The Provincial Contexts of Paul’s Imprisonments: Law Enforcement and Criminal Procedure in the Roman East

Brélaz, Cédric

doi:10.1177/0142064x21989658

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 23 publications

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“…The Jews were known to be a potentially rebellious people and the Romans decided to use Paul's unjustified incarceration to prevent Jewish resentment from turning into open rebellion. Thus, Paul's detention was not about justice but for the political expediency of the Roman authorities (Brelaz 2021). McRay (1995) points out that life in a Roman prison was a humiliating, painful and bloody ordeal.…”

Section: Acts 23:34-35 Vis-à-vis Zimbabwean Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Paul, the prisoner (Acts 23:34-35): An insight into 2018-2022 political prisoner’s rights in Zimbabwe

Chabata

2023

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies

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Undisputed letters of Paul and Acts of the Apostles are replete with details of the Gentile Missionary’s multiple imprisonments, so much as to qualify him a ‘jailbird’ description. Paul’s incarceration in Herod’s palace for 2 years (Ac 23:34–35), his arraignment before Governor Felix and subsequent detention for 5 days before plea (Acts 24) on charges of inciting public violence, being a ringleader of a cultic faction and causing disturbances in the Jerusalem Temple, resonate with the contentious arrests and imprisonment without bail and trial of members of opposition political parties in Zimbabwe. Consistent with New Testament passages that exhort caring for prisoners and the need to grant justice to those facing trial, this study seeks to understand how inmates in Zimbabwean prisons have been on the receiving end of relics of the ancient Roman Legal system in the country’s Human Rights history between 2018 and 2022. The article demonstrates how the New Testament can be deployed to grapple with distress calls emerging from Zimbabwe’s prison walls as part of advocacy for judicial reforms in the country’s quest for rule of Law. At the end, the article recommends ways in which Churches in Zimbabwe can tap from New Testament passages how to operate an effective prison ministry in liaison with the Prisons and Correctional Services Department of the Government of Zimbabwe. The article employs qualitative methods of Socio-Historical and Ethnographic Analyses to discuss how human rights pitfalls in Paul’s imprisonments present remedial lessons in Zimbabwe’s quest for judicial reforms.Contribution: Deployment of the Bible to redress Human Rights issues in Zimbabwe. Demonstration of how Early Christian Literature can dialogue with contemporary African Sitz im Leben for social transformation.

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Section: Acts 23:34-35 Vis-à-vis Zimbabwean Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Paul, the prisoner (Acts 23:34-35): An insight into 2018-2022 political prisoner’s rights in Zimbabwe

Chabata

2023

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies

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Helenistik ve Roma İmparatorluk Dönemi Küçük Asya’sında Kırsalı Korumak: Yönetim, Finansman ve Vergilendirme

Brélaz

2021

Gephyra

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Drawing on the publication of a dozen of new inscriptions during the past fifteen years, the article examines the administrative, financial and fiscal implications of patrolling the countryside (phylake tes choras) in Greek cities of Asia Minor during the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods. Due to the lack of permanent institutions dealing with the policing of their rural territories and because of cash shortage, Hellenistic cities, and sometimes kings themselves, were forced to find various and complex solutions to set up and fund such a service. These included the granting of tax exemptions to inhabitants of rural settlements policing the countryside, the hiring under contract of private persons who would take care of patrolling in exchange for payment, or the leasing of the service by contractors who would be allowed to collect taxes in order to refund themselves. Thanks to a recently published inscription from Thessaly as well as a passage from Polyaenus’ Stratagems, the paper reassesses the provisions related to this issue included in the alliance treaty between Miletos and Herakleia and raises the question as to the extent to which guards were actually involved with tax collection. During the Imperial period, officials known as paraphylakes were appointed by cities throughout the provinces of Asia Minor to deal with public security in the countryside. Newly published evidence from various cities of Asia Minor, in particular from Phrygian Hierapolis, sheds new light on the funding of patrolling, on the economic duties of paraphylakes, as well as on the impact on rural communities of the benefactions, as well as of the abuses, of these officials. The paper argues that, although they were active in the countryside, paraphylakes were not responsible for the collection of taxes, contrary to dekaprotoi, who emerged about the same time during the first century CE. Even if Roman provincial administration relied on these two offices as far as law enforcement and tax collection at the local level were concerned, they were not created by Roman power and should rather be seen as another proof of the autonomy Greek cities enjoyed under imperial rule.

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The Provincial Contexts of Paul’s Imprisonments: Law Enforcement and Criminal Procedure in the Roman East

Cited by 2 publications

References 23 publications

Paul, the prisoner (Acts 23:34-35): An insight into 2018-2022 political prisoner’s rights in Zimbabwe

Paul, the prisoner (Acts 23:34-35): An insight into 2018-2022 political prisoner’s rights in Zimbabwe

Helenistik ve Roma İmparatorluk Dönemi Küçük Asya’sında Kırsalı Korumak: Yönetim, Finansman ve Vergilendirme

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