Affiliation:
1. Anna Rebecca Solevåg () holds a PhD from the University of Oslo. She is Professor of New Testament Studies at VID Specialized University in Stavanger, Norway. Solevåg is the author of Negotiating the Disabled Body. Representations of Disability in Early Christian Texts (SBL Press 2018) and Birthing Salvation. Gender and Class in Early Christian Childbearing Discourse (Brill, 2013).
2. Marianne Bjelland Kartzow () holds a PhD from the University of Oslo, Norway. She is Professor of New Testament Studies at the Faculty of Theology. Kartzow is the author of The Slave Metaphor and Gendered Enslavement in Early Christian Discourse: Double Trouble Embodied (Routledge 2018).
Abstract
In the Gospel of Luke, the social gathering of the meal appears again and again. It is a setting for Jesus’ interactions as well as a topic of conversation. Drawing on theories of disability and masculinity, this article examines the various meal scenes in Luke 14. The focus is on Jesus’ advice to the host about who to invite and who not to invite when hosting a meal (vv. 12–14). This saying constructs a complex and intersecting web of potential guests. Those that should not be invited, belong to the social world of the privileged man: his brother, friend, relative and rich neighbor. Representing different levels of his radius of trust, they all have something to give back. The preferred guests in Jesus’ parable, however, are those who lack the resources to give anything back, due to bodily disability and lack of means: “The poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind” (Luke 14:14, NRSV). The article thus examines how health, economic ability, and gender intersect. The ideal meal in the Gospel of Luke negotiates the complex social web of the ancient world. We suggest that disability and masculinity are key issues and scrutinize these categories to rethink the social make-up of ideal communities as suggested by Luke.
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