Appalling Bodies Queer Figures Before and After Paul's Letters

The letters of Paul are among the most commonly cited biblical texts in ongoing cultural and religious disputes about gender, sexuality, and embodiment. Appalling Bodies reframes these uses of the letters by reaching past Paul toward other, far more fascinating figures that appear before, after, and within the letters. The letters repeat ancient stereotypes about women, eunuchs, slaves, and barbarians--in their Roman imperial setting, each of these overlapping groups were cast as debased, dangerous, and complicated.

Joseph Marchal presents new ways for us to think about these dangers and complications with the help of queer theory. Appalling Bodies juxtaposes these ancient figures against recent figures of gender and sexual variation, in order to defamiliarize and reorient what can be known about both. The connections between the marginalization and stigmatization of these figures troubles the history, ethics, and politics of biblical interpretation. Ultimately, Marchal assembles and reintroduces us to Appalling Bodies from then and now, and the study of Paul's letters may never be the same.

Joseph A. Marchal is Professor of Religious Studies and affiliate faculty in Women's and Gender Studies at Ball State University. Marchal is the author and editor of ten books, most recently: After the Corinthian Women Prophets: Reimagining Rhetoric and Power (2021), Bodies on the Verge: Queering Pauline Epistles (2019), Sexual Disorientations: Queer Temporalities, Affects, Theologies (2018), and Philippians: Historical Problems, Hierarchical Visions, Hysterical Anxieties (2017).

Acknowledgments

Prelude: Before and After
Romosexuality
Queer Reconfigurations
Past Paul
After This Before

Chapter One: Touching Figures: Reaching Past Paul
Between Brooten and a Halperin Place
How to Get Stuck in "the Middle" with Sedgwick and Butler
Toward Some Touching Connections?

Chapter Two: A Close Corinthian Shave: Trans / Androgyne
Corinthian Citations, Pauline Performativity, and Echoes of Androgyny
Ancient Androgyny, Reconsidered
Hair-Raising Androgyny and the Corinthian Assembly?
Transgender and Other Mobilizations of Masculinity
Resembling and Assembling Female (Masculine) Prophets

Chapter Three: Uncut Galatians: Intersex / Eunuch
"They tried to write their Gospel on my body": Defining, Treating, Resisting
An Ancient Pal, Against Genital Cutting?
A Cutting Joke
Facing the Phallus, Cutting to the Fore(skin)
"Don't Quote Ovid to Me" (and Don't Bother with Paul Either?)
Conclusion

Chapter Four: Use: Bottom / Slave
The Use of Slaves
The Use of Onesimus: Chresis and Consent, Puns and Patrons
Switching Biblical Bonds
Other Uses of History
How Not to Race Past
Attending to the Past
Whipping Through Time

Chapter Five: Assembled Gentiles: Terrorist / Barbarian
Exceptional Sexual
The Epistles' Exceptionalism
Barbarians, Among Other Perverse Figures
Exceptionalism Rules
An Unexceptional Paul
Some Alternative Assembly Required
Analogy, Anachronism, Assembly: A Contingent Conclusion

Epilogue: Biblical Drag

Bibliography
Indexes