While the Bridegroom is with them'
Marriage, Family, Gender and Violence in the Gospel of Matthew
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Hardback
£170.00
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Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 9780567041128
Number of Pages: 254
Published: 09/06/2005
Width: 15.6 cm
Height: 23.4 cm
Interpreters of Matthew's Parable of the Wedding Feast (22.1-14) typically associate the 'king' with God and then justify his violent attacks against city and guests; interpreters of the Parable of the Ten Virgins (25.1-13) typically associate the 'bridegroom' with Jesus and then justify his extreme rejection of the 'foolish virgins.' Questioning such allegorical interpretations, this study first details how Hebrew, Greek, and Roman texts depict - without requiring allegorical understandings - numerous bridegrooms associated not only with joy but also with violence and death. Second, this project appeals to the disruptive nature of parables, the feminist technique of resisting reading, and the Matthean Jesus's own ethical instructions to argue that in the parables, those who resist violent rulers and uncaring bridegrooms are the ones worthy of the Kingdom. The study then shows how the Matthean Jesus - the brideless, celibate bridegroom -- creates a fictive family by disrupting biological and marital ties, redefining masculinity, and undermining the desirability of marriage and procreation. JSNTS 292
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; ABBREVIATIONS; INTRODUCTION; I. THE BRIDEGROOM AND VIOLENCE; The Deity as Bridegroom or Husband; The Bridegroom in Pauline Thought; The Bridegroom in Revelation; Bridegrooms and Violence as a Literary Trope in Greco-Roman; Contexts; Violence as a Cultural Foundation for Marriage; Conclusion; INTRODUCTION TO THE WEDDING PARABLES; II. THE PARABLE OF THE WEDDING FEAST (Mt. 22.1-14); Introduction; Violence in the Matthean Redaction...; The Wedding Banquet; The King's Slaves; The Call and Refusal; The Second Invitation: 'Come to the Feast'; The Burned City; The Next Group of Guests; The Guest without a Wedding Garment; Many Are Called but Few are Chosen; Conclusion; III. THE PARABLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS (Mt. 25.1-13); Introduction; Ten Virgins Go to Meet the Bridegroom; Wise and Foolish; Ten Virgins: the Full Measure; Lamps and Oil; The Bridegroom's Delay; The Cry at Midnight; Go Buy for Yourselves; The Door; 'I Never Knew You'; Conclusion; IV. THE BRIDEGROOM'S FICTIVE FAMILY; Introduction; Households in the First Century; Voluntary Associations as Fictive Families; The Bridegroom's Fictive Family and Disruption of Kinship Bonds; The 'Sons of the Bridal Chamber'; Joseph as Model for Adoptive Fatherhood; Eunuchs for the Kingdom; Fatherhood and Motherhood in Matthew; 'The Slaughter of the Innocents' and Violence in the Matthean; Family; Conclusion. V. THE ABSENT BRIDE, ANGELS, AND ANDROGYNY: SEXUALITY IN MATTHEW; Introduction; The Absent Bride; Like the Angels: No Marriage in Heaven; One Flesh: the Primordial Androgyne and Sexuality in Matthew; Except for Porneia: Marriage and Divorce in Matthew; Conclusion; CONCLUSION; BIBLIOGRAPHY.
'In her well-documented introduction, [Marianne Blickenstaff] lays out the lacuna in Matthean studies in relation to her combination of themes, which she seeks to fill with this study, a goal she has achieved convincingly....Her study is a significant one for all biblical scholars in a world characterized by violence.' Elaine Wainwright, University of Auckland, Australia, RBL, 10/2006--Sanford Lakoff "Rbl "