Open AccessGendering Jesus the Jew
Author(s) -
Albert Hogeterp
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
religion and gender/religion and gender
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2589-8051
pISSN - 1878-5417
DOI - 10.1163/18785417-01001002
Subject(s) - iconography , literature , judaism , masculinity , elite , rhetorical question , dead sea scrolls , art , power (physics) , philosophy , history , biblical studies , hebrew bible , art history , sociology , theology , gender studies , politics , physics , quantum mechanics , political science , law
Gendering Jesus has been a matter of divergent interpretations, ranging from emphasis on typical features of masculine power to ‘unmanly’ character by ancient elite standards. This article explores anew Jesus’ Jewish masculinity. It revisits a recent study of the question what Jesus looked like, by mutually reconsidering ancient literary and rhetorical traditions of description, literary data about Jesus’ physical and social appearance, major aspects in the literary record about Jesus the Jew in comparison with Jewish tradition including the Dead Sea Scrolls, and recent findings in iconography. Jesus the Jew comes off as an unconventional challenger of male power at the time, whose appearance would neither have adhered to elite standards of physical and social apparel nor to late antique adaptations through the Romanization of Christian iconography.