Upcoming conference

AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND ASSOCIATION FOR

BIBLICAL STUDIES

Postgraduate Conference, 2018

31 August, 2018, 9am-4pm

The University of Auckland

Arts 1 building, 14A Symonds Street, room 203

The inaugural postgraduate conference of ANZABS takes place on 31 August, 2018. The conference will be held at the University of Auckland, Arts 1, 14A Symonds Street, room 203 (you’ll find Arts 1 on the City campus map). As you will see below, we have a fabulous line-up of PG students from Aotearoa NZ and beyond whose research spans biblical studies, religious studies, cultural studies, and theology.

The conference is free and open to everyone. We will provide tea and coffee for morning and afternoon tea (and some cookies, although you are welcome to contribute too!). Lunch will be a ‘get-your-own’ affair, and there are lots of food vendors around campus, as well as a kitchen in Arts 1 (in case anyone brings their own).

If you are keen to come along to listen to our speakers, please drop a note to Caroline Blyth. And please share this invitation widely among your networks.

Programme

9.00 Mihi

9.10 – Ben Hudson, Otago: Ephesians’ Jewish Readers

9.40 – Karen Taylor, University of Chester: Cutting judgment in pieces: a judgment parable through a lens of relational faithfulness.

10.10 – Marina Pasichnik, University of Auckland: Descent into Hell in Russian Iconography

10.40 – Morning Tea

11.00 – Anne Aalbers, University of Auckland: The Ascetic Couple

11.30 – Paul Mosley, Laidlaw College: Paul and Adversity

12.00 – Therese Kiely, University of Auckland: Young Pasifika women’s images of God and mental wellbeing.

12.30 – (Get your own) lunch

1.30 – Lyndon Drake, Oxford University: Economic Capital in the Hebrew Bible.

2.00 – Taryn Dryfhout, Laidaw College: Kaumātua ahi kā; Kaumātua ahi tere: Considering a theology of adoption and how it relates to the Māori practice of whāngai.

2.30 – Tekweni Chataira, Laidlaw College: Motive and Intent in the Book of Ruth: A Narrative Critical  Interrogation of Naomi.

3.00 – afternoon tea

3.30 – Caroline Blyth, University of Auckland: Reflections and Q&A on the PhD journey

4.00 – Farewells

Abstracts

Ben Hudson, University of Otago: Ephesians’ Jewish Readers

Ephesians presents its interpreters with numerous puzzles, not only over questions of authorship, but also audience, setting, and purpose. In a number of places, Ephesians identifies its addressees as Gentiles (2:11, 3:1, 4:17), and for this reason most interpreters assume that the intended audience of the letter are essentially Gentile believers. This paper will argue, however, that Ephesians was intended to be read as well by Jewish believers, and that this has implications for discerning its purpose and setting.

A number of features of the letter point to this conclusion, including: prominent Jewish literary characteristics; the reciprocal manner in which unity between Jews and Gentiles in the church is promoted; the use of οἱ ἅγιοι (‘the Saints’) as a designation; the way Paul himself is portrayed; and Ephesians’ distinctive ethical material.

These elements suggest a rhetorical strategy in which Jews are addressed in Ephesians, not as Paul speaks to them directly, but in hearing Paul speak as a Jew and on behalf of Jews to Gentiles. Furthermore, they point to a Sitz im Leben and purpose in which the letter aims to bring Jewish believers into the orbit of pauline churches.

Karen Davinia Taylor, St John’s College Nottingham & University of Chester: Cutting judgment in pieces: a judgment parable through a lens of relational faithfulness

David Ford has argued for a wisdom hermeneutic as “engagement with scripture whose primary desire is for the wisdom of God in life now,” nurturing wisdom’s childlike openness to surprise (Ford, 2007, 52). The desire to grow such wisdom within a multi-ethnic congregation motivates this fresh interpretation of Matthew 24:45-51.

Scholarship situates this parable of the faithful or unfaithful slave in an eschatological discourse. Within that, the phrases “cut in pieces” and “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (v. 51) are heard as guilty sentences, meted metaphorically or literally, resulting in torment, even repentance (Erdey & Smith, 2013; Sim, 2002; Snodgrass, 2008). In dialogue with scripture, experience and biblical scholarship, including 1 Samuel 24: 5-8 (Gordon, 1990), I argue for a lens of relational accountability where Jesus describes daily social dynamics. And while this shapes eternal life, the focus of this wisdom hermeneutic is on human flourishing in life now. This paper reads the parable as teaching how to live well while we wait for Christ’s return. Such a voice aims to be gentle, robustly curious and respectful of multiple conversation partners in its 21st century context.

Marina Pasichnik, University of Auckland:  Descent into Hell in Russian Iconography

 This presentation will examine features of change in the depiction of Eve in medieval Russian Descent into Hell icons.  Eve’s physical characteristics and her proximity to Christ’s mandorla in these icons carry symbolic and eschatological meaning because Eve was the prototype of women.  The changes in the icons will be discussed in relation to the Neoplatonic and Hesychastic spirituality that underpinned Russian Orthodoxy at this time.  The increased reverence that the Hesychasts had for the Virgin Mary raised the status of Eve too as a prefiguration of Mary.  The salvation message of these icons extends beyond their time with implications for both the role of Eve and Mary at the end of time when humanity is judged.

Annie Aalbers, University of Auckland: The Ascetic Couple

 There is little we know about Mary Magdalene from the New Testament. Although she was a very significant woman – mentioned in all four Gospels at the significant points in Jesus’ life and central as a witness to the resurrection – she only features there as the woman in Jesus’ entourage healed of seven demons and in the post-resurrection encounter in John 20:11-18. In the Nag Hammadi Library and apocryphal works in general, however, she plays a role as a counterpart to Jesus as a leading ascetic. This paper will examine Mary’s role in several of these texts and, based on that, suggest some implications for understanding her role in John 20:17. There, the prohibition to touch directed by the resurrected Jesus to her, has puzzled many a scholar, but gains some clarity in the context of such asceticism.

