Kingdom of Bureaucracy

The Sayings Gospel Q was composed in the central decades of the first

century CE by Galilean villagers who had acquired knowledge of Greek

mostly through their involvement with the public administration. The

present book analyzes the text of Q in order to rediscover the

terminological and ideological traces of the activity of these sub-elite

scribes in the Sayings Gospel. Given the bureaucratic positions occupied

by the members of this group, the peculiar use of the phrase Basileia

tou theou carries a specific significance for its theological

political implications. On the basis of Giorgio Agamben’s recent

revision of the category of political theology, the attitude of Q on

divine kingship is understood as an instance of sub-elite negotiation of

social and political positions vis-à-vis the expansion of Roman imperial

hegemony in the eastern Mediterranean. In this context the author(s) of

Q envisage apocalyptic scenarios in which divine kingship replaces human

rulers and native sub-elite bureaucrats can share in the exercise of

cosmic government.