Rumors of Resistance

 James C. Scott’s discussion of “hidden transcripts” of defiance or resistance among subordinate groups has been taken up by scholars who claim to detect elements of defiant transcripts in biblical texts. In Rumors of Resistance, Amanda C. Miller uses Scott’s theory to explain tensions within the narrative of the Gospel of Luke, between more accommodationist narratives and poetic or parabolic passages that announce a dramatic eschatological reversal. Miller concludes that Luke’s audience would have been challenged to resist the dominant values of Roman imperial culture even as the narrative framework of Luke partially obscures that “transcript.”