{"title":"A Sign For You: A Child Savior Revealed to Child Shepherds","authors":"A. Allen","doi":"10.1163/15685152-00284p05","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\nDrawing on parallels from Jewish, Greco-Roman, and Early Christian sources alongside of sociological models of agriculture in subsistence economies, this essay makes the case for the presence (if not preponderance) of child shepherds among those who receive the angelic message in Luke 2:1–20. By engaging a childist reading that both considers the position of the shepherds with regards to their economic and social standing in Bethlehem and re-reads the angelic message and proclamation of an infant as sign in light of such a youthful audience, this essay reframes the perceived identity of the Bethlehem shepherds to foreground the children in their midst.","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2020-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15685152-00284p05","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-00284p05","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"RELIGION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Drawing on parallels from Jewish, Greco-Roman, and Early Christian sources alongside of sociological models of agriculture in subsistence economies, this essay makes the case for the presence (if not preponderance) of child shepherds among those who receive the angelic message in Luke 2:1–20. By engaging a childist reading that both considers the position of the shepherds with regards to their economic and social standing in Bethlehem and re-reads the angelic message and proclamation of an infant as sign in light of such a youthful audience, this essay reframes the perceived identity of the Bethlehem shepherds to foreground the children in their midst.
期刊介绍:
This innovative and highly acclaimed journal publishes articles on various aspects of critical biblical scholarship in a complex global context. The journal provides a medium for the development and exercise of a whole range of current interpretive trajectories, as well as deliberation and appraisal of methodological foci and resources. Alongside individual essays on various subjects submitted by authors, the journal welcomes proposals for special issues that focus on particular emergent themes and analytical trends. Over the past two decades, Biblical Interpretation has provided a professional forum for pushing the disciplinary boundaries of biblical studies: not only in terms of what biblical texts mean, but also what questions to ask of biblical texts, as well as what resources to use in reading biblical literature. The journal has thus the distinction of serving as a site for theoretical reflection and methodological experimentation.