While reading Pedagogy of the Bible by Dale B. Martin for my TA class-work, I've run into Bernard of Clairvaux, a medieval monk. He apparently has a series of sermons on Song of Songs which sound fascinating. I'll have to hunt them down.
Additionally, Martin is going through how (at least American) biblical studies seems to have been captivated by the historical critical method and the belief that there is one single meaning intended by the author of the text (or only one meaning that an audience can or should receive from it). He contrasts this to the pre-moderns would would find a number meanings within a single text, both literal/narrative and allegorical ones. And these theologians had no problem holding multiple meanings, even when they were drastically different.
This seems to parallel Alter's approach to the Bible as literature, that is, as art. Art has always been something in which individuals viewing the art are each drawn to their own meaning. Viewing biblical passages in this same light lets us draw out multiple meanings from the same texts, rather than insisting that there is a way to be guided to a single "true" meaning. (And it implies that the authors/editors/redactors of the biblical text knew they were making art and were inspired to put multiple meanings into it.)
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Reaction: Quiverfull
Joyce, Katherine. Quiverfull. Boston, Beacon Press, 2009.
Joyce tells the stories of women and men in the modern patriarchy pseudo-movement within Fundamentalist American Christianity. The title is a reference to a name those within the movement have taken for themselves, and it is based on the biblical concept that a man has a "quiverfull" of seed to sow, that those seed might become children that can be raised as Christian soldiers to win the culture war by shear numbers.
She explores the movement and what it means for women as wives, mothers, and daughters, primarily, though she does offer some commentary on what is expected of the men. While Joyce clearly disagrees with the movement's idea that females should be subject to male rule, she does present a fairly unbiased accounting of the movement. (Though on some of the movement's more egregious stances, she does have an off-hand comment or two.) The movement itself is terrifying for me, a feminist and father to a daughter. My own personal situation seems to be the exact opposite of what the movement itself would demand of me. (I spend a good deal of time at home, when not in class, while my wife holds an MD and works.)
The book does not deeply explore the theological underpinnings of the movement except for where the people Joyce interviews offer it as a justification of their stances. However, it does show some of the modern movement's history, tracing it out of the home schooling efforts in post-Vietnam America. A very interesting read, especially with the exploration of "courtship" as opposed to dating. The movement seems to also be a re-imagining of the gender roles presented in the biblical text.
Joyce also explores several stories of women who have left the movement. These stories in particular I found painful. Stories of excommunication from churches because a woman insisted that she was not the only one at fault within her marriage. The children of these women who watch their church family tear their mother (almost entirely just the mother) apart in front of the church members. The women do start to heal, but I have real trouble seeing this as a good method of resolving marital issues. (But then I would make a very bad Quiverfull believer, as mentioned before.)
It was an interesting (and terrifying) read.
Joyce tells the stories of women and men in the modern patriarchy pseudo-movement within Fundamentalist American Christianity. The title is a reference to a name those within the movement have taken for themselves, and it is based on the biblical concept that a man has a "quiverfull" of seed to sow, that those seed might become children that can be raised as Christian soldiers to win the culture war by shear numbers.
She explores the movement and what it means for women as wives, mothers, and daughters, primarily, though she does offer some commentary on what is expected of the men. While Joyce clearly disagrees with the movement's idea that females should be subject to male rule, she does present a fairly unbiased accounting of the movement. (Though on some of the movement's more egregious stances, she does have an off-hand comment or two.) The movement itself is terrifying for me, a feminist and father to a daughter. My own personal situation seems to be the exact opposite of what the movement itself would demand of me. (I spend a good deal of time at home, when not in class, while my wife holds an MD and works.)
The book does not deeply explore the theological underpinnings of the movement except for where the people Joyce interviews offer it as a justification of their stances. However, it does show some of the modern movement's history, tracing it out of the home schooling efforts in post-Vietnam America. A very interesting read, especially with the exploration of "courtship" as opposed to dating. The movement seems to also be a re-imagining of the gender roles presented in the biblical text.
Joyce also explores several stories of women who have left the movement. These stories in particular I found painful. Stories of excommunication from churches because a woman insisted that she was not the only one at fault within her marriage. The children of these women who watch their church family tear their mother (almost entirely just the mother) apart in front of the church members. The women do start to heal, but I have real trouble seeing this as a good method of resolving marital issues. (But then I would make a very bad Quiverfull believer, as mentioned before.)
It was an interesting (and terrifying) read.
Reaction: Rescuing Sex from the Christians
Sullivan, Clayton. Rescuing Sex from the Christians. New York, Continuum International Publishing Group. 2006.
(Yeah, yeah, not complete Turabian style.)
