{"title":"Playing the Man in the Book of Ruth: Reshaping the Masculine Ideal","authors":"R. Purcell","doi":"10.1163/15685152-2020007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-2020007","url":null,"abstract":"Many scholars have productively analyzed the book of Ruth to explore gender roles and norms. Few studies, though, have brought masculinity theory to bear on the book of Ruth, and those that have primarily focus on the character of Boaz. However, other characters ‘play the man’ in this narrative, notably Ruth herself. Though Boaz is labeled as an אישׁ גבור חיל, Ruth often better performs the masculine ideal represented by this label. She enters dangerous situations to protect and provide for Naomi. Moreover, Ruth initiates and manipulates sexual contact in order to produce progeny. The narrative presents the characters of Ruth, Boaz, and, at times, Yhwh performing masculine roles with varying levels of success. This essay contends that the book takes up previously assumed norms of masculinity and reshapes them in light of a changing socio-political context.","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46065204","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}
{"title":"The Many Fiery Furnaces of Daniel 3: The Evolution of a Literary Model","authors":"Nathanael Vette","doi":"10.1163/15685152-2020002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-2020002","url":null,"abstract":"The fiery furnace episode of Daniel 3 can be described as a martyr legend without a martyrdom. It shares many formal features with other martyr accounts but ends with the deliverance of the three young men. Early on, the episode was used as a model to narrate similar deliverances from fiery furnaces. But with time, the episode became the template for accounts which ultimately end in the death of the martyr. This article traces this development by surveying the use of Daniel 3 as a literary model from the Second Temple period to the present day. By re-working a narrative of deliverance into a narrative of death, Jewish and Christian traditions updated the legend to reflect the reality of a new situation, whilst also responding to a latent story of death already present in Daniel 3.","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45543630","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}
{"title":"The Blessing of Ham: Genesis 9:1 in Early African American Biblical Scholarship","authors":"J. Schipper","doi":"10.1163/15685152-2020004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-2020004","url":null,"abstract":"Much of the recent scholarship on Noah’s curse (Genesis 9:20–27) has focused on how the myth of Ham has factored into debates over slavery and other anti-Black biblical interpretations. Yet Sylvester A. Johnson argues convincingly that in the late nineteenth century, the “myth of Ham” was used primarily to explain racial origins rather than to justify or condemn slavery. To provide nuance to Johnson’s point, this article argues that some influential nineteenth-century African American scholars whom Johnson discusses interpreted the story of racial origins in the myth of Ham as an outgrowth of a divine blessing that Ham shared with his brothers in Genesis 9:1–19. This blessing, they argued, was unrelated to Noah’s curse of Canaan in Genesis 9:20–27. This article focuses on the exegetical arguments made by James W. C. Pennington, Alexander Crummell, Benjamin Tucker Tanner, and George Washington Williams.","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64562008","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}
{"title":"Neighbours Near and Far: How a Biblical Figure is Used in Recent European Anti-Migration Politics","authors":"K. Neutel, M. Kartzow","doi":"10.1163/15685152-2020003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-2020003","url":null,"abstract":"References to the Bible in European politics rarely are the subject of research by biblical scholars. Claims about Christianity and about themes and stories from the Bible, which have made a remarkable appearance in political discourse recently, especially in discussions of migration, have therefore gone unnoticed in our discipline. This paper wants to put this topic on the map by exploring three cases, from the Netherlands, Norway, and Germany, where politicians make an argument against accepting migrants, by appealing to neighbourly love and the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37). We ask whether the Bible appears here in its ‘liberal’ form, which scholars have shown to be a prevalent form of the Bible in US and UK politics, or whether we are seeing the development of a different political Bible.","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43944880","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}
{"title":"Introduction","authors":"Julie Faith Parker, K. Garroway","doi":"10.1163/15685152-2805a001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-2805a001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This Introduction provides a framework for this special volume on Children in the Bible and Childist Interpretation. First, we acquaint unfamiliar readers with the term “childist” and the history of childist interpretation within biblical studies. We briefly outline the hallmarks of the field and explain the specific ways in which this volume moves childist interpretation forward. A paragraph on each article summarizes the overall content of the separate contributions. We conclude by offering the reasons why childist biblical interpretation matters not only for the study of children in the biblical world but for children in the modern world as well.","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45607221","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}
