Redirected Travel: Alternative Journeys and Places in Biblical Studies (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement #382)

264 Pages·2003·13.94 MB·English

by  Roland Boer

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
SUPPLEMENT SERIES
382
Editors
David J.A. Clines
Philip R. Davies
Executive Editor
Andrew Mein
Editorial Board
Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, J. Cheryl Exum,
John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald,
John Jarick, Andrew D.H. Mayes, Carol Meyers,
Patrick D. Miller
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Redirected Travel
Alternative Journeys and Places in Biblical Studies
edited by
Roland Boer & Edgar W. Conrad
T&.T CLARK INTERNATIONAL
A Continuum imprint
LONDON • NEW YORK
Copyright © 2003 T&T Clark International
A Continuum imprint
Published by T&T Clark International
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
15 East 26th Street, Suite 1703, New York, NY 10010
www.tandtclark.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Typeset by CA Typesetting, Sheffield
Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall
ISBN 0-8264-6766-0
CONTENTS
List of Contributors vii
INTRODUCTION: THE BIBLE AND CRITICAL THEORY
Roland Boer and Edgar W. Conrad 1
ELECTRONIC CULTURE AND THE FUTURE OF THE CANON
OF SCRIPTURE OR: THE HYPERREAL BIBLE
George Aichele 8
O PAUL WHERE ART THOU?
James Smith 24
SEMIOTICS, SCRIBES AND PROPHETIC BOOKS
Edgar W. Conrad 41
THE SALVATION OF ISRAEL IN 'THE BOOK OF THE DIVIDED
KINGDOMS', OR, WAS THERE ANY 'FALL OF THE NORTHERN
KINGDOM'?
David Jobling 50
READING MARK BACKWARDS: ESTABLISHING AN
INTERPRETIVE LENS FOR A FEMINIST-LIBERATIONIST
READING OF THE GOSPEL OF MARK
Bernadette Kiley 62
READING THE SILENCE OF WOMEN IN GENESIS 34
Julie Kelso 85
LOST IN PLACE: SOME PERPLEXITIES OF INTERTEXTUAL
ENTANGLEMENT
Anne Taylor 110
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WHO'S/WHOSE SARAH?:
JOURNEYING WITH SARAH IN A CHORUS OF VOICES
Judith E. McKinlay 131
GENERATIVITY AND PLACE: THE GENEALOGIES OF GENESIS
1 TO 11 AND NEGOTIATING A SENSE OF PLACE IN AUSTRALIA
Anne Elvey 144
SANCTUARY AND WOMB: HENRI LEFEBVRE AND THE
PRODUCTION OF ANCIENT SPACE
Roland Boer 162
IT'S LONELY AT THE TOP: PATRIARCHAL MODELS, HOMOPHOBIC
VILIFICATION AND THE HETEROSEXUAL HOUSEHOLD IN LUTHER'S
COMMENTARIES
Michael Carden 185
REDIRECTING THE DIRECTION OF TRAVEL: DISCERNING
SIGNS OF A NEO-INDIGENOUS SOUTHERN AFRICAN BIBLICAL
HERMENEUTICS
Gerald West 201
Bibliography 226
Index of References 247
Index of Authors 252
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
George Aichele is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Adrian College
in Michigan. He is author of The Control of Biblical Meaning: Canon as
Semiotic Mechanism (2001) and various other writings on semiotics and
the Bible.
Roland Boer is Senior Logan Research Fellow at Monash University in
Melbourne, Australia. Working in biblical criticism and Marxism, his cur-
rent project concerns Political Myth and the Bible. He has recently com-
pleted Marxist Criticism of the Bible and The Criticism of Earth.
Michael Carden received his PhD in 2002 from the University of Queen-
sland in Australia. His dissertation was a study of the reception of the stories
of Sodom and Gomorrah and the outrage at Gibeah in both Christian and
Jewish traditions up to the time of the Reformation. Michael has taught in
the area of biblical studies and comparative religion at the University of
Queensland and introduced a course on Religion and Sexuality. Michael
has also had many years of involvement in LGBT and HIV/AIDS commu-
nity organizations.
Ed Conrad is Reader and Director of Postgraduate Studies in the School of
History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics at the University of Queensland.
Along with other books and articles, he is the author of Reading Isaiah
and Zechariah.
Anne Elvey is an honorary research associate in the Centre for Women's
Studies and Gender Research at Monash University in Melbourne, Austra-
lia. She completed a PhD in Women's Studies in 1999 involving an eco-
logical feminist approach to biblical criticism. Her research interests bring
together ecological, feminist and postcolonial considerations of questions
