Hidden Transcripts. Social scientist and anthropologist James C. Scott unwittingly ignited a revolution in biblical studies with the publication of his Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts in 1990.[1] Scott’s study of peasant and agrarian societies led him to discover certain recurring dynamics of discourse in contexts where asymmetrical power relations obtain, that is to say, in political economies in which a dispossessed class is dominated by an elite, ruling class. Although Scott’s primary work was done in Malaysian peasant societies, his investigation has spanned continents and centuries, and, while his postmodernist sensibilities make him reticent to attempt the construction of any universal theory of power relations, Scott has nevertheless observed “structurally similar forms of domination,” in “cases of slavery, serfdom, and caste subordination,” forms of domination which “bear a family resemblance to one another[2] . . . across cultures and historical epochs” (x).

The main lines of Scott’s observations are as follows: In political economies marked by inequitable power relations, such as in systems of chattel slavery or under colonization, the norm is for the political discourse of the dominated to “dissemble,” that is, “to feign obedience and loyalty to the colonial overlords while pursuing its own hidden agenda” (Herzog 1994: 341). On the surface of such an economy there is what Scott has called the “public transcript,” which represents the “official” interpretation of political events and power relations, engineered and controlled by the ruling elites. Invariably, eddying beneath the surface of such an economy, there is also the “hidden transcript,” a clandestine discourse produced by the subjects of domination. The public transcript is “a shorthand way of describing the open interaction between subordinates and those who dominate” (Scott 1990: 2), whereas the hidden transcript is the “discourse that takes place ‘offstage,’ beyond direct observation by powerholders” (4). Put differently, the public, “onstage,” transcript represents “the self-portrait of dominant elites as they would have themselves seen” (18), while the hidden, “offstage,” transcript, is the discourse of the oppressed, and represents what they truly think about their rulers.[3]

Not surprisingly, the hidden transcript is often “derivative in the sense that it consists of those offstage speeches, gestures, and practices that confirm, contradict, or inflect what appears in the public transcript” (4-5). This is significant, because the derivative character of the hidden transcript allows the oppressed, in the midst of onstage performances of the public transcript, to insert allusions, generally imperceptible to the ruling elites, to the hidden transcript, thus counterfeiting conformity to the architecture of the powerholders while simultaneously engendering solidarity among the dispossessed collaborators. Despite designs for resistance that parade just behind the facade of servile genuflection, the public discourse of the subordinated nevertheless continues to conform to the public transcript and defer to the “flattering self-image of elites” (18) because it is “simply a matter of survival for the powerless to appear compliant and obedient” (Herzog 1994: 341). Scott calls this third form of discourse—which is a commixture of the public and the private transcripts in a single onstage performance—a “politics of disguise and anonymity.” Though it takes place onstage, where the actors are the most vulnerable, it is “designed to have a double meaning” that serves “to shield the identity of the actors,” for their protection. But “a partly sanitized, ambiguous and coded version of the hidden transcript is always present in the public discourse of the subordinate groups” (18-19).

Needless to say, many biblical scholars have found Scott’s observations considerably useful for identifying the effects of Roman-Palestinian power relations on the public discourse of first century Jews, specifically the discourses of Jesus and Paul.[4] Although we are still in the beginning stages of testing the fruitfulness of Scott’s categories (categories which Scott insists are not original to himself), several biblical historians and exegetes have already attempted to read our text, Romans 13:1-7, as an instance of the kind of intersection at which the offstage and onstage transcripts meet to form a “politics of disguise and anonymity.” In this next section of the essay, we will evaluate four different readings of Romans 13:1-7 that have sought to understand Paul’s oral performance in light of the work of James C. Scott.

Labels: New Perspective on Paul, Paul, Pauline Theology, Romans 13