Pub Date : 2022-08-11DOI: 10.1163/15685152-20221708
F. S. Spencer
This article undertakes an intertextual reading of Acts’s story of the Ethiopian eunuch with Song of Songs, focusing on similar and distinctive aspects of multifaceted characterizations related to sexual identity, social-political status, environmental setting, and religious orientation. This reading highlights two parts of the biblical canon that create limited space for borderline, unconventional persons and practices, particularly pushing normative boundaries pertaining to gender, sexuality, and hierarchy.
{"title":"Setting the Story of the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:26–40) to the Soundtrack of Song of Songs: An Intertextual and Intersectional Performance","authors":"F. S. Spencer","doi":"10.1163/15685152-20221708","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-20221708","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article undertakes an intertextual reading of Acts’s story of the Ethiopian eunuch with Song of Songs, focusing on similar and distinctive aspects of multifaceted characterizations related to sexual identity, social-political status, environmental setting, and religious orientation. This reading highlights two parts of the biblical canon that create limited space for borderline, unconventional persons and practices, particularly pushing normative boundaries pertaining to gender, sexuality, and hierarchy.","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-08-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44805207","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-19DOI: 10.1163/15685152-20221655
Frederick David Carr
Recent research on disability and the Bible has made distinctive contributions to the field of biblical studies. Most work in this area focuses on representations of disability in the Bible, biblical language related to disability, or biblical themes that can be used for theologies of disability. This article proposes that scholars broaden the scope of this research by drawing on a disability consciousness to interpret texts that do not ostensibly discuss disability or disability-related themes. As a case study, this essay examines Philippians 3:2–11 in light of contemporary debates about cochlear implantation, and it argues that discourse about cochlear implants can inform debates about the ethno-religious identities of Paul and the Philippians. In so doing, the interpretive exercise supports the larger, hermeneutical thesis that a disability consciousness can yield insights into biblical passages—and related scholarly interests—that do not explicitly concern disability or themes commonly related to disability.
{"title":"Paul, Cochlear Implantation, and Biblical Interpretation: Expanding the Scope of Disability Hermeneutics","authors":"Frederick David Carr","doi":"10.1163/15685152-20221655","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-20221655","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Recent research on disability and the Bible has made distinctive contributions to the field of biblical studies. Most work in this area focuses on representations of disability in the Bible, biblical language related to disability, or biblical themes that can be used for theologies of disability. This article proposes that scholars broaden the scope of this research by drawing on a disability consciousness to interpret texts that do not ostensibly discuss disability or disability-related themes. As a case study, this essay examines Philippians 3:2–11 in light of contemporary debates about cochlear implantation, and it argues that discourse about cochlear implants can inform debates about the ethno-religious identities of Paul and the Philippians. In so doing, the interpretive exercise supports the larger, hermeneutical thesis that a disability consciousness can yield insights into biblical passages—and related scholarly interests—that do not explicitly concern disability or themes commonly related to disability.","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49477211","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-18DOI: 10.1163/15685152-20221517
M. Goodacre
Erasure History is a subset of the discipline of counter-factual history, an exploration in imagining history without a work that scholars see as pivotal. Erasing Mark’s gospel provides a fruitful thought experiment about the key role it plays in current scholarly reflections on Christian origins. This article imagines the erasure of Mark under three different headings. First, Mark is erased from the surviving manuscript record, imagining that Mark was indeed written and that it was a source for Matthew and Luke, but that no witness to it survived antiquity. Second, Mark is erased from history only to resurface in a handful of manuscript fragments in the 1890s and 1900s, and a more complete textual witness in 1945. Finally, and most drastically, the article imagines that the boy who grew up to be the author of Mark’s gospel did not survive childhood and that his gospel never existed.
