Anti-Imperial Subtexts in Paul 309 Georgi has recently garnered strong support from Robert Jewett. In his massive and erudite commentary, Jewett argues that Romans is an “anti-imperialist letter” that “comprises the antithesis of official propaganda about Rome’s superior piety, justice, and honor” (14). The letter of Romans, far from being a theological treatise, is nothing less than Paul’s answer to Rome’s usurpation of God’s rightful power. Jewett, like Georgi, is convinced that the vocabulary of Romans, with its parallels in Roman imperial propaganda, makes this abundantly clear (15). By far the most important term seen by some scholars as anti- imperial in its intent is kuvrio". Harrison notes that the term was used from the time of Augustus in propagating the imperial cult (16). For Wright this fact takes on tremendous importance. While he does not neglect the important OT resonances of the term in Paul, he argues that by calling Jesus kuvrio", Paul is consciously and with equal conviction maintaining that Caesar is not the kuvrio" (17). This line of reasoning is followed by many others, and it would certainly constitute prima facie evidence in favor of the thesis that Paul was trying to subvert Rome, if it could be proven. The argument from vocabulary, however, labors under several problems: First, every one of the terms mentioned by Georgi has a rich Septuagintal tradition. As Denny Burk notes, “it is manifestly clear that Paul’s selection of terms is driven in large part by his interface with the LXX Scriptures” (18). Indeed, it is hard to see how anyone wanting to proclaim in Greek the message that Jesus of Nazareth represented the culmination of OT prophetic expectations could have done so without recourse to that vocabulary. And if one wanted to bring Jesus into the closest of associations with Israel’s God, as Bauckham (19) and Hurtado(20) have demonstrated it was earliest Christianity’s desire to do, then the term kuvrio" is likely the first one they would have appropriated. (14) JEWETT, Romans, 2, 49. (15) Cf. e.g. JEWETT’s (Romans, 138-139) analysis of the term swthria. v (16) HARRISON, “Thessaloniki”, 78. (17) Cf. WRIGHT, Saint Paul, 88; ID., “Paul’s Gospel”, 174. (18) D. BURK, “Is Paul’s Gospel Counterimperial? Evaluating the Prospects of the ‘Fresh Perspective’ for Evangelical Theology”, JETS 51 (2008) 317. (19) Cf. R. BAUCKHAM, God Crucified. Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI 1998) 4. (20) Cf. L.W. HURTADO, Lord Jesus Christ. Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI 2003) 3.