My article ‘The State They Were In: Luke’s View of the Roman Empire’ available to download

As a follow up to my review of the interesting Jesus is Lord: Caesar is Not, with kind permission from the editor, Peter Oakes, I’m making my article ‘The State They Were In: Luke’s View of the Roman Empire’ from Peter Oakes, ed., Rome in the Bible and the Early Church (Carlisle: Paternoster/Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002) 1-41 available on this site for free download, since the book itself is (sadly) out of print.

Pick it the article from this link: The State They Were In: Luke’s View of the Roman Empire—the file is a searchable pdf of about 16MB, so it may take a little time to download.

The article aims to give an overview of how scholars have thought about this issue, identifying six approaches, and offering my proposal for what I think is a nuanced view. Enjoy!