{"title":"A World without Mark: an Experiment in Erasure History","authors":"M. Goodacre","doi":"10.1163/15685152-20221517","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-20221517","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Erasure History is a subset of the discipline of counter-factual history, an exploration in imagining history without a work that scholars see as pivotal. Erasing Mark’s gospel provides a fruitful thought experiment about the key role it plays in current scholarly reflections on Christian origins. This article imagines the erasure of Mark under three different headings. First, Mark is erased from the surviving manuscript record, imagining that Mark was indeed written and that it was a source for Matthew and Luke, but that no witness to it survived antiquity. Second, Mark is erased from history only to resurface in a handful of manuscript fragments in the 1890s and 1900s, and a more complete textual witness in 1945. Finally, and most drastically, the article imagines that the boy who grew up to be the author of Mark’s gospel did not survive childhood and that his gospel never existed.","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49561868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-18DOI: 10.1163/15685152-20221579
Kengo Akiyama
This article problematizes the common distinction between production and reception in biblical studies with Septuagint study as a case in point. The article illustrates the problem in connection with two recent, major translation projects, A New English Translation of the Septuagint and Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included under That Title and La Bible d’Alexandrie. I argue that the binary classification of production and reception is inadequate to capture the textual history of the Septuagint and suggest an alternative way to conceptualize the development.
{"title":"The Constitutive Problem of the Septuagint","authors":"Kengo Akiyama","doi":"10.1163/15685152-20221579","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-20221579","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article problematizes the common distinction between production and reception in biblical studies with Septuagint study as a case in point. The article illustrates the problem in connection with two recent, major translation projects, A New English Translation of the Septuagint and Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included under That Title and La Bible d’Alexandrie. I argue that the binary classification of production and reception is inadequate to capture the textual history of the Septuagint and suggest an alternative way to conceptualize the development.","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48644984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-18DOI: 10.1163/15685152-20221656
L. B. Noya
In this article, I aim to read Onan’s action in Gen 38 not simply as an act of transgression but also as a form of resistance to oppressive structures. I will demonstrate that Onan is resisting the dominating structure of levirate marriage that was strongly connected with patriarchy, heteronormativity, and hegemonic masculinity. To support this argument, I divide this article into three parts. First, I revisit the earlier interpretations of Onan’s narrative. Then, I explain Onan’s situational context and discuss the possibility of reading his narrative through the postcolonial, queer, and gender-critical lenses. Finally, I conclude that Onan’s action is an act of resistance toward oppressing systems of culture and that his act takes into account Tamar’s interest in achieving proper livelihood.
{"title":"I Am Onan: Rereading the So-Called Transgression of Wasting Seed","authors":"L. B. Noya","doi":"10.1163/15685152-20221656","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-20221656","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In this article, I aim to read Onan’s action in Gen 38 not simply as an act of transgression but also as a form of resistance to oppressive structures. I will demonstrate that Onan is resisting the dominating structure of levirate marriage that was strongly connected with patriarchy, heteronormativity, and hegemonic masculinity. To support this argument, I divide this article into three parts. First, I revisit the earlier interpretations of Onan’s narrative. Then, I explain Onan’s situational context and discuss the possibility of reading his narrative through the postcolonial, queer, and gender-critical lenses. Finally, I conclude that Onan’s action is an act of resistance toward oppressing systems of culture and that his act takes into account Tamar’s interest in achieving proper livelihood.","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42374250","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-18DOI: 10.1163/15685152-20221678
Rebekah J. Haigh
In Joshua’s opening military salvo at Jericho (6:8–21), he institutes a strange, oft-overlooked act of communal speechlessness. This absence of speech can be understood as itself a kind of ritual speech. As this paper will argue, Joshua can kill things with and without words. When seen against a backdrop of Near Eastern magic and divine warfare, Joshua emerges as a powerful ritualist, someone who weaponizes speech and speechlessness in service of military victory. As with Joshua’s adjuration in the Aijalon battle (10:12–14) and his curse over Jericho (6:26), his wordless march around the city can be understood as a ritual act with the performative force of cessation. The silencing of the land is both his ritual objective and the ultimate goal of conquest (11:23).
