Paul has been regarded as being uncritical of the Roman Empire for a long time, not least because of his apparent call to obey the state in Rom 13:1-7. However, recent scholarship has questioned this assumption by pointing to "hidden criticism" in the letters of the apostle. But how can we decide, in a methodologically sound way, whether such a counter-imperial message lies beneath the surface of the text? On the basis of insights from the philosophy of science, Christoph Heilig suggests several analytical steps for examining this paradigm. He concludes that the hypothesis that we can...

N. T. Wright's Paul and the Faithfulness of God is the culmination of his long, influential, and often controversial career--a landmark study of the history and thought of the Apostle Paul, which attempts to make fresh suggestions in a variety of sub-fields of New Testament studies. This volume brings together a group of international scholars to critically weigh and assess an array of issues in Wright's work, including methodology, first-century contextual factors, exegetical findings, and theological implications. In so doing, the volume's contributors bring these facets of Paul and the...