This Abled Body: Rethinking Disabilities in Biblical Studies (review)

This anthology is just one of many new volumes on Scripture and disability. The field of disability studies is growing by leaps and bounds. This anthology has much to offer those interested in disabilities in the ancient world and in ancient texts. Most of the authors volunteer the reason they are interested in disability studies, often because they have a disability or have a family member with one.

The Introduction informs us that most of the essays will offer redemptionist, rejectionist, or historicist approaches to the topic, although these essays, and the responses to them, are not limited to these approaches.

In the chapter "The Origins of the Disabled Body: Disability in Ancient Mesopotamia," Neal H. Walls highlights female infertility as a disability in Mesopotamian texts. This has obvious corollaries in biblical stories of matriarchs who have trouble conceiving. Disabilities could also be interpreted as punishments by the gods.

"Deformity and Disability in Greece and Rome," by Nicole Kelley, brings a more nuanced idea about exposing deformed infants. There is evidence of such infants being raised without any legal consequences for the parents. Disabled persons were able to make a living in a wide array of jobs. Blindness was seen as a punishment but, as today, the identity of disability spread to cover the person in his/her entirety, and greater perception and power were attributed to that individual, as is seen in Goffman's now-classic definition of stigma.

"Introducing Sensory Criticism in Biblical Studies: Audiocentricity and Visiocentricity," by Hector Avalos, contrasts the Deuteronomist and Wisdom literature and their focus, respectively, on audiocentricity and visiocentricity.

"'Be Men, O Philistines' (I Samuel 4:9): Iconographic Representations and Reflections on Female Gender as Disability in the Ancient World," by Carle R. Fontaine, was, for me, the most enlightening chapter. The exploration of art history (e.g., how disabled persons are depicted in Egyptian hieroglyph-ics) is used to examine the role of disabled women in the ancient world. My only suggestion would be that she look into the biblical character of Leah. She is identified as having a disability of her eyes, yet she wins in every way that Hebrew Scripture considers important. She is Jacob's first wife, she is the most fertile among those wives, and it is the tribes that descend from her children who lead Israel and have the best positions around the tabernacle.

"Masculinity and Disability in the Bible," by Thomas Hentrich, explores the intersection of gender studies and disabilities studies. Some of Hentrich's assertions reflect an ignorance or insensitivity about the nature of the ancient priesthood and even basic vocabulary. For example, he makes the common mistake of conflating the categories of disability and ritual impurity. They are utterly separate categories. A physically perfect person can be ritually impure, and a blind, quadruple amputee can be ritually pure. Impurity disqualifies everyone from participation in the sacrificial system, regardless of their physical perfection. He imagines that women are more disabled than men because of menstrual impurity, but he fails to recognize that any man who has a seminal emission is impure until nightfall. In such a system, men could be ineligible to bring sacrifices more often than women. The requirements for priestly perfection and purity were instituted as safety measures for the priests. They were the ones who came closest to God's presence, which is lethal, so their physical perfection acted as their "safety suits," so to speak. Disabled persons, if ritually pure, could offer sacrifices in the Temple. Indeed, we have reports of legless individuals offering their sacrifices in the Temple. These sorts of misconceptions are typical and wrong, making Judaism and Hebrew Scriptures appear to be far less accepting toward those with disabilities than they, in fact, are. The issue of "crushed testicles" applies to the priests only, (a) because they need physical perfection to guard them against God's lethal presence and (b) because they must be visibly...