Em(Bodied) Texts: A Consideration of the Hermeneutics of Identity Formation in the Pauline Tradition (original) (raw)

Aspects of a rhetoric of the body and the letter to the Romans : general

Scriptura, 2012

Although the expansion of New Testament Studies to formal studies in Early Christianity and Late Antiquity have significantly changed modi of interpretation concerning Pauline material, the Cartesian effect has not been laid to rest. In addition, despite the problematisation of knowledge production which was initiated during the eighties of the twentieth century, the subject as primary originator of knowledge, born during the nineteenth century, is still haunting the production of knowledge within the field of Pauline studies, with little concern for the variety of diverse discursive practices compelling and enabling the production of a writing. Both these tendencies have infused the rhetorical paradigm within which Pauline letters have been read. I argue that a rhetoric of the body, functioning within the implicit tradition of Rhetorical Criticism, can enable the detection of discursive traces constituting a rhetoric of the body in the Graeco-Roman world. If a rhetoric of the body is used as interpretative framework for the letter to the Romans, no resistance against the Roman Empire can be discerned but rather an identification with a habitus that made a radicalisation of the Roman regulatory body possible.

BODILY PARTS VYING FOR POWER: HIERARCHIES AND BODIES IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY

In this essay I argue that a rhetoric of the body exposes the all-pervasiveness of the hierarchical principle as it manifested itself in the Graeco-Roman world. The parts of the ancient body were constructed with the fabrics of the social body. Implications for an engendered interpretation of Biblical writings are indicated and demonstrated via an analysis of selected passages from the Pauline letters.

Paul's Flesh: A Disabled Reading of Flesh/Spirit Dualism

Feminist Theology, 2021

This article considers the Pauline construction of a "spiritual body" in 1 Corinthians 15 and his flesh/spirit dualism more generally in light of Paul's probable disability. I suggest that this rhetoric functioned as a strategy for Paul to claim social power in his social context by deemphasizing his physical presence, and thus reflects a negotiation with cultural patterns of disability abjection rather than a meaningful part of Christian teaching. Because of the active harm done by these dualistic constructions, however unintentional such an interpretation may have been on Paul's part, liberative Christian theologies must reject this framing and work to integrate not just "body" and spirit but also flesh and its more negative bodily associations such as weakness, pain, illness, and death.

Paul, body theology, and morality: Parameters for a discussion

Neotestamentica, 2005

The ambivalence towards the Pauline documents and their legacy is probably nowhere as strong as in the interplay between morality, and the materiality-and corporeality in particular¯of human existence. Paul is often quoted in the formulation of Christian thought and ethics, but his ...

How to Speak of the Body? Embodiment between phenomenology and theology

Studia Theologica: Nordic Journal of Theology, 62:1 (2008) pp. 25-43

In this article I discuss the question of how to speak of the body in theology after Friedrich Nietzsche's critique of Christianity as nihilistic. A purely theoretical and a-historic approach, such as could be found in much doctrinal theology as well as philosophy after Descartes, runs the risk of objectifying the body through its representations of it. The phenomenological approach to embodiment would instead help theology to avoid treating the body as a thing and instead as a communicative and expressive medium for relationships with divinity as well as other human beings. A critical theological somatology after Nietzsche would have to speak of the body through genealogical accounts of the traces of the body in biblical and theological texts as well as in religious practices such as prayer, liturgy and hymns with the aim of correlating this theological tradition with the articulations and configurations of embodiment today.

Soul, Body and Gender in Late Antiquity: Essays on Embodiment and Disembodiment

Soul, Body and Gender in Late Antiquity: Essays on Embodiment and Disembodiment, 2023

Including both traditional and underrepresented accounts and geographies of soul, body, gender, and sexuality in late antique history, philosophy, and theology, this volume offers substantial re-readings of these and related concepts through theories of dis/embodiment. Bringing together gender studies, late antique philosophy, patristics, history of asceticism, and history of Indian philosophy, this interdisciplinary volume examines the notions of dis/embodiment and im/materiality in late antique and early Christian culture and thought. The book’s geographical scope extends beyond the ancient Mediterranean, providing comparative perspectives from Late Antiquity in the Near East and South Asia. It offers critical interpretations of late antique scholarly objects of inquiry, exploring close readings of soul, body, gender, and sexuality in their historical context. These fascinating studies engage scholars from different fields and research traditions with one another, and reveal both change and continuity in the perception and social role of gender, sexuality, body, and soul in this period. Soul, Body, and Gender in Late Antiquity is a valuable resource for students and scholars of Classics, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, as well as those working on late antique and early Christian history, philosophy, and theology.