together, against the Lord and against his anointed,” that the early Church would have read this as “and the rulers gather together, against the Lord and against his Messiah. (Gk. Christ)” For some reason I never connected the two in this psalm. Of course the early Church read this messianically! It talks about the nations raging against God and his Christ. I hope I have more “Ah hah!” moments as I work through the psalms. It seems like if we want to understand the early Church’s exegesis, then it’s even more important to read the OT in Greek than it is Hebrew. That is what they were using after all! (for the most part ;-) ) [1]

~alex

[1] I do have a vested interest in that view. After all, I know a little bit of Greek. I don’t know any Hebrew. ;-)

ΠΙΣΤΙΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ in the Apostolic Fathers

~ Alex Poulos ~ 3 Comments

So I’m thinking of doing some posts on πίστις Χριστοῦ in the apostolic fathers. I’m rather interested to see how the early Fathers understood the now controversial phrase, which can be understood as either “faith in Jesus Christ” or “faithfulness of Jesus Christ.” This is a huge debate in Pauline scholarship right now. I’m tentatively in the “faithfulness of Jesus Christ” camp, though I haven’t really read enough of either side. I’ve run some searches through accordance to see what I could find. One particularly interesting bit came in chapter 1 of Ignatius’ letter to the Magnesians. I’ll post the Greek and English here (Michael Holmes’s translation).

“Γνοὺς ὑμῶν τὸ πολυεύτακτον τῆς κατὰ θεὸν ἀγάπης, ἀγαλλιώμενος, προειλάμην ἐν πίστει Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ προσλαλῆσαι ὑμῖν.
καταξιωθεὶς γὰρ ὀνόματος θεοπρεπεστάτου, ἐν οἷς περιφέρω δεσμοῖς ᾄδω τὰς ἐκκλησίας, ἐν αἷς ἕνωσιν εὔχομαι σαρκὸς καὶ πνεύματος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, τοῦ διὰ παντὸς ἡμῶν ζῆν, πίστεώς τε καὶ ἀγάπης, ἧς οὐδὲν προκέκριται, τὸ δὲ κυριώτερον, Ἰησοῦ καὶ πατρός·
ἐν ᾧ ὑπομένοντες τὴν πᾶσαν ἐπήρειαν τοῦ ἄρχοντος τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου καὶ διαφυγόντες θεοῦ τευξόμεθα.”

1) “When I learned how well ordered your love toward God is, I rejoiced and resolved to address you in the faith of Jesus Christ.
2) For inasmuch as I have been judged worthy to bear a most godly name, in these chains that I bear I sing the praises of the churches, and I pray that in them there may be a union of flesh and spirit that comes from Jesus Christ, our never-failing life, and of faith and love, to which nothing is preferable, and—what is more important—of Jesus and the Father.
In him we will reach God, if we patiently endure all the abuse of the ruler of this age and escape.”

Whenever I try to resolve this question, I feel the weight of my Greek ignorance! I’m nowhere near knowledgeable enough to make a reliable judgment on the basis of grammar and syntax, but hopefully I can appeal somewhat to theology and context (two things I can do a bit better than Greek thankfully ;-) ).

Holmes here translates the first bolded phrase as “address you in the faith of Jesus Christ.” To me, this reading sounds like it’s focused on doctrine. “I address you as one who believes the correct things about Jesus.” I don’t think that’s the best way to understand the phrase though. (One thing to do would be to look and see if Ignatius uses “faith” as a short way of saying “Christianity.” He may, though I can’t think of any off the top of my head). I think a better way to render the phrase is “by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ,” with the rest of the chapter as supporting context.

My primary reasons here come from the beginning and end of verse 2. In the beginning of the verse, Ignatius writes, “in these chains I bear, I sing the praises of the churches.” I think the echo is a liturgical one; he’s drawing on the practice of singing together during the Eucharist. The next line follows the “song” with a prayer for the unity of the Church. The liturgy, as Ignatius understood it, was fundamentally participatory. In the Eucharist, the Church shared in the broken body and shed blood of Jesus (according to 1 Cor 10:14-17). This supports a “faithfulness of Jesus” reading because Ignatius is participating in the faithfulness of Christ. He is able to address this church only because of Christ’s faithfulness. In suffering for him, Ignatius shares in his sufferings, and thus shares in Jesus’ faithfulness.

This point is reinforced by the final part of the verse, where Ignatius writes, “In him we will reach God, if we patiently endure all the abuse of the ruler of this age and escape.” The exhortation here is to faithful sufferings, but the basis is participatory: “in him we will reach…” Because of the echoes to the liturgy and to faithful suffering, I think that a “faithfulness of Jesus Christ” reading is justified. Indeed, with Ignatius’ strong emphasis throughout his letters on “suffering with Christ,” many of uses as πἰστις probably have strong “faithfulness” connotations.

