CLOTHES MAKE THE (WO)MAN

In the Pauline letters a new rhetorical aspect of body is presented with the imagery ofbeing clothed with a person, with Christ or a new a[nqrwpo" (Gal 3:27; Rom 13:14; Col3:10; Eph 4:24). While body and clothing imagery was well-known in the ancientMediterranean world, the picture of putting on a person is new with these passages.Clothing has implications for movement and identification, but there is also interweavingbetween body, mind and clothing related to how humans present themselves,how they interact socially, how they are empowered morally and politically, and howthey produce rhetorical and political discourse. This essay offers a socio-rhetoricalinterpretation of the texts that speak of being clothed with a person, considering theimplications for those who become so clothed. This clothing refashions bodies with newreligious, social and political roles. Refashioned bodies become agents of socialchange. The new clothing makes new persons and a new social reality.