An Ecological Feminist Reading of the Gospel of Luke

Professor Anne Elvey received her Ph.D. at Monash University. She is Lecturer at the Australian Catholic University.

LIST OF TABLES xi; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xiii; ABBREVIATIONS xix; PREFACE: Elaine Wainwright xxi; CHAPTER 1; Introduction 3; 1.1 The Subjecthood of Earth and Biblical Interpretation 6; 1.1.1 World/s and Textual Worlds 6; 1.1.2 Contextual Approaches: Feminist Approaches and Ecology 10; 1.2 Reading Ecologically 14; 1.2.1 Ecology and Biblical Interpretation 15; 1.2.2 The Earth Bible Project 16; 1.2.2.1 Ecojustice Principles 16; 1.2.2.2 Earth Bible Readings and Ecofeminism 18; 1.2.2.3 The Earth Bible and Ecobosadi Perspectives 19; 1.2.2.4 Earth Bible Readings of Lukan Texts 21; 1.2.3 Multidimensional Approaches 23; 1.3 Geophany, Earth as Intertext and the Voice of Earth 25; 1.4 Reading the Gospel of Luke in an Ecological Feminist Frame 28; CHAPTER 2; Ancient Memories: Pregnant Bodies and Earth 31; 2.1 Interpreting Representations of the Pregnant Body 34; 2.2 Changes in Representation of the Pregnant Body 37; 2.2.1 Giver of Life and Death and Site of Transformation 37; 2.2.2 The Fertility of the River and the Fecundity of Death 39; 2.2.3 The Many Fertilities of the Female 43. 2.2.4 The Promise of the One 46; 2.2.5 Written Body to Pregnant Mind 50; 2.2.6 From Gestations of Pain and Hope to Virgin Conception 53; 2.2.7 Summary 56; 2.3 Human Relationships to Nature in the Social Worlds of Luke 57; 2.4 Conclusion 66; CHAPTER 3; On Remembering the Material Given: Pregnant Bodies and Earth 69; 3.1 The Pregnant Body as "Prepropriative" 70; 3.1.1 The "Man-consolidating Other" 70; 3.1.2 What is Kept 74; 3.1.3 An Earth Mode of Keeping 79; 3.2 The Gift 84; 3.2.1 The Gift as Aneconomic 84; 3.2.2 The Gift in the Gospel of Luke 87; 3.2.3 The Impossible? 92; 3.3 The Necessity of the Given 96; 3.3.1 The Divine Necessity 97; 3.3.2 The Material Given 98; 3.4 Making Place 102; 3.4.1 The Abgrund of the Gift 102; 3.4.2 The Material Ground of Discourse 104; 3.4.3 Returning the Material to Reading Luke 106; 3.5 Conclusion 108; CHAPTER 4; The Birth of the Mother: A Reading of Luke 2:1-20 111; 4.1 Feminist Theorising of Pregnancy and Birth 111; 4.2 Reading as Remembering the Pregnant Body 116; 4.3 Remembering the Pregnant Body in Reading Luke 2:1-20 117; 4.3.1 The Time of Giving Birth 122; 4.3.2 The Sign of the Manger 124; 4.3.3 A Birth to or for the Shepherds 126; 4.4 The Birth of the Mother 132; 4.5 The Keeping Woman 134; 4.6 Keeping Place 135; 4.7 Conclusion: A Gestational Paradigm 141; CHAPTER 5; Keeping, Women, Earth and Death 143; 5.1 Keeping, Watching, Preserving, Storing 145; 5.1.1 Biblical Understandings of Keeping 145. 5.1.2 Keeping and Storing 149; 5.1.3 Keeping (an) Account 152; 5.2 Attentive Action 154; 5.2.1 Hearing, Keeping and Doing 154; 5.2.2 Martha and Mary: Splitting Hearing and Doing 163; 5.3 Serving and Preserving 166; 5.3.1 Proper Activity 166; 5.3.2 The Improper 170; 5.4 Gestating Death 174; 5.4.1 Storing Death and Life 174; 5.4.2 Storing Death in the Text 183; 5.5 Conclusion 193; CHAPTER 6; The Outsider Within 197; 6.1 The Other in Biblical Traditions 198; 6.2 The Divine Guarantee in the Gospel of Luke 204; 6.2.1 The Divine Visitation and the Pregnant Body 204; 6.2.2 The Divine Purpose, Compassion and the Other 205; 6.2.3 Jesus, John and the Other-than-human 209; 6.2.4 Jesus, Women and the Other 211; 6.3 Outside in the Story 217; 6.4 Conclusion 221; CHAPTER 7; Compassion and the Other 223; 7.1 Loving Nature? 226; 7.2 Lukan Others 232; 7.2.1 Assurance and the Other 232; 7.2.2 A Pattern of (Com)passion 237; 7.2.3 Who Is My Neighbour? 242; 7.3 Ambiguous Alterities 243; 7.4 Conclusion 245; CHAPTER 8; The Lukan Basileia 249; 8.1 A Climate of Expectation 251; 8.1.1 Apocalyptic Expectation 252; 8.1.2 Contrasting Kingdoms 256; 8.2 The Time and Space of the B[alpha][sigma][iota][lambda][epsilon][iota][alpha] of God 259; 8.3 The Divine [DELTA][epsilon][iota] and the Excess of the B[alpha][sigma][iota][lambda][epsilon][iota][alpha] 270; 8.4 Blessing and the Excess of the B[alpha][sigma][iota][lambda][epsilon][iota][alpha] 277. 8.4.1 Redefining Hospitality 277; 8.4.2 Blessing Matter 281; 8.5 The Improper Excess: Weeds and Leaven 286; 8.6 Conclusion 291; CONCLUSION 293; BIBLIOGRAPHY 301; INDEX OF ANCIENT AUTHORS AND SOURCES 363; INDEX OF MODERN AUTHORS 377; INDEX OF SUBJECTS 383.