Paul Mosley, Laidlaw: Paul and Adversity

This study investigates Paul’s understandings of adversity, to answer the question: does Paul provide practical theodicies that might help modern-day Christians deal with adversity? The study considers nearly sixty passages from eleven of Paul’s letters; it is a broad and exploratory survey.

Paul does not provide explicit teaching on adversity, but most of his references to it are intended to inform, encourage, and guide the reader. His wide-ranging understandings of the nature of adversity can be expressed as a set of theodicies (both practical and explanatory), which I have called Primordial Sin, Normal Christian Life, Christian Ministry, Gift of God, Spiritual Opposition, “Bad Choice,” Eschatological Recompense, Retribution, and Educative and Discipling Theodicies. There are some commonalities with Jewish/OT and Hellenistic thought, but Paul develops his own understandings. Thus, the Pauline Retribution Theodicy is similar to the Jewish equivalent, but Paul sees retribution as applying to non-believers (who have rejected the gospel of Christ), rather than the people of God (who have received Christ and are assured of eternal salvation, although they may continue to do wrong).

Paul’s responses to adversity also are wide-ranging: trust and depend on God, draw on the Holy Spirit’s resources, be disciplined, learn from adversity, maintain unity, make right choices, pray, rejoice, do not take revenge, actively confront adversaries, and seek the progress of the gospel.

Modern “popular” Christian literature on adversity shows both similarities with and significant differences from Paul’s understandings. There is emphasis on the educative and discipling benefits of adversity, and on the concept of God’s “perfect plan” for the believer’s life. The first is very Pauline. The second seems to conceive God as directing every detail of one’s life, which differs from Paul’s certainty that God is engaged in the believer’s life, can turn any circumstance to good, but does not plan and direct every eventuality nor set aside human ability to make choices. On the other hand, there is little reference in modern “popular” literature to Paul’s belief that Christians experience adversity simply because as Christians they threaten non-Christian society, or to his foundational expectation of an eternal reward on the day of Christ.

A particular concern of modern western Christians is illness, about which Paul has remarkably little to say. He never mentions it as a hardship that validates his apostolic ministry; Epaphroditus’s illness caused him great anguish; and he regarded the illness and death of some Corinthians as regrettable but necessary discipline. On the other hand, he recognizes healing as a spiritual gift that he himself uses. We may conclude that Paul sees no benefit in illness (the case of the Corinthians is an explicable exception). It should be confronted by prayer and the gift of healing, in the confidence that God, too, does not favour illness.

There are differences between the circumstances in which Paul wrote his letters and in which modern western Christians live. Nevertheless, the divergences between Paul’s understandings of adversity and those of modern western writers suggest that reflection on the influence of modern and postmodern worldviews on our understandings of adversity is warranted.

Therese Kiely, University of Auckland“But who do you say I am?” Images of God and NZ-Pacific Mental Wellbeing

My research investigates the significance of Christianity for the spiritual and mental wellbeing of young Christian, multi-ethnic Pacific women. It focuses on this cohort’s individual images of God, what influences these images of God and how these images can impact an individual’s mental wellbeing. Roman Catholicism, mixed ethnic cultural backgrounds, family life and social media all intersect in discerning who God is for these young women and how they see themselves in the world. Using the Praxis Model and an Intersectionality hermeneutic, I aim to weave strands together and contribute to community suicide prevention strategies.

Lyndon Drake, Oxford University: Economic Capital in the Hebrew Bible

Abstract to follow.

Taryn Dryfhout, Laidlaw: Kaumātua ahi kā; Kaumātua ahi tere: Considering a theology of adoption and how it relates to the Māori practice of whāngai

Tikanga plays a significant role in the Māori world, and in New Zealand society, due to the unique status of Māori as tangata whenua, and as partners of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. In particular, Māori cultural ideas about whanau (family), whanaungatanga (relationships), and whakapapa (genealogy), have come to shape many Māori practices, including the long-established institution of whāngai. The purpose of this research was to gain insight into the practice of whāngai, and how this might relate to a theology of adoption. This began by exploring Māori understandings of the practice of whāngai, looking at how both whāngai and adoption has been, and currently is, practiced in Aotearoa, and comparing how whāngai differs from western understandings of adoption. This revealed that whāngai operates out of the principle of whanaungatanga – relationship, kinship, family connections. This kinship principle is what shapes the beliefs, attitudes and motivations for whāngai. Biblical investigation into Pauline adoption revealed a similar thread. Paul’s adoption metaphor draws on the kinship language that is pervasive throughout Ancient Israel and the Old Testament to shape and express the way in which believers are adopted into God’s family, locating a theology of adoption within the wider ideas of family, and kinship. As a result, several connections can be drawn between a theology of adoption, and contemporary whāngai practice including the shared concern and reverence for genealogies and whakapapa, the emphasis on family and community, and the shared language of kinship. Paul draws on ideas of kinship from the Old Testament in order to construct his metaphor for adoption. In the same way, whāngai is deeply bound up with the kinship framework and the wider principal of whanaungatanga which places value on family processes, kinship obligations and the concern for the collective, over the individual. It within this rich kinship framework that whāngai can be understood as a practice, and theologically.

Tekweni Chataira, Laidlaw: Motive and Intent in the Book of Ruth: A Narrative Critical Interrogation of Naomi

There has been recent debate amongst Book of Ruth scholars concerning Naomi’s relationship with Ruth. Phylis Trible, in God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, holds a majority view that Naomi was a grieving widow and had only the best of intentions for her daughters-in-law, Ruth and Orpah. Fewell and Gunn hold a provocative view contrary to Trible. In their article “A Son is born to Naomi,” contra Trible, they assert that Naomi displays mixed motives and that her concern for her daughters-in-law is superficial, and further, that her later interaction with Ruth is opportunistic rather than altruistic. Fewell and Gunn’s views are, in part, based on their reading of the gaps and ambiguities (silences) as well as literary allusions in the narrative with regards to Naomi’s underlying agenda. Since the publication of the Fewell and Gunn article, there has been a great deal of interest in this conversation.

