Gospel Jesuses and Other Nonhumans: Biblical Criticism Post-poststructuralism by Stephen D. Moore
2019; Catholic Biblical Association; Volume: 82; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/cbq.2020.0028
ISSN2163-2529
Autores Tópico(s)Biblical Studies and Interpretation
ResumoReviewed by: Gospel Jesuses and Other Nonhumans: Biblical Criticism Post-poststructuralism by Stephen D. Moore Christopher R. Lortie stephen d. moore, Gospel Jesuses and Other Nonhumans: Biblical Criticism Post-poststructuralism (SBLSS 89; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017). Pp. xii + 151. Paper $24.95. Stephen D. Moore’s Gospel Jesuses and Other Nonhumans confronts the reader with depictions of Jesus through the use of affect theory and nonhuman theory. In the introduction, M. summarizes the shift to post-poststructuralism as “a turn away from language, the preeminent preoccupation of classic poststructuralism, which is simultaneously a turn toward the nonhuman (epitomized by materiality and animality) and affect (emotion but also sensation and still more diffuse states)” (p. 3; italics original). M. comments that “[Gilles] Deleuze looms large in this book” (p. 7), and it is Deleuze’s work (and the subsequent work of others) that provides the philosophical guide for M.’s analysis. The book comprises five essays that deal with the portrayal of Jesus in the Gospels and Acts. An introduction, which M. also classifies as a conclusion of sorts, provides a helpful guide to his methodology, and a summary of the chapters, which display what M. describes as “theoretically inflected close readings of specific texts and themes in the canonical gospels and Acts” (p. 10). Each chapter has further methodological framing pertinent for the discussion in that chapter. In the first chapter, “Why the Risen Body Weeps,” M. considers Jesus’s response at the tomb of Lazarus and proposes that the weeping is in reaction to the stench of the decaying flesh of Lazarus emanating from the tomb. Jesus’s act of preventing Lazarus’s body from decaying is linked to Jesus’s own flesh, which avoids decay through the resurrection. [End Page 140] M. argues that “[i]n the Fourth Gospel . . . flesh remains a thing of horror” (p. 38). This attitude includes how people respond to Jesus’s resurrection body, which bears the marks of death, and also Jesus’s demand that his disciples eat his flesh. In chap. 2, “The Messiah Who Screamed,” M. engages with the assemblage that is created by the crucified Christ being nailed to the cross, the combination of human and nonhuman elements. M. intersperses quotations from Deleuze that provide commentary on his reading of Jesus’s crucifixion in Mark’s Gospel. M. contrasts the “war machine” created by combining the demonic forces and the Roman Empire with the victorious “war machine” of the fleshly Jesus, which M. emphasizes is ultimately a piece of meat that is nailed to the cross. The Canaanite woman who requests that Jesus heal her demon-possessed daughter (Matt 15:21–28) is the topic of chap. 4, “The Dog-Woman of Canaan and Other Animal Tales.” The manner in which Jesus addresses her is analyzed in the context of colonial language and Jacques Derrida’s The Beast and the Sovereign (trans. Geoffrey Bennington; 2 vols.; The Seminars of Jacques Derrida 1–2; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009–11). The likening of the Canaan-ite women to a dog not only characterizes her in animal categories but, M. argues, sets the stage for Jesus’s own classification as an animal in the eucharistic meal, after which he is led away to be slaughtered. How the Holy Ghost acts in respect to time and what form it takes is the focus of chap. 5, “The Inhuman Acts of the Holy Ghost.” M. is particularly critical of readings that pass over the absurdities of how the Holy Ghost behaves in Luke and Acts. For M., the Holy Ghost is a “polymorphic” being (p. 101) that is not bound by time and haunts the past, present, and future (pp. 103–4). In the final chapter, “What a (Sometimes Inanimate) Divine Animal and Plant Has to Teach Us about Being Human,” M. returns to the fourth Gospel to consider how Jesus is represented using both human and nonhuman terms. M. argues that the binding together of different images of Christ, both human and nonhuman, likewise bind humans more closely together with nonhuman entities. Moore’s goal for Gospel Jesuses and Other Nonhumans can be captured by his musings about what he considers is...
Referência(s)