The Ethiopian Eunuch and Conceptuality in the Imperial Imagination of Biblical Studies
Author | : Gifford Rhamie |
Publisher | : T&T Clark |
Total Pages | : 0 |
Release | : 2023-08-24 |
ISBN-10 | : 9780567703675 |
ISBN-13 | : 0567703673 |
Rating | : 4/5 (75 Downloads) |
Download or read book The Ethiopian Eunuch and Conceptuality in the Imperial Imagination of Biblical Studies written by Gifford Rhamie and published by T&T Clark. This book was released on 2023-08-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gifford Rhamie addresses the contentious question, “why cannot the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26-40 be conceptualised as a Jew in the British academy?” Rhamie uses postcolonial studies and theory to examine the Ethiopian eunuch's ethnoreligious agency, finding two epistemological lenses: whiteness and 'critical conviviality'. The former is employed in the function of deconstructing, while the latter encourages opening one's conceptuality in a multidimensional way, functioning to reconstruct analyses for agency. Turning to the early Church Fathers, Rhamie argues that the anti-Jewish discourse of the time, the Adversus Judaeos trope, functioned teleologically to shift the Ethiopian eunuch's ethnoreligious agency from an Afroasiatic Jewish to a Graeco-Gentile ideal. In more recent years, the racialised imagination of the academy further identifies the eunuch as a Graeco-Roman Gentile. His being denied a Jewish identity appears to foreclose an exploration of a dynamic agency that could open up new opportunities and possibilities of (re-)conceptualising Jewish history, the book of Acts, and Christian origins. Rhamie asserts that 'Black lives matter' for Jewishness in the book of Acts and for Christian origins.