This study is an exploration of motive in Naomi’s relationship with her Moabite daughters-in-law, especially Ruth. Through a detailed narrative analysis of key scenes involving both Naomi and Ruth, this study explores Naomi’s and Ruth’s relationship keeping the scholarly debate in mind. Narrative analysis provides a further evaluation of the text in this light and contributes to the scholarly discussion concerning Naomi’s intentions towards Ruth. Engaging in this conversation is a chance not only to acknowledge and understand the presence of different views about the characters in the text but also to evaluate them.

Student essay – The Bible and the politics of assisted dying

Today’s student essay invites us to reflect on the sensitive topic of assisted dying. It was written by Andrew Cardy, a recent graduate of the University of Auckland, as part of his course work for our popular General Education course, The Bible in Popular Culture (THEOREL 101G). Andrew has just completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honours, and a Bachelor of Arts majoring in English and History. He is currently researching Pedagogical Games at the University of Auckland, and looks to complete his Masters qualification in the near future. As well as being a very hardworking student, Andrew is also a youth worker, a vestry member, and a synod representative of St. Andrew’s Epsom, here in Auckland.

Andrew’s essay considers the political debates around assisted dying, particularly the use of the Bible as a ‘cultural prop’ within these debates. I hope you enjoy.

The Bible and Assisted Dying Bills

by Andrew Cardy

The Bible has been a popular point of reference in political discourse since its inception over 2,000 years ago. Within popular culture’s dialogue today the Bible serves as an authoritative, and at times instructive, tool that is widely appropriated by both the secular and religious alike. The current political rhetoric regarding euthanasia (henceforth referred to as ‘assisted death’) is indicative of this. Utilising this case study as a springboard, this essay will discuss the Bible’s use as a ‘cultural prop’ in contemporary politics today. After unpacking this term, focus will turn to the two key points of contention in the assisted dying debate, concluding with a brief summary of New Zealand’s current political rhetoric on the issue. The interest of this investigation is not in valuing one side of the debate over the other, but rather in assessing their various uses of the Bible in the creation of their claims.

Nations with a strong bond between Church and State often offer political discourse riddled with both implicit and explicit references to the Bible. The perception of the politician responsible is the primary concern, rather than the literal meaning of the text. The Bible is cited in order to prop up the individual’s public persona (Crossley 2014, 42). In this way the Bible is used as a ‘Cultural Prop’, defined by Yale Professor Joel Baden as a means of affirming certain personal religious values within a political context (2014). The Bible’s iconic form as a means of moral and ethical instruction informs such a use, as prospective voters or viewers are more likely to be persuaded by its insertion into political rhetoric. The recent political debates around assisted death have led to examples of this type of use as evidenced in the USA and UK especially, where explicit reference to the Bible was present in a majority of submissions made on legislature (Rae 2016, 264). However, engagement with the text is often irresponsible, as Reverend Jonathan Clatworthy noted on the Carter v. Canada case, “consistency lay in political affiliation rather than theological argument: theologians could adapt biblical text… to reach the desired conclusions” (2015, 137).

Certainly the most pronounced, and perhaps the most fundamental, point of contention is around the ‘sanctity of life’ idea, the belief that all life is sacred. For those opposing the introduction of assisted death the most unshakeable assertion of all comes from commandment, “Thou shall not murder” (Exod. 20.13). The political precedent for this was most strongly advocated by Pope John Paul II in 1980 when he said, “no one can make an attempt on the life of a person without opposing God’s love, [constituting a] violation of the divine law [and] an attack on humanity.” A cultural and religious figure of extraordinary influence, the Pope’s message has the power to shift public opinion, as was the case in 1980. Since this momentous statement, the impetus has shifted onto the right to take away life as being reserved only for God, “the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away” (Job 1.21). Excerpts like that of Job 1:21 are present in the submission made by the Catholic Bishops of Alberta who wrote, “killing is not a medicine” (Smith et al 2016). These interpretations by the Pope and Bishops are derived from what Hauer and Young coined as the ‘historical world’, the world behind the text, which accounts for circumstances that existed at the time of the Bible’s inception.

Those who are in favour of the newly proposed legisature legalising assisted death have disputed this use of the Bible as being out of touch, as Professor Ron Hamel wrote, “euthanasia is not new… what seems new is the cultural context in which the question arises” (Hamel 1991, 15). Those such as Reverend Clatworthy contend that these passages were meant for an audience familiar with gladiators and high mortality rates, rather than the context of overpopulation that persists today (2015, 136). The assertion of this view is that modern science and medicine has allowed human life to be extended beyond the expectancy of the Bible’s “seventy years, or perhaps eighty” (Ps. 90.10). Lord George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, notably spoke in favour of Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill in the UK. Carey reasons that “statements that… life is ‘sacred’ and ‘thou shalt not kill’… are too broad to be relevant,” instead he describes these principles as “the backcloth to the debate” (Carey 2015, 114). Lord Carey and his colleagues are herein applying the rhetoric of the Bible through the lens of the “contemporary world,” the world in front of the text itself. Interpretations of this kind place greater emphasis on the context of culture today, as the ability to extend life differentiates from God “forming man from the dust of the ground” (Gen. 2.7). In their use of scripture, those such as Lord Carey employ a dynamic equivalence translation, rather than the formal equivalence used by Pope John Paul II. In this way they use the thoughts of the passages rather than the actual words themselves in creating their argument to better suit a contemporary world context.

