Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch

Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch PDF Author: Sean D. Burke
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1451469888
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Were eunuchs more usually castrated guardians of the harem, as florid Orientalist portraits imagine them, or were they trusted court officials who may never have been castrated? Was the Ethiopian eunuch a Jew or a Gentile, a slave or a free man? Why does Luke call him a "man" while contemporaries referred to eunuchs as "unmanned" beings? As Sean D. Burke treats questions that have received dramatically different answers over the centuries of Christian interpretation, he shows that eunuchs bore particular stereotyped associations regarding gender and sexual status as well as of race, ethnicity, and class. Not only has Luke failed to resolve these ambiguities; he has positioned this destabilized figure at a key place in the narrative-as the gospel has expanded beyond Judea, but before Gentiles are explicitly named-in such a way as to blur a number of social role boundaries. In this sense, Burke argues, Luke intended to "queer" his reader's expectations and so to present the boundary-transgressing potentiality of a new community.

Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch

Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch PDF Author: Sean D. Burke
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1451469888
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
Were eunuchs more usually castrated guardians of the harem, as florid Orientalist portraits imagine them, or were they trusted court officials who may never have been castrated? Was the Ethiopian eunuch a Jew or a Gentile, a slave or a free man? Why does Luke call him a "man" while contemporaries referred to eunuchs as "unmanned" beings? As Sean D. Burke treats questions that have received dramatically different answers over the centuries of Christian interpretation, he shows that eunuchs bore particular stereotyped associations regarding gender and sexual status as well as of race, ethnicity, and class. Not only has Luke failed to resolve these ambiguities; he has positioned this destabilized figure at a key place in the narrative-as the gospel has expanded beyond Judea, but before Gentiles are explicitly named-in such a way as to blur a number of social role boundaries. In this sense, Burke argues, Luke intended to "queer" his reader's expectations and so to present the boundary-transgressing potentiality of a new community.

Unmanly Men

Unmanly Men PDF Author: Brittany E. Wilson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199325014
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
New Testament scholars typically assume that the men who pervade the pages of Luke's two volumes are models of an implied "manliness." Scholars rarely question how Lukan men measure up to ancient masculine mores, even though masculinity is increasingly becoming a topic of inquiry in the field of New Testament and its related disciplines. Drawing especially from gender-critical work in classics, Brittany Wilson addresses this lacuna by examining key male characters in Luke-Acts in relation to constructions of masculinity in the Greco-Roman world. Of all Luke's male characters, Wilson maintains that four in particular problematize elite masculine norms: namely, Zechariah (the father of John the Baptist), the Ethiopian eunuch, Paul, and, above all, Jesus. She further explains that these men do not protect their bodily boundaries nor do they embody corporeal control, two interrelated male gender norms. Indeed, Zechariah loses his ability to speak, the Ethiopian eunuch is castrated, Paul loses his ability to see, and Jesus is put to death on the cross. With these bodily "violations," Wilson argues, Luke points to the all-powerful nature of God and in the process reconfigures--or refigures--men's own claims to power. Luke, however, not only refigures the so-called prerogative of male power, but he refigures the parameters of power itself. According to Luke, God provides an alternative construal of power in the figure of Jesus and thus redefines what it means to be masculine. Thus, for Luke, "real" men look manifestly unmanly. Wilson's findings in Unmanly Men will shatter long-held assumptions in scholarly circles and beyond about gendered interpretations of the New Testament, and how they can be used to understand the roles of the Bible's key characters.

The Courage to Be Queer

The Courage to Be Queer PDF Author: Jeff Hood
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498221920
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 123

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Book Description
God is Queer. In a world of normative paradigms, God will never fit in and nor should we. That twitching and itching for something more will consistently be present until we step out of our closets and into the Queer. The Courage to Be Queer is about the wildness and beauty of an indescribable and uncontainable God. What is the Queer calling us to be? We are to be the ones shouting for justice. We are to be the ones dancing for freedom. We are to be the ones dreaming for hope. We are to be the ones . . . In the midst of the spectacle of it all, there will be those observers who hear the knocking and lean in. Will you open the door?

A New History of African Christian Thought

A New History of African Christian Thought PDF Author: David Tonghou Ngong
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135106266
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 251

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Book Description
David Tonghou Ngong offers a comprehensive view of African Christian thought that includes North Africa in antiquity as well as Sub-Saharan Africa from the period of colonial missionary activity to the present. Challenging conventional colonial divisions of Africa, A New History of African Christian Thought demonstrates that important continuities exist across the continent. Chapters written by specialists in African Christian thought reflect the issues—both ancient and modern—in which Christian Africa has impacted the shape of Christian belief from the beginning of the movement up to the present day.

