Browsing by Author "Stegmann, Robert Norman"

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    Male gender construction and representation in Paul : reading 1 Thessalonians through a gender critical, postcolonial optic
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-03) Stegmann, Robert Norman; Punt, Jeremy; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Theology. Dept. of Old and New Testament.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Interpretational approaches to 1 Thessalonians tend either to (excessively) problematise and question the ‘authoritative voice of Paul,’ or to (naively) lionise that same voice, thereby creating a deep tension between what amounts to an academic and a faith based or ecclesial approach. The tension is made all the more palpable when the discursive-rhetorical role of the biblical text is considered in relation to the construction and representation of masculinity. Broadly speaking, then, critical approaches are the province of the academy, while approaches that affirm the normativising role and centrality of Paul, belong to the church. The latter approach, which I characterise as pre-critical and/or ideologically biased, narrowly construes the possibilities for masculine identity construction and representation by seeing masculinity as fixed and stable. Textual engagement conforms to the more traditional approaches of interpretation which, while elucidating likely historical and textual frameworks for meaning-making, tend to either be agnostic about the gendered nature and discursive quality of the text, or downplay the presence of gendered bodies altogether. Critical approaches, by contrast, bring the gendered nature of the text into sharper relief, but often in inaccessible ways. By critical, I mean, approaches specifically aimed at paying meticulous attention to aspects of 1 Thessalonians that are assumed, on ideological/theological grounds, to be precluded from an investigation of the meaning of the text. In other words, while some critical approaches to 1 Thessalonians problematise the text (and its interpretations), not all critical approaches are interested in the question of gender generally, and of masculinity, specifically. At the centre of this dissertation, then, is the question of how 1 Thessalonians reveals a discursively constructed and represented masculinity and draws on the critical optic of gender criticism and postcolonial biblical criticism to “offer more language and recognition to those who found [find] themselves ostracised because they did [do] not confirm (sic.) to restrictive ideas of what it means to be a man or a woman” (quotation from Judith Butler, in Jaschik, 2017). The objective, moreover, for developing and applying this optic to 1 Thessalonians, is to model ethically responsible hermeneutics and in the context of masculinity, break open the narrow ways in which the biblical text is often interpreted and used to shape the “biblical” notion of masculinity (and femininity). In this study, I maintain that the polysemy of the biblical text, especially when read through the lens of gender criticism and postcolonial biblical criticism, together with an understanding of the discursive-rhetorical dimensions of the text, invites wider possibilities for identity construction and representation. This is crystallised in the transgendering which Paul, Silvanus and Timothy seem to adopt in the letter to the Thessalonian assembly.