Description
This stimulating collection of essays by prominent scholars honours Turid Karlsen Seim, the prominent Norwegian theologian. Bodies, Borders, Believers brings together biblical scholars, ecumenical theologians, archaeologists, classicists, art historians, and church historians to probe the past and its reception in the present. The contributions discuss Seim’s broad research interests, covering such themes as gender analysis, bodily practices, and ecumenical dialogue. Many scholarly traditions, theoretical orientations and methodological approaches are represented through the international group of contributors, making this book an interdisciplinary and border-crossing endeavour.
About the Author
Anne Hege Grung is an Associate Professor in Practical Theology at the Practical-Theological Seminary, Oslo. She is the author of Gender Justice in Muslim-Christian Readings.
Marianne Bjelland Kartzow is Professor of New Testament Studies at the Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo. She is the author of Gossip and Gender (2009) and Destabilizing the Margins (2012).
Anna Rebecca Solevåg is Associate Professor at the School of Mission and Theology, Stavanger, Norway. She is the author of Birthing Salvation (2013).
Contents
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Introduction
Part 1 – Visions across Time and Space
1. Comparative Study of Gendered Strategies to Represent the Sacrality of the Group: Philo of Alexandria and a Korean-American Presbyterian Church
Karen L. King
2. No Sex in Heaven – Nor on Earth? Luke 20:27-38 as a Proof-Text in Early Christian Discourses on Resurrection and Asceticism
Outi Lehtipuu
3. The Body of God and the Corpus of Historiography: The Life of Aphou of Pemdje and the Anthropomorphite Controversy
Hugo Lundhaug
4. Rewritten Eve Traditions in the Apocryphon of John
Antti Marjanen
5. Sub Luce Videantur: The Time of Light in Early Renaissance Painting
Per Sigurd Tveitevåg Styve
Part 2 – Life Stages and Transformations
6. The Transformation of Aseneth
John J. Collins
7. “The Springtime of the Body”: Resurrection in Minucius Felix’s Octavius
Ingvild Sælid Gilhus
8. Like Father Like Son: Reassessing Constructions of Fatherhood in Ephesians in Light of Cultural Interests in Family Continuity
Margaret Y. MacDonald
9. Salvation as Slavery, Marriage and Birth: Does the Metaphor Matter?
Anna Rebecca Solevåg
10. Embodying the Female Body Politic: Pro-Papal Reception of Ephesians 5 in the Later Middle Ages
Line Cecilie Engh
Part 3 – Contested Dynamics of Community
11. Opportunities and Limits for Women in Early Christianity
Adela Yarbro Collins
12. Emotional Bonds and Roles of the Priestesses of Vesta
Katariina Mustakallio
13. Impedimentum sexus: The Cultic Impediment of Female Humanity
Kari Elisabeth Børresen
14. The Dialogue between Catholics and Lutherans: Its Development and Prospects
André Birmelé
15. The Unity of Life: The Statement on Unity from the 10th WCC Assembly Busan, 2013
Olav Fykse Tveit
16. Diaconal Ministry in the Diaconal Church: Reflections on the Interrelationship between Ministerial Theology and Ecclesiology
Stephanie Dietrich
Part 4 – Patterns of Ambiguity
17. Placing Men in the Double Message of Luke’s Gospel
Halvor Moxnes
18. Two Mothers: Veturia and Mary; Two Sons: Coriolanus and Jesus
David L. Balch
19. Seeds of Violence or Buds of Peace? Faith Resources for Creating a New Peace Consciousness and Culture
Ursula King
20. Reproductive Capital and Slave Surrogacy: Thinking about/with/beyond Hagar
Marianne Bjelland Kartzow
21. Die präsentisch-immanente Wirkung des Zornes Gottes (Römer 1,21-32)
David Hellholm
22. “Saved through Childbirth? That’s Not What the Koran Says.” Muslim and Christian Women in Norway Making Meaning of 1 Tim 2:8-15
Anne Hege Grung
Bibliography of the Publications of Turid Karlsen Seim
Endorsements and Reviews
These articles refuse to be segregated on one side of any border, present conversations setting parameters for complementary readings of Scriptures, ancient texts complicating contemporary categories, thus embodying the pioneering spirit of the scholar honored by this strong, consistent, genre-defying collection.
Jennifer A. Glancy, author of Slavery in Early Christianity and Corporal Knowledge: Early Christian Bodies
A tribute to the first woman with a doctoral degree in theology from a Norwegian university, by some of her students and colleagues, this volume showcases the broad orientation of Seim’s theological interests spanning from exegesis via social reception history to ecumenical theology. It also presents samples of what is by now a coherent trajectory: the ‘Oslo School’ of gender-critical work on early Christian texts – one of whose main inspirations is Professor Seim herself!
Jorunn Økland, Professor of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies in the Humanities, University of Oslo
In this remarkable collection, international scholars of the Bible, church history, art history, classics, archaeology, and ecumenical dialogue follow Seim’s model of nuanced interpretation in The Double Message: Patterns of Gender in Luke-Acts. Luke features women prominently but simultaneously subordinates them. In this volume, scholars take the body seriously as a site for theologizing; explore the borders between life and death, women and men, and Christians and Muslims; and discuss how belief can unite, not just divide.
Bernadette J. Brooten, Robert and Myra Kraft Professor of Christian Studies, Brandeis University
The book is truly a border crossing endeavour in terms of scholarly traditions, theoretical orientations and methodological approaches.
Ronald Charles, in Theological Book Review, Vol 28, No 2
