Earthy Nature of the Bible

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

'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

• 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