Alongside the debate around ‘sacredness of life’, another main point of contention is the question around the biblical themes of compassion and protection for the vulnerable. Those who have opposed the recent assisted dying bills rely on inferences from the Bible, such as that of the commandment, “love your neighbour as yourself” (Mk 12.31). Compassion in this instance is interpreted as referring to the continuing caring for one another as a primary concern. The recently proposed ‘End of Life Choice Bill’ in New Zealand prompted such a response from the Catholic Bishop caucus: “Legalising euthanasia would place the lives of the vulnerable at risk… the mark of a good society is its ability and willingness to care for those who are most vulnerable” (2013). Compassion here is given from a care perspective, like that of the Hippocratic Oath, which advocates the continued assistance to people even if they are in dire circumstances. This use of the Bible is termed by Robert Myles as the “Cultural Bible” which “refers to the use of the Bible beyond its typical confines of institutional religion” (2016, 138; c.f. Crossley 2014). The assertions made seek to underpin debate in a shared identity and shared responsibility, creating what Professor Paul Badham referred to as a “caring community” (Badham 2015, 198).

Lord Falconer and Lord Carey disputed these claims in the recent debates in the UK, instead asserting that it is more compassionate to give someone decency in death. The foundation for this line of debate does not often come directly from scripture, but rather from developments in science and technology. The research used states that not all pain can be stopped, in which cases sedation into a vegetative state is inevitable. Dr. Atul Gawande wrote, “we cannot be endlessly trying to simply preserve life. If is to have a purpose,” as many see sedation to be an unfit methodology (Webb 2014). The leading politicians for these assisted death proposals believe that assisted death is in fact a more compassionate and caring path. Leader of the ACT Party David Seymour said in his initial address to parliament, “there needs to be a more compassionate option in New Zealand”, as similarly Lord Falconer opened his legislate with, “For a person facing this prospect… the choice is cruel.” Here the sense of a “cultural bible” acquires fresh meaning, as the inferences of biblical scripture are appropriated in paraphrased translations. This appropriation of the Bible has some resonance with what Myles referred to as the “Radical Bible” in its advocacy of change and support in relief of the suffering (2016, 132; c.f. Crossley 2014). Though there is very little in terms of direct reference to the text, the Bible’s interpreted themes of care and justice offer the foundation for this scientifically supported understanding.

The contemporary context in New Zealand is ripe with instances of these implicit references to the Bible. As Myles wrote, “political discourse in New Zealand is, for the most part, decidedly secular” for politicians avoid explicit reference in fear of “alienating a large proportion of the population” (2016, 138). Instead the rhetoric of politicians such as David Seymour focuses on directing debate away from discussion of scripture, and instead into ideals like that of choice. In Seymour’s line of argument the Catholic backgrounds of politicians like Bill English and Simon O’Connor act as roadblocks for the vehicle of change (Moir 2016). In this discourse around the right to choice, Seymour is implicitly referencing the “Liberal Bible,” in his affirmation of individualism and democracy (Myles 2016, 140). Liberal lines of argument spring up in all his public rhetoric, as he positions himself as a “representative in a democracy to support the will of my people” (Grant 2015). This use of the Bible had success in Canada, where by focusing on the polling numbers of the voters instead of “attempting to balance competing values” the bill would irrevocably be put through (Rae 2015, 260). The moral concept of a shared community are put aside in using the Liberal Bible, as individualism is instead at the forefront, giving people the full autonomy of choice in pursuing their own individual beliefs. New Zealand offers a complementary demographic, consisting of myriad cultures held together by capitalist ideals of individuality, presenting Seymour a plausible ground from which to propose his legislation.

On Friday 14^th October, David Seymour debated his proposed legislation at St. Luke’s Church, a progressive Presbyterian Church in Remuera, Auckland. In the discussions that follow this over the months to come, one should expect to see various uses of the Bible, both implicit and explicit, in addressing the sanctity of life and compassion for the vulnerable. As witnessed from other contemporary debates overseas, each of these arguments will likely be founded in scripture in one way or another. While the focus and emphasis of the two sides differ, in using the world inside or outside the text, or adhering to traditions of the Cultural, Radical or Liberal Bible, the political incentive will remain consistent – that is to use the Bible like a “cultural prop” in order to “buttress politicians’ existing agendas,” which, as Yvonne Sherword remarks, “has little to do with the text” (2012, 2; c.f. Myles 2016, 140). This use of the Bible will persist in contemporary politics as long as a voting demographic upholds it as a source for moral and ethical guidance. So for the foreseeable future, and the assisted dying debates to come, pay close attention to the rhetoric used, and realise your own religious and cultural background as well as that of the speakers in divining your own belief.

Getty Images

Bibliography

Baden, Joel. “What use is the Bible?” The Nantucket Project. Nantucket, Massachusetts. March 28, 2014.

Badham, Paul. “Assisted dying: an international overview.” Modern Believing 2, no. 56, 2015. pp. 197 – 208.

Carey, George. “Re-assessing assisted dying: a personal statement.” Modern Believing 2, no. 56, 2015. pp. 105 – 132.
Clatworthy, Jonathan. “The dilemmas we face today: assisted dying, life, death, technology and law.” Modern Believing 2, no. 56, 2015. pp. 134 – 144.

Crossley, James. Harnessing chaos: The Bible in English political discourse since 1968. London, New York: Bloomsbury, 2014.

Grant, Nick. “Seymour begins his fight for End of Life Choice Bill.” Radio Broadcast. Produced by My NBR Radio. New Zealand, October 14, 2015.

Hamel, Ronald. Choosing Death: active euthanasia, religion, and the public debate. Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1991.

inthehouseNZ. “04.05.2016 – General Debate – Part 4.” Video Recording. Produced by Tandern Studios. Wellington, New Zealand: May 4, 2016.

