Abstract
At best, most conventional biblical commentaries do not consider the perspectives of disabled persons when interpreting passages about disability, and at worst they explicitly validate the ableist assumptions and negative constructions of disability in the text. (p. 257)
The aim of this remarkable and comprehensive collection of essays is to counter this reality. The book is not a verse-by-verse commentary as such, but in 12 chapters, each with a different author, it surveys the whole range of biblical literature: ‘Beginnings’ (Genesis and Exodus); ‘Law’ (Leviticus–Deuteronomy); ‘History’ (two chapters: Joshua–Second Kings; First and Second Chronicles–Esther); ‘Wisdom’ (again two chapters: Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes; Psalms, Lamentations and Song of Songs); ‘Prophets’ (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and the Twelve); ‘Synoptic gospels and Acts’ (two chapters: Mark and Matthew; Luke–Acts); ‘Johannine literature’ (including Revelation); ‘Pauline letters’; and ‘The general letters’. Each chapter is self-sufficient, outlining how perspectives from disability studies are to be employed hermeneutically – so the reader could begin anywhere, and indeed might well be advised to enter this world selectively rather than reading the entire book consecutively. Each chapter also sketches the scholarly consensus about the historical origins of the text(s) in question, its cultural locus and rhetorical perspectives. Many also comment on issues concerning the interpretation of particular Hebrew or Greek terms. Thus, for readers without awareness of biblical scholarship, the book may seem rather technical. On the other hand, for any student of modern and post-modern approaches to the interpretation of Scripture, this volume brings out of treasures, both old and new.
To do justice to all this in a short review is quite simply impossible. The medical, social and cultural models derived from disability studies constantly provide interpretative keys. Most fruitful, however, is the use of Deborah Beth Creamer’s ‘limits’ model to break down the binary (able/disabled), while also opening up the huge range of different experiences now captured by the umbrella term ‘disability’. This enables the recognition that limitations belong to all human creatures, and, especially in the discussions of the New Testament epistles, allows profound reflection on the implications of Christ’s identification with those human limits.
This brings me to try to capture the multiple strategies evident in these essays. Most obvious is the identification of narratives that feature persons who would now be described as having disabilities, often with an assessment of the culturally determined ways in which these characters and reactions to them are depicted. Notable here is the recognition that childlessness was a major disability in the historical cultures of the Bible. The cultic prohibitions on impairment in priests and sacrificial animals are likewise set in their proper historical and cultural context. Then there is the observation that frequently blindness, deafness, lameness and so on are used in metaphorical ways, often with negative consequences for readers who are blind, deaf or lame, such conditions being associated all too often with obtuseness, inadequacy, and even sin. Such issues, along with the tendencies both to see disability as a punishment for sin and to blame lack of faith for the absence of a cure, are necessarily and robustly addressed, with other sometimes surprising but more positive outlooks uncovered as a foil.
But some parts of the Bible do not yield specific material on disability, and here the most intriguing moves are made. Ezra–Nehemiah, for example, portrays a whole people as traumatized and disabled; and again, in the epistles, the option for the poor (James) and the figure of Christ crucified (Paul) provide challenges to the success values and disabling power structures of societies then and now. It is these occasional moves to embrace disability within a wider theological anthropology that have the potential to provoke so-called ‘ableists’ to deeper reflection on what the Bible is all about, as well as enabling those of us who are carers to find meaning for those so profoundly intellectually disabled as never to comprehend, let alone read, Scripture for themselves.