Earthy Nature of the Bible

Roland T. Boer is Associate Professor, School of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Newcastle

• Introduction PART I: SONG OF SONGS: INTRODUCTION The Second Coming: Repetition and Insatiable Desire in the Song of Songs A Fleshly Reading: Masochism, Ecocriticism and the Song of Songs Making It, Literally: Metaphor, Economy and the Sensuality of Nature PART II: MASCULINITIES: INTRODUCTION The Patriarch's Nuts: Concerning the Testicular Logic of Biblical Hebrew Too Many Dicks at the Writing Desk, or, How to Organise a Prophetic Sausage-Fest Of Fine Wine, Incense and Spices: The Unstable Masculine Hegemony of the Books of Chronicles Yahweh as Top: A Lost Targum Skin Gods: Circumcising the Built Male Body PART III: PARAPHILIAS: INTRODUCTION Hooker Hermeneutics: A Reading of Avaren Ipsen's Sex Working and the Bible King Solomon Meets Annie Sprinkle Orientalist Camp: The Case of Allen Edwardes Hittites, Horses and Corpses: On Bestiality and Necrophilia in the Hebrew Bible Conclusion

'An excellent, often brilliant, and highly original book which provides a reading of biblical texts (especially the Old Testament) and their receptions with a particular focus on themes relating to sex, sexuality and various body parts, through the use of psychoanalytical and Marxist theory. In a nutshell Boer's argument is that the Bible is, or can be read as, a much more earthy text than is usually believed. A dry, dull academic book this is not I have taught a module on the Bible and Gender and there is no doubt that this book would be required reading.' - James G. Crossley, Professor of Bible, Culture and Politics, The University of Sheffield, UK