CLGS

In various ways the narrator in the Book of Samuel withholds data from the reader until late in the narrative process. Upon receiving these data readers and other interpreters usually continue on into the next plot direction without retracing steps to see what the implications of this "withheld data" do to reshaping the previous plots and characterizations. In particular there are homoerotic implications of the narrative in 1 Samuel 19 which, when "taken backwards" reshapes readings of the text.

Preached at Oakhurst Baptist Church in Decatur, GA
Lectionary Texts: Ezekiel 6:1-5; Psalm 123; Mark 6:1-13

As I sat to write this sermon, I did so with a sense of dread. Not a ...

Dale B. Martin, Woolsey Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University, delivered the inaugural John E. Boswell Lecture on the campus of Pacific School of Religion, April 30, 2008. The text of ...

Easter is more than egg hunts and candies though MCC in the Valley gathered over 800 plastic Easter eggs with candies for orphans. Nobody wanted to provide plastic eggs filled with candies for the Easter egg hunt this year. MCCV, under the leadership of Audrey Antley, stepped up to volunteer. Orphans are castaway children, social nobodies. Easter is about nobody and nobodies. Let me reflect on this a bit.

First Congregational Church of Berkeley; Scripture: 1 Cor 15: 35-58

Yesterday, I cut my grass for the third time this year. Three grass-cuttings inevitably means that Easter must be near.

Thank you so much for inviting me to speak today on the topic of "Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: Biblical Texts in Historical Contexts." Today we're going to look at a topic of intense current controversy, the Bible and homosexuality, but we are going to look at it from a rather different perspective, that of the cultural construction of gender and sexual relations in ancient Mediterranean antiquity.

Lancaster School of Theology

The New Testament provides little ammunition to those wishing to condemn modern homosexuality. Compared to the much more certain condemnations of anger, wealth (sometimes anything but poverty), adultery, or disobedience of wives and children, the few passages that might be taken as condemning homosexuality are meager. It is not surprising, therefore, that the interpretation of two mere words has commanded a disproportionate amount of attention. Both words, arsenokoités and malakos, occur in a vice list in 1 Cor. 6:9, and arsenokoités recurs in 1 Tim.