Abstract
In recent decades, Luke–Acts has been the focus of numerous studies exploring the evangelist’s portrayal of power, economics, social status, kinship, honor, and women. Largely absent from these scholarly investigations, and yet a topic inextricably connected to all of them, is Luke’s casting of masculinity against the backdrop of his Greco-Roman milieu. Wilson’s text is one of the latest of only a handful of gender-critical works engaging this neglected subject. Her study provides a well-written, insightful, and valuable investigation on how Luke refigures elite ideals of “manliness” and power in the Roman world. I strongly recommend the book for biblical scholars and graduate students.
The focal point of Wilson’s investigation is Luke’s portrayal of power, particularly God’s power, in contrast to elite perspectives. Cultural norms concerning masculinity, and the way they are adopted yet countered by Luke, serve as Wilson’s avenue for exploring how power is portrayed in Luke–Acts, and the kind of power enacted and authorized by God. Her thesis is that Luke does not simply reflect or endorse elite or imperial values as many scholars have claimed. Rather, God’s paradoxical and unmanly act of self-emptying power revealed in Jesus sets the standard for how men are to act in the world (4).
Wilson’s discussion of Jesus and other key male characters in Luke–Acts unfolds in three parts. Part I provides a brief summary of scholarship on masculinity in Lukan studies, presents a working definition of masculinity as a socially constructed cultural tradition, argues for the appropriateness of applying the category of masculinity to Luke’s characters (chapter 1), and reviews Greco-Roman conceptions of masculinity in relation to social hierarchies, the human body, and powers (chapter 2). Part II initiates Wilson’s discussion of four male characters in Luke–Acts, beginning with the minor characters of Zechariah (chapter 3) and the Ethiopian eunuch (chapter 4). Part III moves to the major characters of Paul (chapter 5) and Jesus (chapter 6). In these two sections Wilson demonstrates the various ways these four key characters fail to emulate elite norms of masculinity and power by failing to protect their bodily boundaries or to participate in behavior associated with the ideal male. The punitive miracles suffered by Zechariah (muteness) and Paul (blindness) strip them of idealized masculine functions (speech and sight) and the key masculine value of bodily control, while the eunuch lacks a functioning phallus, a pre-eminent Roman symbol of virility and sexual domination.
Most remarkably, Jesus is presented by Luke as divine, even “God in human form” (193). Yet Jesus suffers his own loss of bodily integrity during his passion, leading ultimately to his penetration on a Roman cross. Combined with other “unmanly” features of his ministry, such as his peasant status, sexual asceticism, rejection of Mediterranean kinship norms, association with undesirables, confounding and unpolished speech, and displays of emotion, Jesus clearly fails to uphold the idealized masculine norms celebrated by the elite, with elite status, bodily control, sexual dominance, social propriety, and eloquent oration prominent among them. Luke, Wilson argues, draws from a different model of manliness for Jesus and the other key characters of his narrative: that of the suffering servant tradition (210–11). While this and the Jewish “righteous sufferer” traditions have some affinities with the Greco-Roman noble death tradition, they also undermine the manliness of the suffering one, with the suffering servant tradition emphasizing the shame and rejection suffered by the servant. The servant tradition also much more closely coheres with Luke’ s depiction of the crucifixion and Roman attitudes towards this humiliating and degrading form of punishment. Moreover, even after his resurrection, Jesus is still known and portrayed as the crucified one: both suffering and glory are key to Jesus’ identity, and they are also essential to Luke’s portrayal of Jesus, and ultimately God, as the Lord who is “paradoxically powerless” (235–41). In her conclusion, Wilson reviews the findings of the previous chapters and suggests how Luke’s portrayals of these “unmanly men” may similarly inspire refigurations of masculinity and power today.
There is much to commend about Wilson’s work. She reads Luke’s narrative with impressive sensitivity and insight, and in conversation with a wide range of scholarly resources. Her skill as interpreter is especially evident in her discussion of how integral the suffering servant tradition is to Luke’s portrayal of Jesus and Jesus’ paradoxical embodiment of “impotent power.” Wilson’s arguments on how masculinity studies relate to, challenge, and inform readings attentive to Luke’s cultural milieu, and also feminist criticism, are compelling and validate the worth of this approach in general and her project in particular. There are times, I believe, that her focus on masculinity leads her to draw Luke’s intentions too narrowly, implying that Luke’s chief concern was to show the unmanliness of the characters she explores, when he may also be undermining other elite values. This may also cause her to leave other important textual nuances unaddressed. For example, in focusing on Zechariah’s eschewal of his patriarchal right to name his son, she overlooks Luke’s emphasis on how Elizabeth and Zechariah together (and poignantly) set aside their right to claim John as kin in order to identify John in relation to his calling from God, not themselves. Also, the extent to which Luke’s portrayal of Jesus’ “impotent power” is to be read back into Luke’s characterization of God, while intriguing, is questionable. Most readers will likely not be convinced that Luke’s narrative provides enough evidence of such a significant and unprecedented theological development.