I picked this text up originally for commentary on Augustine's views on sex while working on a paper for the History of Christianity I course. I've been working through it on-and-off for a while. Sullivan does a very good job deconstructing Christianity's 2 big errors when it comes to sex: misunderstanding Adam and Eve and building the idea of the divided self. However, his later chapters on various sexual taboos and the Harm Principle seem to go in a different direction than where he appeared to be aiming for in the first part. The problem as he sees it is that Christianity adopted the bourgeois social mores about sex and applied them to everyone.
The first big problem with Christians and sex that he sees is that we have continually read the story of Adam and Eve as historical and having to do with sexual knowledge. He goes through the traditional Augustinian interpretation of Genesis 2-3, exploring how Augustine portrayed the Fall as tainting man's seed, and thus sex itself becomes an act of spreading that taint. He then jumps several centuries to modern popular theologians and show how they continue to read the story as our historical ancestors becoming tainted and passing that taint down through the millennia.
The second mistake of the Christians was the adoption of the body/flesh dualism of the Hellenistic world. This also he traces back to Augustine, from there back to Paul, and from there back to Socrates.
From here, he approaches masturbation, homosexuality, fornication (pre-martial sex), and adultery and deconstructs the traditional prohibitions against them from biblical passages. He then applies the harm principle (what does not harm others isn't bad) and finds that only adultery causes harm to others.
My biggest issue with Sullivan's approach is he first deconstructs the traditional interpretations of various passages of scripture and then approaches the moral questions about sex using an entirely different basis of support. He does not explain why one should abandon scripture as a source of authority and move instead to the harm principle. I am uncertain how likely the more conservative voices that might debate his work are going to be willing to change authorities. Thus, the work felt more a piece justifying a more liberal sexual stance than trying to convince those that hold the more conservative position of their fallacies.
(Yeah, yeah, not complete Turabian style.)
I picked this text up originally for commentary on Augustine's views on sex while working on a paper for the History of Christianity I course. I've been working through it on-and-off for a while. Sullivan does a very good job deconstructing Christianity's 2 big errors when it comes to sex: misunderstanding Adam and Eve and building the idea of the divided self. However, his later chapters on various sexual taboos and the Harm Principle seem to go in a different direction than where he appeared to be aiming for in the first part. The problem as he sees it is that Christianity adopted the bourgeois social mores about sex and applied them to everyone.
The first big problem with Christians and sex that he sees is that we have continually read the story of Adam and Eve as historical and having to do with sexual knowledge. He goes through the traditional Augustinian interpretation of Genesis 2-3, exploring how Augustine portrayed the Fall as tainting man's seed, and thus sex itself becomes an act of spreading that taint. He then jumps several centuries to modern popular theologians and show how they continue to read the story as our historical ancestors becoming tainted and passing that taint down through the millennia.
The second mistake of the Christians was the adoption of the body/flesh dualism of the Hellenistic world. This also he traces back to Augustine, from there back to Paul, and from there back to Socrates.
From here, he approaches masturbation, homosexuality, fornication (pre-martial sex), and adultery and deconstructs the traditional prohibitions against them from biblical passages. He then applies the harm principle (what does not harm others isn't bad) and finds that only adultery causes harm to others.
My biggest issue with Sullivan's approach is he first deconstructs the traditional interpretations of various passages of scripture and then approaches the moral questions about sex using an entirely different basis of support. He does not explain why one should abandon scripture as a source of authority and move instead to the harm principle. I am uncertain how likely the more conservative voices that might debate his work are going to be willing to change authorities. Thus, the work felt more a piece justifying a more liberal sexual stance than trying to convince those that hold the more conservative position of their fallacies.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Morning thoughts
Working through my notes on Fuchs, I'm still struck how she reads the entire biblical text as a prescriptive text written with a clear hegemony of thought. I'm also working through Robert Alter's The Art of Biblical Narrative currently and his thoughts seem to be much more aware of the multitude of authors behind the text. While Alter is not approaching this with a feminist lens, I wouldn't think the creation of a consistent, singular meta-narrator necessary to deconstruct the patriarchal parts of biblical narratives. Especially when Fuchs is very clearly stating that she is presenting one woman's reading and not trying to speak for all women reading the texts.
Alter seems to be approaching the texts much stronger literary formula than Fuchs. While she works out multiple layers of patriarchal societal constructs that are reported and used for the narrative, he seems to be working out thematic points the authors might be intending to bring to light. Fuchs' work is useful for warning against building ancient assumed cultural norms into modern religious morals, Alter's approach seems to work at divining the purpose of the stories and how they might still speak to the human condition and the human intersection with the divine.