The Queer Bible Commentary, Second Edition

The Queer Bible Commentary, Second Edition PDF Author: Mona West
Publisher: SCM Press
ISBN: 0334060788
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 881

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Book Description
First published over ten years ago, The Queer Bible Commentary brings together the work of several scholars and pastors known for their interest in the areas of gender, sexuality and Biblical studies. Contributors draw on feminist, queer, deconstructionist, utopian theories, the social sciences and historical-critical discourses. The focus is both how reading from lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender perspectives affect the reading and interpretation of biblical texts and how biblical texts have and do affect LGBTQ+ communities. This revised 2nd edition includes updated bibliographies and chapters taking into account the latest literature relating to queer interpretation of scripture.

Acts of the Apostles

Acts of the Apostles PDF Author: Linda M. Maloney
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0814681948
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 472

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Book Description
The Acts of the Apostles, the earliest work of its kind to have survived from Christian antiquity, is not “history” in the modern sense, nor is it about what we call “the church.” Written at least half a century after the time it describes, it is a portrait of the Movement of Jesus’ followers as it developed between 30 and 70 CE. More important, it is a depiction of the Movement of what Jesus wanted: the inbreaking of the reign of God. In this commentary, Linda Maloney, Ivoni Richter Reimer, and a host of other contributing voices look at what the text does and does not say about the roles of the original members of the Movement in bringing it toward fruition, with a special focus on those marginalized by society, many of them women. The author of Acts wrote for followers of Jesus in the second century and beyond, contending against those who wanted to break from the community of Israel and offering hope against hope, like Israel’s prophets before him.

Bible Trouble

Bible Trouble PDF Author: Teresa J. Hornsby
Publisher: SBL Press
ISBN: 1589835530
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
The essays in Bible Trouble all engage queer theories for purposes of biblical interpretation, a rare effort to date within biblical scholarship. The title phrase “Bible Trouble” plays on Judith Butler's Gender Trouble, gesturing toward a primary text for contemporary queer theory. The essays consider, among others, the Lazarus story, the Ethiopian eunuch, “gender trouble” in Judges 4 and 5, the Song of Songs, and an unorthodox coupling of the books of Samuel and the film Paris Is Burning. This volume “troubles” not only the boundaries between biblical scholarship and queer theory but also the boundaries between different frameworks currently used in the analysis of biblical literature, including sexuality, gender, race, class, history, and literature. The contributors are Ellen T. Armour, Michael Joseph Brown, Sean D. Burke, Heidi Epstein, Deryn Guest, Jione Havea, Teresa J. Hornsby, Lynn R. Huber, S. Tamar Kamionkowski, Joseph A. Marchal, Jeremy Punt, Erin Runions, Ken Stone, Gillian Townsley, Jay Twomey, and Manuel Villalobos.

Queering Black Churches

Queering Black Churches PDF Author: Brandon Thomas Crowley
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197662625
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Queering Black Churches explores how open and affirming (ONA) historically Black churches have queered their congregations. Using the lenses of practical theology, ecclesiology, Queer theology, and gender studies, Brandon Thomas Crowley examines the heteronormative histories, theologies, morals, values, and structures of Black churches and how their longstanding assumptions can be challenged to dismantle homophobia within African American congregations and move beyond surface-level allyship toward actual structural renovation.

Queering the Prophet

Queering the Prophet PDF Author: L. Juliana M. Claassens
Publisher: SCM Press
ISBN: 0334065135
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
What does it mean to be a prophet in queer times? Considering first the queerness of the prophet Jonah, this volume then broadens its scope to the queer prophetic in our own time, reflecting on what makes a prophet ‘queer’, and considering how public theology is itself, an example of the queer prophetic. With a broad range of international contributors, this book offers a bold and essential new addition to queer biblical studies literature.

Queer Theology

Queer Theology PDF Author: Linn Marie Tonstad
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498218806
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 127

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Book Description
What do Christianity and queerness have to do with each other? Can Christianity be queered? Queer Theology offers a readable introduction to a difficult debate. Summarizing the various apologetic arguments for the inclusion of queer people in Christianity, Tonstad moves beyond inclusion to argue for a queer theology that builds on the interconnection of theology with sex and money. Thoroughly grounded in queer theory as well as in Christian theology, Queer Theology grapples with the fundamental challenges of the body, sex, and death, as these are where queerness and Christianity find (and, maybe, lose) each other.