Moir, Jo. “Euthanasia debate: what’s different about David Seymour’s bill?” Stuff. 28 January, 2016.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/euthanasia-debate/76021897/Euthanasia-debate-Whats-different-about-David-Seymours-bill

Myles, Robert. “Winston Peters ‘put his hand to the plow’: The Bible in New Zealand political discourse.” Journal of the Bible and its reception 3, no. 1, 2016, pp. 135-153.

“NZ Catholic Bishops message.” The Nathaniel Centre. 27 September, 2013.http://www.nathaniel.org.nz/euthanasia/23-campaigns/euthanasia/modal-windows/262-summary

Rae, Nicola. “New Zealanders’ Attitudes toward Physician-Assisted Dying.” Journal of Palliative Medicine 18, no. 2, 2015. Pp. 259 – 265

Richard Smith, et al. “Statement of the Catholic Bishops of Albertia on Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia.” February 11, 2016.

“Sacred congregation for the doctrine of the faith: Declaration on euthanasia.” The Vatican. May 5^th, 1980.http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19800505_euthanasia_en.html

Seymour, David. “Why I’ve prepared this Bill.” Life Choice. http://www.lifechoice.org.nz/

Sherwood, Yvonne. Biblical Blasphemy: Trial of the sacred for a secular age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2012.

Supreme Court of Canada. “Carter vs. Canada” Attorney General. SCC 5, 2015.

Webb, Justin. “Reith lecturer and rock-star doctor Atul Gawande on life, death and how to cure the NHS.” radiotimes.com, 25 November 2014. http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-11-25/reith-lecturer-and-rock-star-doctor-atul-gawande-on-life-death-and-how-to-cure-the-nhs.

Advent offering 16 December

Today’s Advent offering is a brand new work from Iain Campbell, who is artist-in-residence at St George’s Tron Church in Glasgow, Scotland. He recently unveiled this beautiful contemporary depiction of the Last Supper, titled ‘Our Last Supper’. The painting features men from Glasgow’s City Mission – a Christian charity that cares for vulnerable adults who are impacted by poverty, unemployment, and other social problems.

Iain Campbell, Our Last Supper (2015)

According to Campbell, viewers are usually surprised by the ordinariness of the figures in the painting, in contrast to the more idealized portrayals of Jesus and his disciples we usually see in Christian art. But, as he explains, ‘There’s a sense that there are some real raw stories behind the faces in the painting…We decided to call the painting Our Last Supper. It was based on something one of the guys had said to me: ‘I suppose for any one of us this might be our last supper.'”

Detail of John Wallace

This is a powerful painting – I love the way it strips away the romanticization of the Last Supper tradition, which we often see in artistic portrayals, and brings to the fore themes of community in the midst of hardship, and the grim reality that  this common meal is necessitated by poverty and misfortune.  There is no messiah here, just a gathering of men with a shared sense of need and first-hand experience of marginalization, who look towards us and ask us to acknowledge they are there.

Detail of Arthur Curtis

For further details of this painting and the artist, see the feature on the BBC Scotland website here.

 

 

Seminar: The Delilah Monologues

A reminder to everyone that there is another not-to-be-missed seminar coming up next week at Auckland Theology and Religious Studies. This is the last seminar of the semester in what has been a particularly fabulous series of presentations by our staff and PG students. So, next Friday, 12 June, I will be delivering ‘The Delilah Monologues’ to a (hopefully) rapt audience. This presentation/performance was premiered at Sheffield University’s SIIBS seminar series last year (and sponsored by Hidden Perspectives), so you could say it is a global phenomenon. And as extra incentive, there will be drinks and nibbles served thereafter. Hope to see you there.

The Delilah Monologues

Friday 12 June, 2-3pm, in Arts 1, Room 510

Drinks and nibbles afterwards!

Henry Clive, Delilah (1949)

If Delilah could speak to us today, what would she say? How would this biblical character make sense of the multiple interpretive traditions and cultural retellings of Judges 16, which have portrayed her so frequently as a femme fatale par excellence – a fatal woman whose exotic feminine allure and lethal sexuality ultimately destroyed Samson, that most heroic Hebrew holy man? In ‘The Delilah Monologues’, I lend Delilah a voice, so that she can cast a queer eye over these retellings, and thus interrogate the very ‘straight’ ways in which they make sense of the multiple ambiguities surrounding her character within this biblical narrative.Focusing particularly on her sexuality, her gender, and her ethnicity, she will take you on a journey through a myriad of alternative performances for her persona, inviting you into the delightfully queer spaces that she may inhabit within this ancient story.

Danger and Desire – Edenic reflections

Adriaen van der Werff, Adam en Eva (c.1711)

As you will recall from a previous post, I’ve been teaching a course this semester on the Bible and visual exegesis, exploring visual culture as a source of biblical interpretation. Classes have been going well, so I thought I’d share some images and insights we’ve covered in some of the lectures. I’ll start off with our lecture from a few weeks back on Adam and Eve in art and advertising.

We began with an overview of some of the ambiguities in the text of Genesis 2-3, particularly in relation to what Genesis 3 – the story of the ‘Fall’ – says about gender and female sexuality. Does Eve’s creation after Adam – and from Adam – suggest that woman is subordinate to man within the divinely mandated created order? Why does the snake talk to Eve, rather than Adam – does it suggest women’s greater vulnerability to temptation and disobedience? Why did Adam eat the fruit given to him by Eve – did she have to persuade or tempt him to eat it or did he bite into it quite willingly? And what was the forbidden fruit anyway – and why was it forbidden by God in the first place?