Anyway, that’s enough for now. More to come later!

~alex

Book Review: Paul in Fresh Perspective (Part Two)

~ Alex Poulos ~ 5 Comments

This is the second part to a two part review. Part One can be found here.

In the first part of the review, I briefly summarized Part One of Wright’s Paul in Fresh Perspective. This part was entitled ‘Themes.’ This post deals with the second half of the book, which Wright calls ‘Structures.’ ‘Structures’ refers (I think) to the structures of Paul’s thought. This part of the book deals primarily with how the three key Jewish doctrines (monotheism, election, and eschatology) are redrawn by Paul around Jesus and the Spirit. Hence, the chapters entitled, “Rethinking God,” “Reworking God’s People,” and “Reimagining God’s Future.” The final chapter deals with the relationship between Paul and Jesus in the light of the rest of the work: “Jesus, Paul, and the Task of the Church.”

Wright begins, appropriately enough, by exploring Paul’s understanding of monotheism. His argument is Paul’s primary polemical target is not Judaism (or even Jewish Christianity), but Paganism. Wright notes the varieties of monotheism that existed in Paul’s period and defines Paul’s as “covenantal and creational monotheism.” The thrust here is that God is passionately involved with the events of the world, but different from the world (against both stoic pantheism and epicurean deism/atheism). This God of Paul’s has created the world and is working toward putting it to rights. This is a typically Jewish understanding of God, but then Wright shows how Paul’s understanding was different than historic Judaism: it had been redrawn around Jesus and the Spirit.

Beginning with Jesus, he cites several passages where Jesus has been put in places reserved for God in the OT. These include Romans 10:5-13 (where Jesus is the Lord in Paul’s OT exegesis), Philippians 2:5-11(where Jesus is the name at which every knee should bow, though this is Yahweh in Isaiah), and 1 Corinthians 8:5-6 (where Jesus is inserted into the schema, the classic monotheistic confession of Israel). In light of these, he thinks Romans 9:5 should be understood as Jesus being called “the one is God over all.” People often claim that Paul couldn’t possibly be calling Jesus God here, but this a priori dismissal doesn’t hold in light of these other passages. Next, Wright discusses the Spirit. He examines several passages, including Galatians 4:1-8, Romans 8, Romans 10:3, and 1 Corinthians 12:12-14. Wright notes that the Spirit and Son are working together to fulfill God’s promises. The Spirit is instrumental in bringing about the “new exodus.” Additionally, the Spirit marks us for the age to come as members of God’s family. 1 Corinthians 12, while referring to the unity and diversity of the church, serve as a way to understand the complex interactions for Paul of Father, Son, and Spirit. Wright then closes the chapter by examining how this played out in Paul’s churches.

The next chapter deals with the theme of election, “Reworking God’s People.” Election exists to deal with Sin and Death, it calls “a people from, and for, the whole world.” Wright sees Paul as both affirming Israel’s election (as in Romans 9), but redefining it as well (as in Galatians 2:11-21). Here Wright builds off his understanding of justification by faith. For Wright, Paul’s doctrine of justification is not a description of “how people get saved,” but rather “how you know who your family members are.” The question is not one of “getting in,” but rather, “how can I tell who is in?” He cites Gal 2:11-21, where justification deals with a conflict over table fellowship. He then proceeds to discuss Jesus and the Spirit in relation to Election.

Beginning again with Jesus, Wright argues that election is now by the “faithfulness of the Messiah” and not by Torah. Jesus is both the end and fulfillment of Torah. Faith functions as a marker by which we tell who our fellow brothers and sisters are. He discusses the constitution of God’s people in the Messiah, referring both to 1 Cor 10 and especially Eph 2:11-3:13. He cheekily notes when discussing Ephesians that even if Paul didn’t write Ephesians, he would have heartily endorsed it as a statement of his theology. God’s family is now Jew+Gentile and depends on the Messiah, not on Torah. When discussion turns to the Spirit, Wright notes passages like 2 Cor 3. Here, The Spirit stands over against Torah. It is not Torah which marks out God’s people, but the seal of the Holy Spirit. Not only does the Spirit mark God’s people, but he also empowers them to be God’s people, to be who they are.

This brings us to eschatology, “Reimagining God’s Future.” Wright starts here by tracing out the eschatological hopes common in Second Temple Judaism. He maintains that the “return from exile” played a big part here. He discusses several other themes, like Renewal, Resurrection, and Judgment. When discussing Jesus, Wright notes especially that through Jesus, “these are the last days. “ In the resurrection, God’s future has broken into the present (of course noting the now/not-yet dimension of eschatology). The final judgment is redrawn as a resurrection and judgment with Jesus in the middle of things. Likewise, with the Spirit, the Spirit’s coming denotes the “last days,” using Joel 2 has a basis for this. Wright is quick to note that the Spirit’s work links present justification with final justification. By the Spirit, we anticipate in the present our final vindication, the final verdict where God will declare us as ‘righteous.’ Likewise, the Spirit’s work in us and through us assures us that God will have firm grounds to make this declaration.