{"title":"Silencing the Land: Joshua as a Military Ritualist","authors":"Rebekah J. Haigh","doi":"10.1163/15685152-20221678","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-20221678","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In Joshua’s opening military salvo at Jericho (6:8–21), he institutes a strange, oft-overlooked act of communal speechlessness. This absence of speech can be understood as itself a kind of ritual speech. As this paper will argue, Joshua can kill things with and without words. When seen against a backdrop of Near Eastern magic and divine warfare, Joshua emerges as a powerful ritualist, someone who weaponizes speech and speechlessness in service of military victory. As with Joshua’s adjuration in the Aijalon battle (10:12–14) and his curse over Jericho (6:26), his wordless march around the city can be understood as a ritual act with the performative force of cessation. The silencing of the land is both his ritual objective and the ultimate goal of conquest (11:23).","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46051796","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-18DOI: 10.1163/15685152-20221541
Nathan J. Chambers
A number of scholars have praised the work of René Girard as opening a way forward for biblical interpretation. This essay seeks to test the utility of Girard’s theories by applying them to a close reading of 2 Samuel 21:1–14. It concludes that Girard’s work draws attention to certain neglected themes but is unable to account for the narrative of 2 Samuel 21 in its final form.
{"title":"Are Saul’s Sons Scapegoats?","authors":"Nathan J. Chambers","doi":"10.1163/15685152-20221541","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-20221541","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000A number of scholars have praised the work of René Girard as opening a way forward for biblical interpretation. This essay seeks to test the utility of Girard’s theories by applying them to a close reading of 2 Samuel 21:1–14. It concludes that Girard’s work draws attention to certain neglected themes but is unable to account for the narrative of 2 Samuel 21 in its final form.","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46464127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-04-18DOI: 10.1163/15685152-20221644
Eric X. Jarrard
This essay argues that both Daniel 7 and the film Get Out render the respective political status quo of their times in monstrous form, and use the horror narrative to dramatize their struggles against these monstrous political hegemonies. Comparing the two in this way reveals notable trans-temporal commonalities between groups forced to reckon with their socio-political disenfranchisement, with both works externalizing their respective social anxieties by fictionalizing their oppressor in monstrous form. These texts function comparably as creative expressions of political resistance in their respective eras by serving to empower oppressed groups. They do so by postulating an imagined escape from tyrannical structures of political abuse through the crystallization or manifestation of their fear of those structures in monstrous form. Part one of this essay identifies and analyzes the monstrous beings in Daniel 7 and Get Out, concentrating on the physical and spatial characteristics. Part two describes the historical and cultural specificity of these monsters and the productive value of their affect. The final part of this essay explores how a comparison of Daniel 7 and Get Out not only challenges the relative capaciousness of horror theory, but also helps us to better access the ambiguous rhetorical shaping of the biblical text. In sum, I will argue that both Daniel 7 and Get Out confront our existing notions of what horror is, how it functions, and the work it can do.
