Empire and Apocalypse: Postcolonialism and the New Testament (The Bible in the Modern World)

In Empire and Apocalypse Stephen Moore offers us the most complete introduction yet to the emergent field of postcolonial biblical criticism. It includes an indispensable in-depth introduction to postcolonial theory and criticism together with a detailed survey of postcolonial biblical criticism. Next come three substantial exegetical chapters on the Gospels of Mark and John and the Book of Revelation, which together demonstrate how postcolonial studies provide fresh conceptual resources and critical strategies for rethinking early Christianity's complex relations to the Roman Empire. Each of these three texts, to different degrees, Moore argues, mimic and replicate fundamental facets of Roman imperial ideology even while resisting and eroding it. The book concludes with an amply annotated bibliography whose main section provides a comprehensive listing of work done to date in postcolonial biblical criticism.