The Paradigmatic Role of Genesis 3 for Reading Biblical Narrative About Desire (original) (raw)

The Paradigmatic Role of Genesis 3 for Reading Biblical Narratives about Desire

Unio cum Christo, 2019

The biblical Hebrew texts of sexual politics (often involving sordid sexual violence, especially against women) have been studied in the last forty years with an ideological bent that employs contemporary literary analysis. This essay is an attempt to allow the biblical text to furnish strategies for reading its troubling narratives rather than imposing external ideologies over it. An ethical narrative close reading of the text of primeval desire (Gen 3) led me to the discovery of four themes—desire, particularly its derivative, sexual passion; power-play; alterity; and peril— and the biblical authors’ characterization of God in divine response to human deviant behavior as heuristic tools for reading these texts of desire.

The Theology of Sexuality in the Beginning: Genesis 1-2

1988

The creation accounts (Gen 1-2) coupled with the portrayal of disruption and divine judgment presented in Gen 3 have been described as of seminal character and determinative for a biblical theology of human sexuality. In a previous article we focused upon the theology of sexuality in the creation accounts. Now we will explore the theological insights on sexuality emerging from Gen 3. Two basic issues related to sexuality call for our attention in Gen 3. The first concerns the contention by some scholars that Adam and Eve's "knowledge of good and evil" and their knowledge "that they were naked" (3:5, 7) both refer to the awakening of their sexual consciousness. The second issue involves the debate over the correct interpretation of the divine judgment on Eve (3:16).

Fuzzy, Messy, Icky: The Edges of Consent in Hebrew Bible Rape Narratives and Rape Culture

Bible and Critical Theory, 2019

Feminist readings of rape in the Hebrew Bible often employ an analytic framework of consent, connecting biblical texts to contemporary conversations about sexual violence and rape culture. However, the appeal to consent is not without difficulty, especially when challenges from feminist, queer, and postcolonial theory are taken seriously. This essay offers both a critique of consent-based readings of biblical texts and an alternative approach, which takes as a starting point the concepts of fuzzy, messy, and icky. Three biblical rape stories receive special attention: Dinah (Genesis 34), Tamar (2 Samuel 13), and Lot's daughters (Genesis 19). Taking seriously the hermeneutic value of fuzziness, messiness, and ickiness in encountering these and other rape texts, I argue for a practice of reading that refuses innocence, rejects paranoia, embraces stickiness, and leaves room for compromised pleasures. The work of feminist and queer theorists Donna Haraway, Eve Kosofosky Sedgwick, Sara Ahmed, and Meredith Minister provides further support for this new approach.

The Exploitation of Power in the Biblical Narrative: Sex, Lies, & Intertextuality

The Exploitation of Power in the Biblical Narrative: Sex, Lies, & Intertextuality Summary: In the present note, I explore the Bible’s portrayal of the exploitation of power by means of two canonically separate yet textually related Biblical narratives. Keywords: David, Bathsheba, Ahab, Naboth, intertextuality, power, exploitation. Date: Dec. 2020.