Session 1
Chair: Siobhán Jolley
Aminta Arrington & Rosemary Flaaten, ‘Decolonising Hospitality: Gender and the Rightful Host in Luke 7:36-50’
Power structures underlie hospitality frameworks. Guests might have a “seat at the table,” but it is the host on whose terms hospitality is conducted. Spaces of hospitality, such as meals, can be codified and hierarchical, involving implicit boundary construction. These power dynamics are at play in Luke 7:36-50 when a woman thought to be a “sinner” shows up to the banquet where Simon is the host and Jesus a guest. This woman, like many who are marginalized, was made both notorious (by reaffirming the label of “sinner”) and invisible (by blocking her humanity and denying her right to tell her own story). In a cultural milieu in which honor and hospitality are deeply intertwined, Jesus does not just insist that this woman be seen; he nominates the scandalous intruder as the “new and better host.” Drawing upon feminist and postcolonial theories, this paper contends that hospitality may reinscribe logics of power and domination, or can restore a consciousness towards inclusivity that draws all to the table.
Melissa Chia Mei Tan & Emma Swai, ‘Positionality in Biblical Studies: Unavoidable Pitfall, or Invaluable Asset?’
Where critical self-awareness is integral to practice within many social science and humanities subjects, positionality is not widely reflected upon within the academic field of biblical studies. Positionality, the intentional practice of considering inherited methodological biases, has the potential to be invaluable in the study of biblical texts; it highlights the inherent subjectivity of the researcher – of any social location – not necessarily as an unavoidable pitfall, but as a valuable asset. By facilitating nuance and sensitivity, research taking positionality into account is open to previously disregarded questions. This paper will discuss the key questions: What does positionality mean practically? What real impact does taking positionality into account have on research questions and textual interpretation? Acknowledging that positionalities can be wide and varied, we provide specific examples by considering short texts through our own respective positionality lenses, showing the variety of alternative questions which can be asked and answered. For example, why is the woman in Luke 13:10-17 considered passive? Or, why is there resistance against a social reading of Philippians 2:7-8?
Lynda Burnhope, ‘Reading the Vice List in Romans 1 with Bakhtin and “Novelised Dialogism”’
In contrast to traditional readings, Jeremy Punt’s postcolonial reading of Romans helps us to focus on Paul’s audience, within the epicentre of the Roman Empire in 57AD. Furthermore, Punt shows how Pauline metaphorical language of slavery for salvation is problematic. There is an undeniable entanglement of slavery with rape culture; both in the ancient world and today. Whilst Bakhtin has been used extensively by biblical scholars for his contribution to literary and narrative theory, his idea of the carnivalesque has not been recognised as a tool for subverting the power structures in non-narrative texts. I propose a way of reading with his concept of carnivalesque alongside his dialogic epistemology, by reading ‘underneath’ the vice list in Rom 1:29-32.
Session 2
Chair: Tom de Bruin
Cambry G. Pardee, ‘Inheriting Satan’s Disguise: The Reception of 2 Corinthians 11:14 from the New Testament to Today’
In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul inveighs against false apostles “disguising themselves (μετασχηματιζόμενοι) as apostles of Christ”. He warns, “Even Satan disguises himself (μετασχηματίζεται) as an angel of light” (2 Cor 11:14). This paper explores the reception of this passage, paying special attention to the rhetorical use of the disguised-demon motif. For some of Paul’s fourth- and fifth-century readers, the demonological assertion in this verse was interpreted quite literally (e.g., Athanasius, Shenoute). Paul, however, was not especially interested in making a demonological assertion, but rather used his claim about Satan’s angelomorphic disguise to make a practical argument about his human opponents. Similarly, in the fourth-century Act of Peter in Azotus the didactic potential of the theme takes precedence over metaphysical speculation; the fiction of masquerading demons is used to expose the “wiles of the devil” so that humans might resist various temptations. A similar usage occurs much more recently in the American television show The Good Place (2016–2020), where devils masquerading as angels are used to expose the faults in today’s culture of moral relativism.
U-Wen Low, ‘Re-reading the mutable body of Christ in the Book of Revelation’
The ‘protagonist’ of the Book of Revelation is a curious figure. Introduced as ‘someone who looks like a human’ per Koester, the figure morphs to become a slain lamb despite being announced as a lion, and finally shifts to being a Divine Warrior toward the end of the narrative. Scholarship has almost always assumed this protagonist to be male, though the figure is clearly not human and thus not subject to gender norms. In this presentation, I suggest that drawing on two interpretive mindsets—Christa-feminist theology and biblical performance criticism—can help interpreters to call this assumption into question. Re-reading this body as embodied by a performer shifting between roles allows us to consider ways that women are represented in Revelation, and the way that the Lamb is portrayed. Such a view creates possibilities for re-imagining the protagonist figure of Revelation, and creates room for us to imagine a Christ figure that is male and female, or perhaps neither.
James Crossley, ‘The Bible of the English Uprising of 1381: The Cases of William Grindecobbe and John Wrawe’
The importance of the lower clergy in the 1381 English uprising (aka the Peasants’ Revolt) has long been noted, including the associated biblical interpretation of its most famous priest, John Ball. Against this backdrop, this paper will turn to two relatively neglected figures and their followers: John Wrawe (the chaplain of Sudbury) and William Grindecobbe (educated at St Albans monastery). Wrawe has regularly been dismissed as little more than a violent gangster, but his violence should be seen in line with the wider violence of 1381 and its disciplined targets backed up by biblical authority and millenarian expectations (e.g., Eucharist interpreted in light of liberation). He was also understood in priestly messianic terms, albeit with relatively modest aspirations connected to the county of Suffolk and its role in a transformed England. Seeking liberties away from the authority of St Albans monastery, Grindecobbe represents a more diplomatic tradition, though one seemingly supported by threatening biblical allusions and references to the rich defrauding labourers (Mark 10.19, among others), the destruction of Jerusalem (Matt. 24.2; Mark 13.2), liberation from the oppressor, and a new age. This paper will look at varied material factors driving the theologies of Grindecobbe and Wrawe and how their ideas fit into biblical interpretation elsewhere in the revolt. It will conclude with some theorising about why the lower clergy and the Bible were prominent these late medieval understandings of a transformed England.