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New Book – A Disabled Apostle, Impairment and Disability in the Letters of Paul, by Isaac T. Soon, pub by Oxford University Press

  • Provides the first book of its kind—no one has analyzed Paul and disability with this much depth and breadth
  • Presents disabilities that have not been understood as disabilities before (circumcision, demonization), not least in relation to Paul
  • Offers scholarship relevant to contemporary issues about disability, accessibility, and ableism
  • Presents a significant new interpretation of Paul that will change the field
  • Suggests new ways of approaching the study of disability in ancient texts

Description

Speculation around the health of Paul the Apostle has been present since soon after his death. Recently scholars have understood Paul to be disabled but have been wary of isolating precisely what his disabilities may have been or whether they are important for understanding his writings.

This book is the first full-length study of Paul the Apostle and disability. Using insights from contemporary disability studies, Isaac Soon analyses features of Paul’s body in his ancient Mediterranean context to understand the ways in which his body was disabled. Focusing on three such ancient disabilities—demonization, circumcision, and short stature—this book draws on a rich variety of ancient evidence, from textual sources and epigraphy, to ancient visual culture, to analyze ancient bodily ideals and the negative cultural effects such ‘deviant’ persons generated. The book also examines Paul’s use of his own disabilities in his letters and shows how disability is not subsidiary to his thought but a central aspect of it. This book also provides scholars with a new method for uncovering previously unrecognized disabilities in the ancient world. Last of all, it critiques the latent ableism in much New Testament scholarship, which assumes that the figures of the early Jesus movement were able-bodied.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Dedication
Introduction: A Disorderly Figure
1:An Angel of Satan
2:The Demon Inside
3:Demons as Disability
4:God and the Disabling of Paul
5:A Bestial Glans
6:Circumcision as Disability
7:A Disabling Gospel
8:Pneumatic Circumcision
9:A Short Apostle
10:Short Stature as Disability
11:The Smallest of all Apostles
Conclusion
Epilogue: Recognising Unrecognised Disabilities
Bibliography

Author Information

Isaac T. Soon, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Crandall University

Since 2021, Isaac T. Soon has been Assistant Professor of Religious Studies (New Testament) at Crandall University. He has degrees from the University of Oxford and Durham University. He has published peer-reviewed journal articles in the Journal for the Study of the PseudepigraphaEarly Christianity, the Journal for the Jesus Movement in its Jewish SettingVigiliae ChristianaeNovum TestamentumReligions, the Journal of Biblical Literature, and the Journal for the Study of Judaism.

 

More info on the editor’s website


OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
Ninon Dubourg (sharing info) (12 avril 2024). New Book – A Disabled Apostle, Impairment and Disability in the Letters of Paul, by Isaac T. Soon, pub by Oxford University Press. History of Disease, Disability & Medicine in Medieval Europe. Consulté le 14 juin 2025 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/w7ch


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