Countless interpretations of these textual ambiguities have been put forward over the centuries, many of which have pointed not only to woman’s secondary status in the created order but also to her textual characterisation as weak-willed and naive, prone to sin and solely to blame for the ‘fall’ of humanity and the loss of Edenic relations between both male and female and humanity and God. Moreover, Eve also stands accused of being the archetypal temptress, who uses her sexual allure to entice men away from their natural godliness and to indulge in the ‘forbidden fruit’ of untrammelled sexual desire. As the early Christian and Jewish readings of Genesis 2-3 quoted below suggest, this biblical narrative does not only recount the misdeeds of the first female biblical character, it advances an ideology about all women, explaining their dangerous nature and justifying the need for male dominance and control.

• 1 Timothy 2.12-14: ‘I permit no woman to teach or have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor’.
• Ben Sirach 25.24 (2nd Century BCE wisdom text): ‘From a woman sin had its beginning, and because of her we all die’.
• Philo (Jewish philosopher, 25 BCE-50 CE): Women are ‘the beginning of blameworthy life’. Their bodily appetites are ‘the beginning of wrongs and violation of law, the pleasure for the sake of which men bring on themselves the life of mortality and wretchedness in lieu of that of immortality and bliss’.
• Augustine (Christian theologian, 354-430 CE): ‘[Eve] was of small intelligence and … lives more in accordance with the promptings of the inferior flesh than by the superior reason’.
• Clement of Alexandria (Christian theologian, 150-215 CE): ‘Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman…the consciousness of their own nature must evoke feelings of shame’.
• Tertullian (Christian theologian, 155-245 CE): ‘And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil’s gateway: you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert— that is, death— even the Son of God had to die’.
• Jerome (priest, theologian 347-430 CE): ‘Woman is the root of all evil
• 15th Century with-hunter’s manual, Malleus Maleficarum: ‘In the Old Testament, the Scriptures have much that is evil to say about women, and this because of the first temptress Eve and her imitators’.

Yes, throughout the long history of interpretation surrounding Genesis 2-3, Eve gets the blame for all humanity’s woes; moreover, all women are Eve, all women are associated with sin, guilt, temptation, and evil. No wonder men have to exert power over us, lest our evil natures wreak further havoc in this divinely ordained patriarchal world. We might be tempted to roll our eyes at the outdated views of these early interpretive efforts, dismissing their horrible misogyny as the result of archaic responses that no longer wield power in our contemporary Bible-reading cultures. Alternatively, we may tend to agree with their general interpretation of Genesis 2-3, but seek to whitewash the violence and vitriol of of such readings with platitudinous appeals to the far more equitable creation account of Genesis 1, where ‘male and female’ are both created – concurrently it seems – in the ‘image of God’. And yet, despite the fact that these early interpretations of Genesis 2-3 are indeed products of their time, their legacy across time and space has been ubiquitous and far from harmless; indeed, it’s almost a truism to say that the Genesis 2-3 text has had and continues to have a real and deleterious effect on women’s social, political, and religious lives: as feminist theologian Mary Daly noted:

‘The myth [of Gen 2-3]  has projected a malignant image of the male-female relationship and of the “nature” of women that is still deeply imbedded in the modern psyche … The myth has in fact affected doctrines and laws that concern women’s status in society and it has contributed to the mind-set of those who continue to grind out biased, male-centred ethical theories … [It] undergirds destructive patterns in the fabric of our culture’.

Beyond God the Father, 1973.

So, if we turn to some of the visual depictions of Genesis 2-3 created across the centuries, what can we tell about the way artists have interpreted this biblical text? Do they likewise reflect the views of those early readings given above, pinning the blame on Eve for the whole sorry mess that was ‘the Fall’? Carrying out a survey of artists’ presentations of Genesis 3 from the Medieval period through to the nineteenth century fin de siècle and on to the present day, it becomes clear that the notion of Eve as Adam’s temptress – and her close affiliation with the snake, that source of sinful temptation – remained alive and well in visual culture. In some artworks, for example, Eve and the snake share a rather spooky resemblance, confirming the artists’ association of woman with this serpentine symbol of evil.

Masolino, Temptation of Adam and Eve, 1425

The Fall of Adam and Eve, Hugo van der Goes, c. 1470

In other visual portrayals of Genesis 3, Eve may not look like the snake, but her close affiliation with it is clear to see. In William Blake’s Eve Tempted by the Serpent, this bizarre couple sashay around the tree of knowledge together, while Adam lies snoozing, oblivious to the disastrous events about to unfold.

William Blake, Eve Tempted by the Serpent, c.1800

In works by Lucien Levy-Dhurmer, Henry Fuseli, and John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, there’s even a wee bit of flirtation going on between Eve and the snake, while in Franz von Stuck’s work, Adam and Eve, Eve and the snake appear to become one flesh, the lapis lazuli creature mimicking the serpentine curves of the woman’s body until they coalesce to form one terrible fanged mouth that offers the man that fateful fruit.

Lucien Levy-Dhurmer, Eve, 1896

Henry Fuseli, The Serpent Tempting Eve (Satan’s first address to Eve), 1802

John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, Eve Tempted (c.1877)

Franz von Stuck, Adam and Eve (1893)

Also, note how in some of these paintings, Eve is alone with the snake, accentuating the closeness of their relationship and, as J. Cheryl Exum has suggested, allowing Adam to be acquitted of at least some of the blame for his and Eve’s act of fruity disobedience. And even when he is present in the picture, some artists seem to insist that Adam was an unwilling partaker of the forbidden fruit, driven to this disastrous act as the result of Eve’s feminine wiles and skills of temptation.

