Customer Reviews

John's Gospel in the New Perspective: Christology and the Realities of Roman Power

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This book is very significant for Johannine studies. As well as documenting telling connections between Johannine Christianity's religious commitments against their Roman backdrops, this book demolishes the naive view that because Roman persecution of Christians is not documented in Roman historical records until the third century one cannot infer the Roman empire was a source of hardship for Christians in the first and second centuries CE. Cassidy builds a convincing picture, based on the events between the reigns of Vespasian and Tatian, of what interactions with the empire may have been like for Mediterranean residents of the early Christian era. All it takes is some local enforcement of empirial clout for the Roman presence to have been experienced as problematic for Christians and Jews during this era.

Paul N. Anderson

Visiting Associate Professor of New Testament, Yale Divinity School

This was a really interesting book and covered aspects of the New Testament period and early Christianity that usually is not considered adequately, namely the setting of the Roman Empire and what effects this might have had on Chrsitianity and the early Church. The book is thoughtful.