Out of the ordinary: a life of gender and spiritual transitions

nises (on 64–65) that John 13–17 does not reproduce “the classic symposium” exactly. While readers are urged not to overplay “possible differences” because “by the time of Jesus and John elements of the classic symposium had fused with other customs” the absence of classic symposium features in the Johannine narrative makes it harder to prove the case for a subverted paradigm. Finally and perhaps most importantly, does the phrase “lying in Jesus’ breast” in John 13:23 have to evoke homoerotic connotations? It doesn’t seem to in Luke 16:22 where the same Greek construction [en + Dative + Genitive] describes Lazarus “in Abraham’s bosom”. Ultimately, whether or not John offers a polemic reworking of a symposium scene, Angel is right to read John 13:23 in the light of John 1:18 (72) and right to frame Jesus’ relationships in terms of divine intimacy. Inevitably, this book will be too conservative for liberals and too liberal for conservatives, but it will help some of us “seek prayerfully what it means for our own sexuality that God has taken on frail flesh and lived in holiness and love” (102).