The Straight Mind in Corinth: Queer Readings across 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 by Gillian Townsley

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Straight Mind in Corinth: Queer Readings across 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 by Gillian Townsley Deryn Guest gillian townsley, The Straight Mind in Corinth: Queer Readings across 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 (SBLSS 88; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017). Pp xiii + 351. Paper $43.95. This is a welcome addition to studies of this notorious passage. Townsley spends some time pondering whether she is equipped to write a queer reading when she does not own a non-normative sexual or gender identity, but her work demonstrates well how it can be done. In chap. 1, T. reviews current research, noting how it is hostage to a heteronormative blind spot. She exposes how historical-critical approaches have produced vast swaths of scholarship, with each contributor holding out the “key” for unlocking the meaning of this passage yet failing the reader who wants to know how to negotiate or discern between the multiple keys on offer. In this regard, 1 Cor 11:2–16 is a rather queer text, stubbornly impervious to attempts to solve it and perhaps inherently queer since Paul is disconcerted by behaviors he considers questionable and yet responds in a way that is itself strange and puzzling. T. recognizes that an ancient text like 1 Corinthians requires commentators who avoid making anachronistic assumptions concerning sex and gender. In the first century, acts were significant, not notions of individuals belonging to a sexual species or having a sexual orientation. She is right about this, but in my view, while social constructionism holds sway, we should not be blinkered to the way in which humans may have recognized like-mindedness in past societies. It is at least possible that the Corinthian men, who are the focus of her study, were not only individual gender outlaws by practice but part of a wider community of gender nonconformists who were recognizable as a “kind” of “men.” The chapter functions as a helpful opening gambit for the book as a whole and includes a useful discussion of the reception of queer biblical studies, noting the more limited resources that relate specifically to the NT, which will be helpful for students newly engaging with the field. In chap. 2, T. problematizes lack of critical examination when it comes to the men at Corinth and demonstrates how an understanding of first-century codes of masculinity is vital to such a study. There is also a critique of how contemporary readings use this passage to sanction heteronormative gender behavior. T. uses the debate between Jerome Murphy-O’Connor and Richard Oster to demonstrate the pull of ideology and political/religious interests (see Richard Oster, “When Men Wore Veils to Worship: The Historical Context of 1 Corinthians 11.4,” NTS 34 [1988] 481–505; Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “Sex and Logic in 1 Corinthians 11:2–16,” CBQ 42 [1980] 482–500; idem, “1 Corinthians 11:2–16 Once Again,” CBQ 50 [1988] 265–74). What interests T. is how “scholars have determined that this text can (or ought to) be read as dealing with the actual behavior of women, but only hypothetically with regard to the men” (p. 57). The problem is “the refusal of the majority of scholars even to acknowledge the presence of men in this passage,” which has the effect of making the Corinthian men “invisible and trouble free” (p. 62) rather than seeing them as just as gendered as the women. Readings that suggest the presence of “homosexual” men in the Corinthian church are noted for relying on repeated claims that lack justification. As C. K. Barrett (A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians [2nd ed.; BNTC; London: Black, 1971]), Murphy-O’Connor (see above), and Robin Scroggs (“Paul and the Eschatological Woman,” JAAR 40 [1972] 283–303) are the ones most cited, T. reviews their interpretations in detail. The chapter concludes that effeminacy is the primary disturbing notion and that Paul is attempting to reinstate clear gender boundaries. [End Page 540] In chap. 3, T. clarifies how the theory of Monique Wittig can be used to “lesbianize” the problematic Corinthian men. Wittig’s theory is important for T.’s book. Indeed, T.’s title plays on Wittig...