The Postmodern Bible Reader

A range of powerful contemporary engagements with the Bible by literary critics, philosophers, writers, and activists is brought together for the first time in this Reader. The twenty texts anthologized allow students to explore and interrogate different ways of making the Bible part of the postmodern world. The selection is based on the editors' experience of which texts best engage students and stimulate discussion in the classroom. A broad range of theoretical and cultural voices is represented, including creative approaches and queer theory. Each work is introduced by editorial comment tracing its definitions and history, and part introductions outline the interrelations between documents. In addition, a general introduction by the editors offers 'A Short Course on Postmodernism for Bible Readers', proposing seven seminal theoretical texts which students can read to gain an overview of postmodern thought. The Postmodern Bible Reader is an ideal complement to the successful A Postmodern Bible (1995) and like this text, communicates the excitement and controversy generated by new approaches to biblical studies.

David Jobling teaches at St Andrew's College, Canada, and is General Editor of Semeia. He is author of The Sense of Biblical Narrative and I Samuel.

Tina Pippin is Associate Professor of Religion at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. She is the author of Apocalyptic Bodies: The Biblical End of the World in Text and Image (1999).

David Jobling teaches at St Andrew's College, Saskatoon, Canada, and is General Editor of Semeia. He is author of The Sense of Biblical Narrative and I Samuel.

Tina Pippin is Associate Professor of Religion at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. She is the author of Apocalyptic Bodies: The Biblical End of the World in Text and Image.

Ronald Schleifer teaches at the University of Oklahoma and is co-editor of 'The Oklahoma Project for Discourse and Theory'. He is author of A. J. Greimas and the Nature of Meaning.

Preface

vii

Acknowledgments

xv

Introduction: A Short Course in Postmodernism for Bible Readers

1

(34)

Epigraph: from Green Grass, Running Water

35

(8)

Thomas King

Part I Rereading the Bible

Introduction

43

(15)

The Structural Analysis of Narrative: Apropos of Acts 10--11

58

(20)

Roland Barthes

On the Possibility of Generating Aesthetic Messages in an Edenic Language

78

(14)

Umberto Eco

Reading the Bible

92

(10)

Julia Kristeva

Introduction to the Names-of-the-Father Seminar

102

(15)

Jacques Lacan

Dreaming in 1990

117

(11)

Helene Cixous

Parable and Performative in the Gospels and in Modern Literature

128

(14)

J. Hillis Miller

Body Politic

142

(35)

Mieke Bal

Part II The Politics of Reading

Introduction

163

(14)

J. L. Austin and the Book of Jonah

177

(6)

Terry Eagleton

The Song of Mary (Luke 1:46--55)

183

(5)

Ernesto Cardenal

Canaanites, Cowboys, and Indians: Deliverance, Conquest, and Liberation Theology Today

188

(7)

Robert Allen Warrior

Slave Ideology and Biblical Interpretation

195

(10)

Katie Geneva Cannon

Ecce Homo, Ain't (Ar'n't) I a Woman, and Inappropriate/d Others: The Human in a Post-Humanist Landscape

205

(14)

Donna J. Haraway

A Pedagogy for Postcolonial Feminists

219

(14)

Zakia Pathak

From The Book of Sodom

233

(32)

Paul Hallam

Part III The Conscience of the Bible

Introduction

249

(16)

Meals Among Brothers: Theory of the Joker

265

(9)

Michel Serres

The Interior Structure of Made Objects

274

(22)

Elaine Scarry

From Ethics and Community

296

(23)

Enrique Dussel

On the Jewish Reading of Scriptures

319

(14)

Emmanuel Levinas

Whom to Give to (Knowing Not to Know)

333

(20)

Jacques Derrida

``Draupadi'' by Mahasweta Devi

353

(20)

Gayatri Spivak

Index

373

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The Postmodern Bible Reader

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials