Apostle to the Conquered reveals the subversive heart of Paul's theology, reframing his "conversion" in terms of "consciousness," and his exhortations as a politics of the new creation.

What did Paul mean by identifying himself as "apostle to the nations"? Davina C. Lopez finds the surprising answer in the way the Roman Empire depicted the relationship between conquering and conquered peoples in myths, inscriptions, and especially in the visual repertoire of statues and reliefs found in every Roman city. While Roman power was represented as aggressive and masculine, conquered peoples were systematically represented by images of helpless women. Lopez uses this key to unlock the themes of Paul's apostleship in a gender-critical "re-imagination" of his mission. Tracing themes of conquest and domination throughout sources contemporary with Paul, Lopez shows that Paul's language of "the nations" would have been heard by his contemporaries as confronting the Roman ideology of power and expressing solidarity with defeated peoples. Apostle to the Conquered reveals the subversive heart of Paul's theology, reframing his "conversion" in terms of "consciousness", and his exhortations as a politics of the new creation.

Elliott offers a fresh and surprising reinterpretation of Paul's 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 people's 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 Paul's confrontation with the arrogance of empire—and an emerging Christianity already tempted by the seductive ideology of imperial power.

Uncircumcised messianic Galatians are no longer enslaved to those who by nature are not gods (Gal 4:8), but have become known by God and one with Israel, included as sons of Abraham without the need for circumcision, representing the eschatological movement of the nations turning to God, the beginning of a new creation triggered by the resurrection of God's crucified Son. Only if they keep their foreskins are they truly "nations." Only if they worship God alone, uncircumcised as they are, do they testify to the new creation that has started to transform the world. Their circumcision would not be a return to Jewish orthodoxy (for they have never been Jews) but, on the contrary, a concession to imperial idolatry, that compromises with a world ordered in the image of Caesar.

Though the Alps may appear to be a peaceful place, the famed mountains once provided the backdrop for a political, environmental, and cultural battle as Germany and Austria struggled to modernize. Tait Keller examines the mountains' threefold role in transforming the two countries, as people sought respite in the mountains, transformed and shaped them according to their needs, and over time began to view them as national symbols and icons of individualism. In the mid-nineteenth century, the Alps were regarded as a place of solace from industrial development and the stresses of urban life. Soon, however, mountaineers, or the so-called apostles of the Alps, began carving the crags to suit their whims, altering the natural landscape with trails and lodges, and seeking to modernize and nationalize the high frontier. Disagreements over the meaning of modernization opened the mountains to competing agendas and hostile ambitions. Keller examines the ways in which these opposing approaches corresponded to the political battles, social conflicts, culture wars, and environmental crusades that shaped modern Germany and Austria, placing the Alpine borderlands at the heart of the German question of nationhood.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 edition. Excerpt: ... Ill translation and commentary A. the jewish period--chapters I-vii From The Ascension Of Christ Until Stephen's Martyrdom. A. D. 30 To A. D. 33 chapter I introduction and preparation commentary Paragraph i. Luke's Preface. Verses 1-5. The author, whom we account with most to have been Luke, the writer of the Third Gospel, relates the present work to that which had preceded it both by referring to the former as "first" and by describing it as giving a narrative of "all the things which Jesus began to do and teach until the day of His Ascension." The book now submitted to Theophilus repeats for introduction the last scene of the former work, that of the Ascension, and thus gives double emphasis and prominence to this great event. He makes the total period of forty days from the resurrection forward but one progressive phase of the Lord's Ascension, as does Christ himself in His remark to Mary Magdalene in John xx, 17; and Paul often, as in Eph. iv, 8-10; Phil, iii, 1-12; Col. iii, 1. As before His passion, so here Luke indicates that the chief theme of the Master's discourse was the Kingdom of God, the supreme theme of profitable thought. In the incarnation the Kingdom drew near and John the Baptist sealed it in a baptism of water. At the Ascension it was consummated and was sealed by the Father in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Thus, in this brief Preface, Luke has given us the key to his twofold treatment, in his former and latter treatise, of the highest purpose and plan of God, Father, Son, and Spirit, to establish once and for all the reign of the Triune God upon earth. The Gospel prepared the way; the Acts enters upon the campaign of conquest. Paragraph

Through this verse-by-verse study of the Book of Revelation, Conquest & Glory offers, both, biblical insights and practical life application. In this first of two volumes, the author has included a comprehensive introduction to the Apocalypse, careful exposition of Chapters 1-7, and a textual concordance with theological overview.