{"title":"Moses’s Slow Speech: Hybrid Identity, Language Acquisition, and the Meaning of Exodus 4:10","authors":"K. Garroway","doi":"10.1163/15685152-2805a006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-2805a006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In changing our focus to examine the children and the childhoods of the characters in the Bible we can gain new insights into the biblical text. This essay applies childist interpretation to a question that has long puzzled scholars: What did Moses mean when he said: “I am heavy (כבד) of speech and heavy (כבד) of tongue” (Exod 4:10). Scholars have suggested it meant Moses had a speech impediment or that he lost his ability to speak Egyptian eloquently during his years in Midian. I suggest, however, that these previous answers have overlooked a crucial stage in Moses’ development: his childhood. Moses’ unique childhood and transition from Hebrew slave child to adopted Egyptian prince creates within him a hybrid identity. His hybrid identity, in turn, manifested itself in Hebrew language attrition, which causes him to protest that he is “heavy of speech and tongue.”","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":"28 1","pages":"635-657"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46095136","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}
{"title":"Children, Motherhood, and the Social Death of Childless Women: The Social and Theological Construction of Infertility in the Hebrew Bible and in Cameroon","authors":"Alice Yafeh-Deigh","doi":"10.1163/15685152-2805a005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-2805a005","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper reviews the biblical mandate to have children in tension with the claim that God holds the exclusive power to open and close wombs. What are the social and cultural implications of this theological assertion for procreative disadvantaged women in the Hebrew Bible (Sarah [Gen.16], Rebecca [Gen. 25], Rachel [Gen. 29–30], Samson’s mother [Judges 13], and Hannah [1 Sam 1])? Focusing on children’s value, I will examine the implications of procreative sexual ethics for Cameroonian women with permanent infertility. The conclusion further proposes a reconceptualized and subversive motherhood model using the Naomi-Ruth narrative, constructing family beyond biology or genetics.","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":"28 1","pages":"608-634"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48213804","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}
{"title":"Hardly Happily Ever After: Trafficking of Girls in the Hebrew Bible","authors":"Julie Faith Parker","doi":"10.1163/15685152-2805a002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-2805a002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article examines elements in the stories of Hagar (Gen. 16:1–3), Abishag (1 Kgs. 1:1–4), Esther (Esth. 2:1–4), and the unnamed Israelite slave girl (2 Kgs. 5:1–4) through the lens of human trafficking, specifically trafficking girls. First, I will argue that our tendency to understand Hagar, Abishag, and Esther as women, not girls, is undermined by the vocabulary used to describe them, as well as other contextual clues. I will then outline the United Nations’ criteria for defining the transport of a person as human trafficking. Most of the article provides narrative analyses of the four texts cited above. By identifying elements of dislocation, trauma, and exploitation in the stories of Hagar, Abishag, Esther, and the Israelite slave girl, I suggest that parts of their stories meet the criteria to fulfill the pattern of human trafficking. This childist interpretation further maintains that these portrayals of girls being trafficked have multiple troubling commonalities, with each other and with human trafficking today.","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":"28 1","pages":"540-556"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45672678","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}
{"title":"Are Enslaved Children Called to Come to Jesus? Freeborn and Enslaved Children in John Chrysostom’s On Vainglory","authors":"John W. Martens","doi":"10.1163/15685152-2805a004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-2805a004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 John Chrysostom, circa 349–407 ce, wrote “On Vainglory, or The Right Way to Raise Children,” which purports to be about raising all Christian children. In fact, out of ninety chapters, only one deals with girls. Even more significant are the numerous overlooked children in the text, who are present but whose Christian education is never discussed because they are enslaved. This paper utilizes childist criticism to draw these enslaved children from hiddenness into plain sight. The paper is situated in the context of Jesus’ teaching about children because Chrysostom believes that the best way to raise children is by teaching them stories from the Bible, Hebrew Bible first, then New Testament, but instead of an openness to all children he discusses only freeborn, elite boys. Chrysostom’s treatise exposes the context of how few children in late antiquity could be shaped by biblical interpretation intended for all children. (147 words)","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":"28 1","pages":"584-607"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49473581","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}
{"title":"Reading with Minor Feelings: Racialized Emotions and Children’s (Non)agency in Judges 10–12","authors":"Dong Sung Kim","doi":"10.1163/15685152-2805a003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15685152-2805a003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In this article, I read the story of Jephthah and his daughter in Judges 10–12 within the contemporary context of racism and discrimination in the U.S. Particularly focusing on the affective and emotional dimensions of the lived experiences in racially/ethnically minoritized communities, I engage the biblical story with what poet and writer Cathy Park Hong calls, “minor feelings.” Reading the biblical narrative alongside Hong’s crudely personal—and yet pervasively common—accounts of Asian American racial trauma, I critically reflect on the notion of childhood agency, and suggest that the Western conception of agency neither reflects nor promotes the lives of the children in minority groups. In turn, I ask: What if we moved away from the traditional notions of agency and voice in our critical works, and, instead, turned towards emotions, sensations, and other embodied experiences as a site of interpretation, critique, and movement for social change?","PeriodicalId":43103,"journal":{"name":"Biblical Interpretation-A Journal of Contemporary Approaches","volume":"28 1","pages":"557-583"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2020-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47724788","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}