Unprotected Texts: The Bible's Surprising Contradictions About Sex and Desire

by Jennifer Wright Knust

Overview

“An explosive, fascinating book that reveals how the Bible cannot be used as a rulebook when it comes to sex. A terrific read by a top scholar.” —Bart Ehrman, author of Misquoting Jesus

Boston University’s cutting-edge religion scholar Jennifer Wright Knust reveals the Bible’s contradictory messages about sex in this thoughtful, riveting, and timely reexploration of the letter of the gospels. In the tradition of Bart Erhman’s Jesus Interrupted and John Shelby Spong’s Sins of Scripture, Knust’s Unprotected Texts liberates us from the pervasive moralizing—the fickle dos and don’ts—so often dictated by religious demagogues. Knust’s powerful reading offers a return to the scripture, away from the mere slogans to which it is so often reduced.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062010827
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/27/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	863
Sales rank:	462,924
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Jennifer Wright Knust is assistant professor of religion at Boston University. She is an ordained American Baptist pastor, and holds a doctorate in religion from Columbia University and a master of divinity from Union Theological Seminary.

Table of Contents

Introduction Why the Bible Is Not a Sexual Guidebook 1

Chapter 1 The Bible and the Joy of Sex

Desire In and Out of Control 23

Chapter 2 Biblical Marriage

There Is No Single View on Marriage Presented in the Bible 47

Chapter 3 The Evil Impulse

Disordered and Ordered Desire 79

Chapter 4 Sexual Politics

God's Wife, Cursing the Canaanites, and Biblical Sex Crimes 113

Chapter 5 Strange Flesh

The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men 153

Chapter 6 Bodily Parts

Circumcision, Semen, and the Products of a Woman's Womb 187

Conclusion So I Hear You Have Five Husbands 237

Acknowledgments 249

Notes 253

Bibliography 303

Index 335

Editorial Reviews

In a refreshingly sensible tone, Knust, assistant professor of religion at Boston University, tackles today’s most contentious biblical texts and brings to light some intriguing others in this effort to detail and explain what the Bible says about sex. Although it is academic in its embrace of biblical scholarship and treatment of texts, this is also a personal book. Knust, a lifelong Baptist (and ordained as an American Baptist pastor), begins with an anecdote from her childhood that defends the value of studying and questioning the Bible. Matters of how biblical interpretations bear on real issues for people today are never far from the discussion. As Knust is clear-eyed in showing the Bible’s acceptance of polygamy, slavery, prostitution, and premarital sex, she calls into question facile judgments and absolutist claims about “what the Bible says.” In her able hands, readers will learn and appreciate the variety of ways that the Bible treats and judges sex. She also demands of readers that they then think for themselves about how biblical texts should be interpreted and applied. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

[An] impressive and highly readable analysis of Old and New Testament Bible stories.... For those wanting to understand the Bible as a chronicle of human conduct for achieving the goals of survival, peace, and fulfillment, this is a treasure.

Booklist (starred review)

[Knust mines] the Bible for its earthiest and most inexplicable tales about sex…to show that the Bible’s teachings on sex are not as coherent as the religious right would have people believe.

Newsweek

"[An] impressive and highly readable analysis of Old and New Testament Bible stories.... For those wanting to understand the Bible as a chronicle of human conduct for achieving the goals of survival, peace, and fulfillment, this is a treasure."

Booklist

Knust (religion, Boston Univ.), an American Baptist pastor, faces directly the diversity, even the self-contradiction, of biblical teachings about sex, sexuality, and desire and argues that biblical interpretations should be judged by their value, not by their validity, a perspective she finds practiced by Jesus Christ and by very important first- to fourth-century Christian leaders who creatively claimed "that the law and the prophets are, when read correctly, all about Jesus Christ." Christians, she writes, "are not passive recipients of what the Bible says, but active interpreters who make decisions about what we will believe and what we will affirm." Knust asserts that, rather than fixed, unmediated God-given meanings, Christians have been given the Holy Spirit, a community of disciples, and the Gospel of John; she cautions against interpretations which are "shallow and self-serving." VERDICT This book is a tour de force of biblical and cultural interpretation that deserves prayerful consideration by all would-be biblical interpreters. Very highly recommended for seminary, academic, and public libraries.—Carolyn M. Craft, formerly with Longwood Univ., Farmville, VA

Library Journal