And as an aside, I'm not sure why I started with the books on narrative. In Fuchs' case, it was mostly because it dealt with sexual norms, which is the first piece I'm working on teasing out. Alter's text will likely be moved through in the background while I approach a few other texts on sexual morals/ethics/norms in Ancient Israel and the wider Ancient Near East.
Alter seems to be approaching the texts much stronger literary formula than Fuchs. While she works out multiple layers of patriarchal societal constructs that are reported and used for the narrative, he seems to be working out thematic points the authors might be intending to bring to light. Fuchs' work is useful for warning against building ancient assumed cultural norms into modern religious morals, Alter's approach seems to work at divining the purpose of the stories and how they might still speak to the human condition and the human intersection with the divine.
And as an aside, I'm not sure why I started with the books on narrative. In Fuchs' case, it was mostly because it dealt with sexual norms, which is the first piece I'm working on teasing out. Alter's text will likely be moved through in the background while I approach a few other texts on sexual morals/ethics/norms in Ancient Israel and the wider Ancient Near East.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
To begin
I'm going to use this space to record my thoughts and ideas as I work through the research and writing for my Master's thesis. I'm exploring sexual morals of ancient Israel and the Ancient Near East, contrasting them with modern Christian morality and then using that to explore biblical passages that revel in sexual imagery for the Divine-human relationship. (Specifically, Song of Songs, though I am also planning to look at Ezekiel, Hosea and perhaps Ruth.)
To start with, I'm trying to find texts exploring sexual morals and ethics of the ancient world, specifically for Israel and the lands around it. The one I'm working through right now is Sexual Politics in the Biblical Narrative, by Esther Fuchs. She has consistently presented the texts shes's explored (all narrative ones) as supporting an andro-centric world view, if not out right patriarchy. In a lot of this, I can certainly agree, yet at the same time I have a few issues.
One, she both presents the texts as written by men and for men, and yet seems to discount that that might have affected what was written. This really struck me when she points out the narrator throughout the Hebrew Bible is wary to ascribe emotions/motives to individuals, but is especially wary in the case of women. Could this not have been a conscious act on the part of the authors(/editors/redactors) of the texts more or less admitting that they neither understood the female point of view nor were they talking to an audience that cared about it? The modern author (might) want to speak to both genders, but it is anachronistic to apply that same concept of audience to the ancient mind.
She also holds that what is presented as moral in the biblical narrative is assumed to be approved by YHWH. I'm not certain about this, as the reverse (what YHWH approves/blesses) is not always moral (see Jacob and Laban's dealings).
Another issue that's come up thus far for me is that she seems to be assuming a single narrative point of view, that is that all of the books have the same narrator. She mentions the lack of direct involvement of God in Ruth and Esther and contrasts that with the active participation of God in Genesis. In doing so, she attempts to show that God/YHWH only directly acts in the case of male protagonists. I'm not sure it's fair to apply this as Esther was likely written well after Genesis. While Ruth may have been written or redacted around the same time as Genesis (or potentially much earlier), I don't think anyone would make the claim that they had the same author.
All this said, the has been some useful summary of sexual morals (and the double standard they create) by Fuchs.
To start with, I'm trying to find texts exploring sexual morals and ethics of the ancient world, specifically for Israel and the lands around it. The one I'm working through right now is Sexual Politics in the Biblical Narrative, by Esther Fuchs. She has consistently presented the texts shes's explored (all narrative ones) as supporting an andro-centric world view, if not out right patriarchy. In a lot of this, I can certainly agree, yet at the same time I have a few issues.
One, she both presents the texts as written by men and for men, and yet seems to discount that that might have affected what was written. This really struck me when she points out the narrator throughout the Hebrew Bible is wary to ascribe emotions/motives to individuals, but is especially wary in the case of women. Could this not have been a conscious act on the part of the authors(/editors/redactors) of the texts more or less admitting that they neither understood the female point of view nor were they talking to an audience that cared about it? The modern author (might) want to speak to both genders, but it is anachronistic to apply that same concept of audience to the ancient mind.
She also holds that what is presented as moral in the biblical narrative is assumed to be approved by YHWH. I'm not certain about this, as the reverse (what YHWH approves/blesses) is not always moral (see Jacob and Laban's dealings).
Another issue that's come up thus far for me is that she seems to be assuming a single narrative point of view, that is that all of the books have the same narrator. She mentions the lack of direct involvement of God in Ruth and Esther and contrasts that with the active participation of God in Genesis. In doing so, she attempts to show that God/YHWH only directly acts in the case of male protagonists. I'm not sure it's fair to apply this as Esther was likely written well after Genesis. While Ruth may have been written or redacted around the same time as Genesis (or potentially much earlier), I don't think anyone would make the claim that they had the same author.
All this said, the has been some useful summary of sexual morals (and the double standard they create) by Fuchs.
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