William Strang, The Temptation (1899)

Titian, The Fall of Man (c.1550)

Victor Brauner, Adam and Eve 1923

But how did Eve tempt Adam to eat the forbidden fruit? And what was this fruit anyway – what did it represent? The biblical text doesn’t explicitly tell us, but as Katie Edwards has suggested (in her fabulous book Admen and Eve), given the rich biblical tradition of pairing together the themes of female sexuality and fruit (see Song of Songs 2:3-5 and 4:12-16 for example) – not to mention the sexualised implications of female nakedness found throughout the Hebrew biblical traditions – it may be that Eve’s ability to tempt her man to disobey the divine word was due to the overwhelming power of her sexuality. In other words, she didn’t simply persuade Adam to eat a piece of fruit – she seduced him until he was powerless to resist her charms, until he forgot about any divine prohibition and, throwing caution to the wind, sank his teeth into the delights of the flesh. And certainly, artists such as John Liston Byam Shaw make quite explicit this association between female sexuality and the sin of the ‘Fall’. Eve – as woman – is shamelessly seductive here – framed by the rich colours and exotic creatures of Eden (including a rather ginormous snake), she appears to have entranced poor Adam to the point of catatonia as he stands, trapped between those two most deadly of creatures – the woman and the snake – with nowhere left to run.

John Liston Byam Shaw, The Woman, the Man, the Serpent (1911)

Even in contemporary depictions of the Adam and Eve biblical traditions – for example, advertising images that use iconography from the Genesis 2-3 text – this sexualising of Eve persists, along with that same insistence that Adam, while not entirely blameless, was rendered helpless by the overwhelming (and thus dangerous) power of woman’s sensual allure.

Bobby’s Taproom and Grill advert

Bobby’s Taproom and Grill advertising image

TSUM department store ad

These contemporary images – although created under the banner of (hetero)sex positive postfeminism – may still convey an implicit message that such allure may need to be proscribed and policed. As Edwards notes in Admen and Eve, women’s sexuality and self-objectification before the male gaze can now be advertised as a source of their social and sexual power; yet, there is a concomitant claim that such potent female sexuality poses a threat to men and masculinity. Meanwhile, both of these ideological responses blissfully ignore the daily reality for countless women that their sexuality is less a source of their power than a site of shame, vulnerability, and violence.   While Paul, Philo, the Church fathers, and countless others insist that women’s sexuality led man to lose his paradise, the reality may be that the paradise of patriarchy never did get lost in the first place, but remains very much a reality, sustained by those myths and misperceptions surrounding female sexuality – given voice in Genesis 2-3 and their interpretive traditions – that serve to keep women firmly in that marginal space of shame, subordination, and sexual sin.

I’ll be back soon with more reflections from our Danger and Desire course – next time, we’ll survey the cultural phenomenon of ‘Salomania’ – that centuries-long artistic love affair with the young royal dancer who caused John the Baptist to, quite literally, lose his head.

References for this discussion:

Edwards, Katie B. Admen and Eve: The Bible and Contemporary Advertising (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012).

Exum, J. Cheryl. “Notorious Biblical Women in Manchester: Spencer Stanhope’s Eve and Frederick Pickersgill’s Delilah.” In Bible Art Gallery, edited by Martin O’Kane, 69-96 (The Bible in the Modern World, 21. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2011).

Research Seminar: Jesus’ Exploitation of Servant Labour

Our new member of staff Dr Robert Myles is kicking off this semester’s research seminars with his intriguingly titled paper ‘Jesus Exploitation of Servant Labour’. For more details, follow the link below to his blog, and if you are in the Auckland area on Friday 20th March, 2-3pm, please come along!

Research Seminar: Jesus’ Exploitation of Servant Labour.

Danger and Desire: New course offering for Theology at Auckland

Those of you who have visited the blog before will be aware that I have a bit of a thing for exploring the Bible in the visual arts (see our annual December Advent offerings, for example, or some previous posts here, here, and here). So I’m thrilled this year to be teaching  on this very topic. Titled Danger and Desire: The Bible and Visual Culture, this brand new course will introduce students to the concept of visual exegesis, showing them how visual images (including art, film, TV, and advertising) can be valuable tools for the biblical interpreter to use in their readings of biblical stories, themes and, characters. These pictorial presentations of the biblical material are rather like biblical commentaries or scholarly articles in visual form – the image maker is an interpreter of the text, not merely its illustrator. And, through their particular visual media, they gift to us fascinating retellings of the biblical stories, multicoloured afterlives of biblical characters, and reflections on biblical themes that can at times be thrilling, surprising, and even challenging.

Robert Lentz, David and Jonathan (c. 2005)

In case I’ve whetted your interest, I’ve listed the course description and lecture topics below, along with a very select bibliography of some resources we’ll be using. And, as the course progresses, I’ll share with you some of the insights that I get from each lecture, not to mention some of the wonderful images we’ll be looking at each week.

Franz von Stuck, Adam and Eve

Danger and Desire: The Bible and Visual Culture

An exploration of the ways that biblical characters, themes, and stories have been represented in the visual arts, including fine art, advertising, and film. Students will consider the interrelationship between biblical and cultural texts, learning various methods of biblical interpretation which utilise visual images as interpretive tools to make new sense of the biblical traditions and their history of interpretation.

Lectures:

1. Introduction to visual exegesis and hermeneutical aesthetics
2. Sin, sexuality, and selling power: Adam and Eve in art and advertising
3. Don’t lose your head: Judith and Salome as biblical femmes fatales
4. Querying masculinities: exploring biblical ambiguities in the visual arts (David and Jonathan; Jacob wrestling with the man at Jabbok)
5. Querying femininities: exploring more biblical ambiguities in the visual arts (Ruth and Naomi)
6. Highlighting or hiding the abject body? Hagar in art
7. Bathing beauties and peeping toms: Bathsheba and Susanna in art
8. Giving shape to suffering: the book of Job in art (focus on William Blake and Samuel Bak)
9. Retelling familiar tales: the parable of the good Samaritan in art and on screen
10. Visualizing the (masculine) holy: Jesus and messiah imagery in art, film, and advertising

Samuel Bak, Journey (1991)

Select bibliography

Adams, Ann Jensen. Rembrandt’s Bathsheba Reading King David’s Letter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Allison, Dale C. Jr., Christine Helmer, Thomas Römer,  Choon-Leong Seow, Barry Dov Walfish,  and Eric Ziolkowski (eds.) Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009-

Clines, David J. and J. Cheryl Exum (eds.). Biblical Reception (2012-2013).