This brings us at last to the final chapter, “Jesus, Paul, and the Task of the Church.” Here Wright focuses on the relationship between Paul and Jesus. The problem is that Paul doesn’t seem to refer to Jesus’ teachings much. He doesn’t mention the Kingdom of God often, nor does he refer to his ethical rules like the Sermon on the Mount very much. Wright claims that we see a problem because we have reduced them both to “expounders of universal ethical truths.” In doing so, we hopelessly misunderstand them. He argues that when we recover them as “historical people,” we can understand their relationship much more easily. Wright likes the metaphor of “composer and conductor,” or “architect and builder.” (cf. 1 Corinthians 3). Basically, Paul is not out to reproduce Jesus’ teaching verbatim, but to implement the much larger project that Jesus inaugurated. The Kingdom of God ‘discrepancy’ is simply a change in audience. “Kingdom of God” talk resonated deeply with a Jewish audience. It conjured up images of the Messianic Kingdom and the rule of God. This wouldn’t have made much sense to a pagan though, so Paul used different language. “Gospel” and “Lord” were perfectly comprehensible to pagans, so Paul’s announcement of the “real Gospel” of the “real Lord” would have been entirely understandable for pagans. In talking about ethics, Wright argues that Paul is teaching his churches to think Christianly, and not simply giving them a list of rules. This is why he spends much more time grounding his practical instruction in “first principles” rather than giving a laundry list of Jesus’ sayings.

That rounds out the book. This section got quite a bit longer than I anticipated, so my apologies for that. This is a terrific little book from Wright. There’s all sorts of fine details that he doesn’t address, but he does a terrific job of highlighting the “big picture” concerns for Paul. I’d recommend the book to anyone who’s interested in Paul. The book isn’t overly technical, nor is it terribly long, but the content is thought-provoking and worthy of attention!

~alex

On Paul and the Apostolic Fathers

~ Alex Poulos ~ 2 Comments

I loved reading through the Apostolic Fathers and seeing the allusions to the New Testament. I’ve just been going over Polycarp’s letter to the Philippians, chapter 5. It’s remarkable how he combines so many Pauline themes into his epistle. Polycarp’s Philippians 5 definitely alludes to Galatians. It starts with “God is not mocked (Θεὸς ού μυκτηρίζεται).” We also get his allusion back to “walking in the Spirit” with Polycarp’s reference to “the walk (περιπατειν).” Tracing this through to v. 3, we see the “flesh versus Spirit” dichotomy, with Polycarp sharply warning against the “desires of the world (επιθυμια ἐν τῳ κοσμῳ).”

Another fascinating aspect of this is how he conflates several related Pauline letters. For instance, Galatians 5 contains a vice list which ends with “those who live like this will not inherit the Kingdom of God. (βασίλεαν θεοῦ κληρονομήσουσιν)” But Polycarp shows full awareness of the very similar vice list in 1 Corinthians 6 because he quotes vices from that list that aren’t in Galatians. Both end with the bit on not inheriting the kingdom. We also have a subtle allusion to early parts of 1 Corinthians in Polycarp’s Philippians 5:2. Polycarp says that “if we live in a manner worth of him, we will rule with him (συμβασιλεύσομεν), if indeed we trust.” The same word for ruling is used ironically in 1 Corinthians 4:8, where Paul says, “Already you have become rich! You have become kings—and that without us! How I wish that you really had become kings so that we might be kings with you (συμβασιλεύσωμεν)!” In light of chapter 6, where Paul talks about the church judging on the last day, the irony here is not that the Corinthians “are kings,” (they will be someday), but that they are already kings.

Likewise, the flesh/Spirit antithesis in Galatians 5 seems to bring in Ephesians 4-6. Polycarp not only speaks of the flesh “desiring what is contrary to the Spirit,” but also talks about the flesh “waging war against the Spirit. (στρατευεται, literally to serve in the military).” This echoes the great military language of Ephesians 6, where we are instructed to “put on the full armor of God.” Likewise, Polycarp’s affinity for παριπατεω (to walk) links with the adverb αξιῶς (worthy). Paul puts the two together Ephesians 4:1, where the Church is urged to “walk (περιπαῆσαι) in a manner worthy (αξιῶς) of the calling you have received.”

