Customer Reviews

Angels and Principalities: The Background, Meaning and Development of the Pauline Phrase hai archai kai hai exousiai (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series)

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This book caused quite a stir when it was first published, since it appeared to destroy the consensus that had existed on the language of power in the New Testament. Carr's thesis is that there are no such thing as evil spirits - power is only good. To support this thesis he ignores crucial evidence, mistranslates others, and declares the crucial Pauline verse Ephesians 6:12 a second century interpolation, without any textual evidence to support this. Walter Wink, the distinguished biblical scholar describes this book as 'persuasively argued error' and it prompted Wink to write the acclaimed 'Naming the Powers' in which he exposes Carr's dishonesty and wilful misrepresentation of evidence. As Walter Wink put is:

'Carr insists that the terms for power are used in Jewish literature not to refer to evil spirits, demons, or Satan, but only to obedient angelic powers whose activity and presence confirm to the status of Yahweh, that the world into which the gospel came was not a world that longed for release from powers, that the Christian message was not one of a cosmic battle in which Christ rescued humanity from the domination of such forces. ...But the evidence points in almost the opposite direction from everything Carr asserts.'