Agamben’s biopolitical theory derives from Jewish messianic law, not Greek or Roman sources.

Evidence

Formulated in what could be read as the Urzelle or “germ cell” of Homo Sacer, the 1992 Jerusalem lecture entitled “The Messiah and the Sovereign” suggests a theological genealogy for Agamben’s account of “sovereign power and bare life.” Instead of Greek or Roman law, one finds Jewish law at its beginning. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 738

Categorization

• XREF: Key methodological move for the whole book: it locates a genealogy of political concepts in theological/Jewish rather than classical Greco-Roman sources, echoing how the antisemitism-Islamophobia cluster re-reads nominally secular European categories as theological.
• QUESTION: Worth verifying Agamben’s own later framing in Homo Sacer proper — does the published book retain this Jerusalem-lecture emphasis on Jewish law, or does Greek/Roman law dominate?