ABOUT THIS BOOKThe burgeoning field of disability studies has recently emerged within the humanities and social sciences and, as a result, disability is no longer seen as the biological condition of an individual body but as a complex product of social, political, environmental, and biological discourses. The groundbreaking essays of This Abled Body engage biblical studies in conversation with the wider field of disability studies. They explore the use of the conceptual category “disability” in biblical and Near Eastern texts and examine how conceptions of disability become a means of narrating, interpreting, and organizing human life. Employing diverse approaches to biblical criticism, scholars explore methodological issues and specific texts related to physical and cognitive disabilities. Responses to the essays by established disability activists and academics working in the social sciences and humanities conclude the volume. The contributors are Martin Albl, Hector Avalos, Bruce C. Birch, Carole R. Fontaine, Thomas Hentrich, Nicole Kelley, Janet Lees, Sarah J. Melcher, David Mitchell, Jeremy Schipper, Sharon Snyder, Holly Joan Toensing, Neal H. Walls, and Kerry H. Wynn.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHYHector Avalos is Professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. He is the author of The End of Biblical Studies and Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence (both from Prometheus) and Strangers in Our Own Land: Religion in U.S. Latina/o Literature (Abingdon).
Sarah J. Melcher is Associate Professor of Hebrew Scriptures and Co-Director of the Ethics/Religion and Society Program at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Jeremy Schipper is a Lecturer in Hebrew Bible at Temple University and an affiliated faculty member of Temple’s Institute on Disabilities. He is the author of Disability Studies and the Hebrew Bible: Figuring Mephibosheth in the David Story (T&T Clark).
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Abbreviations ..................................................................................
Introduction
Hector Avalos, Sarah J. Melcher, Jeremy Schipper ...........................
ESSAYS
PART I: RETHINKING DISABILITIES IN ANCIENT TEXTS
1. The Origins of the Disabled Body: Disability in Ancient Mesopotamia
Neal H. Walls .....................................................................
2. Deformity and Disability in Greece and Rome
Nicole Kelley .....................................................................
3. Introducing Sensory Criticism in Biblical Studies: Audiocentricity and
Visiocentricity
Hector Avalos .....................................................................
4. "Be Men, O Philistines!" (1 Sam 4:9): Iconographic Representations and Reflections
on Female Gender as Disability in the Ancient World
Carole R. Fontaine ................................................................
5. Masculinity and Disability in the Bible
Thomas Hentrich ..................................................................
PART II: BIBLICAL TEXTS AND DISABILITY STUDIES
6. The Normate Hermeneutic and Interpretations of Disability within the Yahwistic
Narratives
Kerry H. Wynn .....................................................................
7. Disabling Israelite Leadership: 2 Samuel 6:23 and Other Images of Disability
in the Deuteronomistic History
Jeremy Schipper ....................................................................
8. With Whom Do the Disabled Associate?: Metaphorical Interplay
in the Latter Prophets
Sarah J. Melcher ...................................................................
9. "Living Among the Tombs": Society, Mental Illness, and Self-Destruction in
Mark 5: 1-20
Holly Joan Toensing ...............................................................
10. For whenever I am weak, then I am strong: Disability in Paul's Epistles
Martin Albl .........................................................................
RESPONSES
11. Enabling the Body
Janet Lees ...........................................................................
12. "Jesus Thrown Everything Off Balance:" Disability and Redemption in
Biblical Literature"
David Mitchell .....................................................................
13. Impairment as a Condition in Biblical Scholarship: A Response
Bruce C. Birch .....................................................................
Conclusion
Hector Avalos, Sarah J. Melcher, Jeremy Schipper ...........................
Bibliography
Contributors