{"title":"Now You’re in the Sunken Place: Constructed Monsters in Daniel 7 and Get Out","authors":"Eric X. Jarrard","doi":"10.1163/15685152-20221644","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-20221644","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This essay argues that both Daniel 7 and the film Get Out render the respective political status quo of their times in monstrous form, and use the horror narrative to dramatize their struggles against these monstrous political hegemonies. Comparing the two in this way reveals notable trans-temporal commonalities between groups forced to reckon with their socio-political disenfranchisement, with both works externalizing their respective social anxieties by fictionalizing their oppressor in monstrous form. These texts function comparably as creative expressions of political resistance in their respective eras by serving to empower oppressed groups. They do so by postulating an imagined escape from tyrannical structures of political abuse through the crystallization or manifestation of their fear of those structures in monstrous form. Part one of this essay identifies and analyzes the monstrous beings in Daniel 7 and Get Out, concentrating on the physical and spatial characteristics. Part two describes the historical and cultural specificity of these monsters and the productive value of their affect. The final part of this essay explores how a comparison of Daniel 7 and Get Out not only challenges the relative capaciousness of horror theory, but also helps us to better access the ambiguous rhetorical shaping of the biblical text. In sum, I will argue that both Daniel 7 and Get Out confront our existing notions of what horror is, how it functions, and the work it can do.","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43508909","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-12DOI: 10.1163/15685152-29040006
Ralf Schneider
This article addresses the contributions by Michael Whitenton, and Bonnie Howe and Eve Sweetser, in the present volume. I endorse all three contributors’ use of cognitive-linguistic approaches, highlighting their helpfulness for the reconstruction of frames that shape the reading experience of audiences located in different historical and cultural contexts. The two chapters meticulously trace the complexity and dynamics of understanding exemplary biblical characters. I emphasise that the level of attention to linguistic detail displayed by cognitive stylistics is a desideratum for a reader-oriented analysis of a text’s potential reading effects. At the same time, I question some assumptions in cognitive linguistics concerning the cognitive-emotional processes real readers are actually likely to perform. The two chapters serve as a starting point for me to discuss general tendencies in recent cognitive and empirical literary studies, which have perhaps overstated the intensity and impact of some processes, while overlooking others that may be just as important.
{"title":"Potential and Actual Cognitive-Emotional Engagement with Characters: A Response to Michael Whitenton and Bonnie Howe & Eve Sweetser","authors":"Ralf Schneider","doi":"10.1163/15685152-29040006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-29040006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article addresses the contributions by Michael Whitenton, and Bonnie Howe and Eve Sweetser, in the present volume. I endorse all three contributors’ use of cognitive-linguistic approaches, highlighting their helpfulness for the reconstruction of frames that shape the reading experience of audiences located in different historical and cultural contexts. The two chapters meticulously trace the complexity and dynamics of understanding exemplary biblical characters. I emphasise that the level of attention to linguistic detail displayed by cognitive stylistics is a desideratum for a reader-oriented analysis of a text’s potential reading effects. At the same time, I question some assumptions in cognitive linguistics concerning the cognitive-emotional processes real readers are actually likely to perform. The two chapters serve as a starting point for me to discuss general tendencies in recent cognitive and empirical literary studies, which have perhaps overstated the intensity and impact of some processes, while overlooking others that may be just as important.","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-11-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41996861","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-11-12DOI: 10.1163/15685152-29040003
Suzanne Keen
In this response essay, which culminates with an application of my theory of narrative empathy to the Parable of the Good Samaritan, I comment on an article by Cornelis Bennema and engage with the ideas in the framing, introductory essay by Jan Rüggemeier and Elizabeth E. Shively. In the course of carrying out these tasks, I also offer what I hope will be broadly useful comments on fictional and nonfictional contexts for character construction, on characters and characterization, and on the way diverse actual readers engage with characters. This essay concludes with some thoughts on narrative empathy, responding to the final section of Rüggemeier and Shively’s essay, which offers comprehensive overview of empathy and sympathy as aspects of emotional reading.
{"title":"Ancient Characters and Contemporary Readers: A Response to Elizabeth E. Shively & Jan Rüggemeier and Cornelis Bennema","authors":"Suzanne Keen","doi":"10.1163/15685152-29040003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-29040003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000In this response essay, which culminates with an application of my theory of narrative empathy to the Parable of the Good Samaritan, I comment on an article by Cornelis Bennema and engage with the ideas in the framing, introductory essay by Jan Rüggemeier and Elizabeth E. Shively. In the course of carrying out these tasks, I also offer what I hope will be broadly useful comments on fictional and nonfictional contexts for character construction, on characters and characterization, and on the way diverse actual readers engage with characters. This essay concludes with some thoughts on narrative empathy, responding to the final section of Rüggemeier and Shively’s essay, which offers comprehensive overview of empathy and sympathy as aspects of emotional reading.","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-11-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45174306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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