Watching the Apostolic Fathers read Paul is a treat. Or rather, watching Paul write through the Apostolic Fathers is a treat ;-) In this one chapter, Polycarp has leveraged at the very least, 1 Cor 4-6, Eph 4-6, and Gal 5-6. And those are just the ones I found. This early bishop was clearly significantly shaped by Paul, both by his letters, and no doubt by the liturgy that developed from his work. We have a lot to learn from these guys!

~alex

Book Review: Paul in Fresh Perspective (Part One)

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This is part one of a two part review. The second part may be found here.

In preparation for the Paul class I’m taking this fall, I’m looking back through N.T. Wright’s Paul in Fresh Perspective. The book is based of the Hulsean Lectures he did at Cambridge, and was published in 2005. The work contains a wonderful, short outline of Paul’s work. The first part deals with themes. Here, Wright addresses, “Creation and Covenant,” “Messiah and Apocalyptic,” and “Gospel and Empire” in successive chapters. The second part addresses structures, where the chapters are entitled, “Rethinking God,” “Reworking God’s People,” “Reimagining God’s Future,” and then “Jesus, Paul, and the Task of the Church.” I will address Part One in this post, and Part Two in a second.

Wright begins with an introduction that briefly locates Paul in the three worlds: Second Temple Judaism, Hellenistic Culture, and Roman Imperial dominance. It is against this backdrop that Wright works throughout the book. He deals cursorily with some of the interpretative movements over the course of the past 100 years, locating all within historical situations (and noting how this affected the exegesis). For instance, he notes that suspicion over Pauline authorship in Colossians and Ephesians arose “when the all-dominant power of New Testament scholarship lay with a particular kind of German, existentialist Lutheranism for whom any ecclesiology other than a purely functional one, any view of Judaism other than a purely negative one, any view of Jesus Christ other than a fairly low Christology, and view of creation other than a Barthian ‘Nein’, was deeply suspect.” (18). Of course, he also notes the “situatedness” of the movements he sees as helpful, understanding it as a providential grace of God and not a postmodern “deconstructive nihilism.”

Following the introduction, Wright jumps into the themes of “Creation and Covenant.” He locates these first within their Old Testament context. Psalm 19 functions paradigmatically here, where God is extolled in the first half for his creation and in the second for the covenant, the giving of Torah. Wright draws on themes from Genesis, the prophets, and the Psalms. Basically, Covenant should be understood as the solution to the problems in Creation (namely Sin and Death). Abraham is naturally quite important here. God’s promises to Abraham are the basis for God redeeming the cosmos. Particularly, through Abraham, the seed will come through whom “all nations will be blessed.” According to Wright, this is encoded in the phrase δικαιοσυνή θεού (righteousness of God). Wright understands God’s righteousness as God’s faithful fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham. This climaxes in Jesus, the Messiah, who is “the seed to whom the promise referred.” Wright looks at three passages here Colossians 1:15-20 (he notes the controversy of including Colossians), 1 Corinthians 15, and Romans 1-11. He traces creation and covenant through these 3 passages from a “bird’s eye view.”

Proceeding, Wright moves on to “Messiah and Apocalyptic.” Here, he notes the notoriously slippery meaning of the word “apocalyptic.” He argues that term, as it has often been used, is misguided. He takes issue in particular with the idea that Second Temple Jews expected an impending end to the space time universe, which has often been the assumption of “apocalyptic.” Rather, he argues that “apocalyptic” in Paul should be understood in terms of revelation. God has revealed his plans for the world. These include a “new heaven and a new earth,” not simply a destruction of the present world and a “whisking away” to Heaven. This revelation has taken place supremely through Jesus the Messiah. Wright spends a good deal of space debunking the claim that “Christ” functioned merely like another name by Paul’s time. He argues instead that the title “Christ” has royal and messianic connotations, and needs to be understood as such. This locates Jesus more easily within the OT themes which Wright explored in the prior chapter.

This brings us to the final pair of themes, “Gospel and Empire.” Whereas the prior two chapters locate Paul largely within Second Temple Judaism, this chapter pits Paul against the Greco-Roman society, especially the imperial Roman Empire. He warns readers that is all too easy to impose “post-Enlightenment” divisions of “religion and politics” back onto first century texts. The political situations which Paul faced are significantly different than those encountered in modern, Western democracies. Wright then proceeds to show the implicit imperial critique in Paul’s writing. He notes that Paul draws on imperial language quite often to explain the Gospel. Some of these words include ευαγγελιον(gosepl, or good news), κυριος (lord), σωτερ (savior), and παρουσια (royal appearing). For Wright, it is implicit that whenever Paul says “Jesus is Lord” he also means “Caesar is not.” He treats Philippians 3:20-21 in some detail here, and also briefly addresses 1 Thessalonians 4-5. The crux of the chapter is that Jesus’ gospel stands over against the “good news” of Caesar.

That wraps up the first section of the book. I’ll work through the second part of the book in a second post.

~alex