Ethnicity and Inclusion
Religion, Race, and Whiteness in Constructions of Jewish and Christian Identities
Ethnicity and Inclusion
Religion, Race, and Whiteness in Constructions of Jewish and Christian Identities
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Some of today's problematic ideologies of racial and religious difference can be traced back to constructions of the relationship between Judaism and early Christianity. New Testament studies, which developed contemporaneously with Europe's colonial expansion and racial ideologies, is, David Horrell argues, therefore an important site at which to probe critically these ideological constructions and their contemporary implications.
In Ethnicity and Inclusion, Horrell explores the ways in which "ethnic" (and "religious") characteristics feature in key Jewish and early Christian texts, challenging the widely accepted dichotomy between a Judaism that is ethnically defined and a Christianity that is open and inclusive. Then, through an engagement with whiteness studies, he offers a critique of the implicit whiteness and Christianness that continue to dominate New Testament studies today, arguing that a diversity of embodied perspectives is epistemologically necessary.
"This magisterial and far-reaching book brings together New Testament and Jewish studies, the history of scholarship, social theory, and identity politics to show how biblical studies have helped to shape modern ideologies of religion and race. With vast scholarship and penetrating lucidity, Horrell shows why scholarship matters and challenges scholars to rethink the connections between the people we are and the arguments we make."-- Teresa Morgan, University of Oxford
"David Horrell's Ethnicity and Inclusion is an ambitious, impressive, and important work. It is wide-ranging, dealing not only with ancient Judaism and ancient Christianity, but also with theology, race, and whiteness. It is must reading for anyone in the field of early Christianity."-- Matthew Thiessen, McMaster University
"This book treats some of the most important issues of our time, in New Testament studies and beyond: race, ethnicity, and Christian claims to universality and superiority. Participating in an important discussion spearheaded by womanist and African American hermeneutics, Horrell's book magisterially teaches about the intricacies of ancient texts and the problems of the history of scholarship. It details ancient discourses of ancestry, marriage, way of life, homeland, peoplehood, and conversion. Ethnicity and Inclusion concludes with a call for the field to investigate its own provincialism, and the unnamed whiteness of much of New Testament scholarship."-- Laura Nasrallah, Yale Divinity School