Clanton, Dan. Daring, Disreputable, and Devout: Interpreting the Bible’s Women in the Arts and Music. New York: T&T Clark, 2009.

Edwards, Katie B.  Admen and Eve: The Bible in Contemporary Advertising. The Bible in the Modern World, 48. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2012.

Exum, J. Cheryl. The Bible in Film: The Bible and Film. Leiden: Brill, 2006.

Exum, J. Cheryl.  Plotted, Shot, and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical Women. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012 (2nd edn).

Exum, J. Cheryl and Ela Nutu (eds.). Between the Text and the Canvas: The Bible and Art in Dialogue. The Bible in the Modern World, 13. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009

Harvey, John.  The Bible as Visual Culture: When Text Becomes Image. The Bible in the Modern World, 57. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2013.

Joynes, Christine E. (ed.). Perspectives on the Passion: Encountering the Bible through the Arts. London: T&T Clark, 2007.

O’Kane, Martin (ed.). Bible Art Gallery. The Bible in the Modern World, 21. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2011.

________ (ed.). Imaging the Bible: An Introduction to Biblical Art. London: SPCK, 2008.

________. Painting the Text: The Artist as Biblical Interpreter. The Bible in the Modern World, 8. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009.

Renan, Ernest. Christ in Art. New York: Parkstone International, 2010.

Rowland, Christopher. Blake and the Bible. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010.

Terrien, Samuel. The Iconography of Job through the Centuries: Artists as Biblical Interpreters. University Park: PSU Press, 1996.

John Vassos, Salome and John the Baptist (1927)

Adam and Eve imagery in Bench/ undies ad

Banksy, Crucifixion

New Year, New Book: Sexuality, Ideology, and the Bible

Over the past few months, Robert Myles and I have been working hard to finish our co-edited volume, Sexuality, Ideology and the Bible: Antipodean Engagements, which will be published by Sheffield Phoenix Press later this year. The volume will contain a series of essays written by biblical scholars located in Australia and New Zealand on themes relating to sexuality, gender, and queer theory within biblical traditions and interpretations. We were also very fortunate to get the marvellous Professor Hugh Pyper from the University of Sheffield to write a response to these essays and to offer his own thoughts on ‘antipodean engagements’ with sexuality, queer ideologies, and biblical scholarship.

As a taster/teaser, I’ve listed the titles of all the essays in the volume below. And we’ll post more details about the book as it progresses along its publication path.

THE ANTIPODEAN UNDERSIDE OF SEXUALITY, IDEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE
Robert J. Myles

THE PERFECT PENIS OF EDEN AND QUEER TIME IN AUGUSTINE’S READING OF PAUL
Deane Galbraith

‘COME UPON HER’: LAND AS RAPED IN JEREMIAH 6.1-8
Emily Colgan

IMAGINING THE BODY OF CHRIST
Christina Petterson

THE MATRIARCH’S MUFF
Roland Boer

PAUL SPEAKS LIKE A GIRL: WHEN PHOEBE READS ROMANS
Alan H. Cadwallader

‘WE’RE HERE, WE’RE QUEER—GET USED TO IT!’: EXCLAMATIONS IN THE MARGINS (EUODIA AND SYNTYCHE IN PHIL. 4.2)
Gillian Townsley

QUEER[Y]ING THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
Elaine M. Wainwright

PROMETHEA’S SONG OF SONGS
Yael Klangwisan

THE DELILAH MONOLOGUES
Caroline Blyth and Teguh Wijaya Mulya

RESPONSE: QUEERING THE ANTIPODES
Hugh S. Pyper

Highlights from Radical Interpretations of the Bible, Sheffield

Auckland Theology favourite, occasional contributor to this blog, and soon-to-be teaching staffer Dr Robert Myles recently organised a conference at Sheffield University, where he’s been visiting scholar for the past six months. Participants at the Radical Interpretations of the Bible conference considered a range of revolutionary methods in biblical interpretations, including critical theory, Marxist exegesis, anarchist exegesis, radical reception theory and other ideological and political readings. The conference sounds as though it was a cracking success and, as Robert’s post below indicates, we hope to follow on from it by hosting a similar conference later this year in Auckland. Can’t wait…

Advent offering 24 December

For our final advent offering, I thought I’d follow on from yesterday’s blog, where we looked at nativity images from around the world, with another contextual nativity scene that is flavoured with the artist’s own cultural location. This one has a special place in my heart, as it is a nativity with a bit of a Scottish flavour. It’s by Scots artist William Bell Scott and, when I was home in Edinburgh recently, I was fortunate enough to see it ‘in the flesh’ in the National Gallery of Scotland. Scott locates the nativity scene, not in Bethlehem, but in Penkill, Ayrshire, where he was staying at the time of this composition. Some of the traditional nativity iconography is present – they byre, the animals, the holy family, and the angels (who are sitting rather nonchalantly with the birds in the rafters of the byre). A procession of shepherds make their way towards a rather nervous looking Mary (Joseph meanwhile appears rather disinterested in events, his nose stuck in a book). You’ll see they are followed up at the rear by a piper playing the bagpipes, another wee dash of Scottishness added by Bell to this traditional nativity scene. In the distance, the magi make their decorous way towards the byre,  It looks as though a a rather jolly celebration will soon be in full swing.

William Bell Scott, The Nativity (1872)

And so we reach the end of our advent calendar for 2014. I do hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as we’ve enjoy doing it. From all of us in Theology at Auckland, we wish you and yours a happy festive time and hope to see you for more bloggings in 2015.

Caroline x