of origin and relationship to place.
viii Redirected Travel
David Jobling was the general editor for Semeia and has recently retired as
Professor of Old Testament Language and Literature at St Andrews Theo-
logical College, Saskatoon, Canada. His most recent work, I Samuel, brings
together Marxism, psychoanalysis and feminism, which he is now carrying
on into the books of Kings.
Julie Kelso is a doctoral student in the School of History, Religion, Phi-
losophy and Classics at the University of Queensland. Her work concerns
Luce Irigaray and the book of Chronicles, exploring the way the presence
of women in these texts is based upon their systematic absence, especially
in terms of the mother-daughter relation and the maternal body.
Bernadette Kiley lectures in biblical studies and theology at the School of
Education, University of South Australia. She has recently completed her
doctoral dissertation on the Gospel of Mark.
Judith McKinlay has recently retired as Senior Lecturer in Biblical Studies
in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of
Otago, New Zealand. She is the author of Gendering Wisdom the Host
(Sheffield Academic Press), and articles in Pacifica, Semeia, and Biblical
Interpretation, variously exploring feminist, ideological, and postcolonial
readings of texts. She is a member of the editorial board of Seachanges, the
Asia-Pacific-based journal for Women Scholars of Religion and Theology.
James A. Smith teaches biblical studies at Cincinnati Bible College and
Seminary. He specializes in Pauline Studies/Theology, Critical Theory and
Cultural Studies.
Anne Taylor is a doctoral student at the Centre for Studies in Religion
and Theology at Monash University. Her thesis concerns the work of Julia
Kristeva and the function of intertextuality in the relation between bibli-
cal text, its versions (Septuagint, Vulgate, etc.) and the lectionary.
Gerald West teaches Hebrew Bible and African Biblical Hermeneutics
at the School of Theology, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South
Africa. He is also Director of the Institute for the Study of the Bible and
Worker Ministry Project.
INTRODUCTION: THE BIBLE AND CRITICAL THEORY
Roland Boer and Edgar W. Conrad
The essays gathered here are the first fruits of one of the most interesting
developments in biblical studies in Australia and New Zealand for a long
time, namely the Bible and Critical Theory Seminar. Since its first meeting
in 1998, the seminar has set out to provide a forum in Australia for the
exploration of the implications of critical theory for biblical studies. It
actively works to engage in dialogue with specialists in literary theory and
philosophy outside biblical scholarship. The programs have featured key-
note speakers from overseas (George Aichele, Danna Fewell, David Jobling,
Regina Schwartz, Susan Feiner and Judith McKinlay) and from Australia
(John Docker and Kevin Hart).
We began organizing the seminar for a number of reasons: the absence
of any group that dealt specifically with our interests in critical theory, here
understood in the broad sense of the term, and biblical studies; the scat-
tered nature of biblical studies in the antipodes; the increasing number of
postgraduate students working in innovative areas in biblical studies; and
the desire to have a good time.
Although we can think of only two organizations that focus on biblical
studies in Australia, their tendency is very much for a certain status quo
that has as its dual poles the context of the church and the tenacious hold
of more traditional ways of doing biblical criticism in that context. This
ossification of biblical studies that valorizes and preserves certain uses of
the text in the context of pressing ecclesial politics and practice, along
with a subservience to the perceived patterns of scholarship in the 'real'
centres of learning, has a long history into which we will not delve here.
This is not to say that all of the participants in the Bible and Critical Theory
Seminar work precisely in such a situation. However, the seminar provides
its members with a forum where they can ask the questions they wish to
ask and probe them further, without the institutional constraints that would
otherwise hinder their work.