Agape, Eros, Gender
Towards a Pauline Sexual Ethic

An examination of human and divine love in the context of ideas about gender and sexuality.

Francis Watson (Author)

9780521662635, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 January 2000

280 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.9 cm, 0.5 kg

'This is an important and absorbing book. Its considerable exegetical sections are refreshing and challenging.' Evangelical Quarterly

Issues of gender and sexuality have recently come to the fore in all humanities disciplines, and this book reflects this broad interdisciplinary situation, although its own standpoint is broadly theological. In contrast to many contemporary feminist theologies, gender and sexuality (eros) are here understood within a distinctively Christian context characterized by the reality of agape - the New Testament's term for the comprehensive divine-human love that includes the relationship of man and woman within its scope. The central problem is concern with key Pauline texts relating to gender and sexuality (1 Cor. 11, Rom. 7, Eph. 5), texts whose influence on western theology and culture has been enduring and pervasive. They are read here in conjunction with later theological and non-theological texts that reflect that influence - ranging from Augustine and Barth to Virginia Woolf, Freud and Irigaray.

Preface
Part I. Velamen: 1 Corinthians 11: 1. Belonging together
2. Eros veiled
Part II. Concupiscentia: Romans 7: 3. Sex: a critique
4. The tombs of desire
Part III. Sacramentum: Ephesians 5: 5. Eros transfigured?
6. Engendering agape.

Subject Areas: Biblical studies & exegesis [HRCG]