Again, this may be true as far as it goes. Nonetheless, Jesus’ ascension
to heaven (together with the peace his birth inaugurated) does not merely
signify in Luke-Acts Jesus’ removal from life on earth but also equally his
elevation to the highest level of cosmic authority, which is the realm of
the gods. Jesus now sits in Acts at the right hand of divine glory, which in
ancient understandings of the constitution of political power, also says
something about governance on earth. For this reason, if not directly chal-
lenging Roman imperial rule (by placing Jesus and the kingdom of God
beyond Rome’s immediate sphere of influence), Acts simultaneously installs
both Jesus and the kingdom of God cosmologically above the Roman Empire
and thereby, implicitly, in a position whence eventually to assume the pre-
rogatives of such a reign.
The Birth Narratives in Luke 1–2
It is often suggested that the explicit reference in Luke 2:1 to (a decree of)
Caesar Augustus, which not only defines when but also why Jesus was
born in Bethlehem, helps to articulate the Gospel’s opposition between the
Pax Romanathat officially began with Augustus’s birth and the early Chris-
tian realm of peace “on earth...among persons of good will,” which is her-
alded by the angels in Luke 2:14 (cf. R.A. Horsley 1989, 32–33). Thus, for
example, Raymond E. Brown writes:
It can scarcely be accidental that Luke’s description of the birth of Jesus
presents an implicit challenge to this imperial propaganda, not by deny-
ing the imperial ideals, but by claiming that the real peace of the world
was brought about by Jesus. The testimony to the pax Christiwas not a
man-made altar such as that erected to the pax Augusta; rather, there was
a heavenly host that proclaimed peace to those favoured by God. The
birthday worthy of divine honor and marking the true new beginning
of time took place not in Rome but in Bethlehem. The claim in the
Priene inscription of Augustus, “The birthday of the god has marked the
beginning of the good news for the world,” has been reinterpreted by
an angel of the Lord with the heraldic cry: “I announce to you good
news of a great joy which will be for the whole people: To you this day
there is born in the city of David a Saviour who is Messiah and Lord”
(Luke 2:10–11). (R.E. Brown 1977, 415–16)Once more, all of this may be true as far as it goes. But notice how, in
Brown’s own reading of the narrative of Jesus’ birth in Luke, the evange-
list’s “implicit challenge to this imperial propaganda” is accomplished, as
Brown puts it (with my emphasis), “not by denying the imperial ideals,but by
claiming that the real peace of the world was brought about by Jesus.” In