God's Gym: Divine Male Bodies of the Bible / Edition 1

by Stephen Moore

Overview

In this strikingly original work, Stephen Moore considers God's male bodies--the body of Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible, and the Father of Jesus Christ, and Jesus himself in the New Testament--and our obsessive earthly quest for a perfect human form. God's Gym is about divinity, physical pain, and the visions of male perfectability.

Weaving together his obsession with human anatomy and dissection, an interest in the technologies of torture, the cult of physical culture, and an expert knowledge of biblical criticism, Moore explains the male narcissism at the heart of the biblical God. God's Gym is an intensely personal book, brimming with our culture's phobias and fascinations about male perfectability.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415917568
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/02/1996
Pages:	204
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Stephen D. Moore is Associate Professor of Religion at Wichita State University.

Table of Contents

Torture: The Divine Butcher Opening Confession: "My Father was a Butcher"; Mors turpissima crucis Spectacle and Surveillance "His Mighty and Annihilating Reaction"; "What a Primative Mythology" God's Own (Pri)son; The Dark Twins Closing Confession: "Bless Me, Father..." Dissection: How Jesus' Risen Body Became a Cadaver Prologue: How Jesus' Corpse Became a Book Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine A Gray's Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel; Culpepper's Eye-agram Autopsy, in Which the Coroners and Medical Examiners Converge on the Corpse of Christ Epilogue: "The Miserable Mangled Object" Ressurection: Horrible Pain, Glorious Gain, Pure Muscle, Corporeal God, Gigantic God, Androgenous God, No Pain, No Gain Go(l)d's Gym Colossal Christ; A Fascist Heaven; The Beatific Vision Epilogue: Good Friday the 13th?

Editorial Reviews

"Bias has been transformed from something denied or ousted, to something that is to be recognized and controlled, to vital lenses for seeing anew...bias might be renamed slant, perspective, interest, concern, even ideology. Such in the case in Moore's remarkably engaging and sometimes outrageous three stories... Religious Studies Review."
"Bias has been transformed from something denied or ousted, to something that is to be recognized and controlled, to vital lenses for seeing anew...bias might be renamed slant, perspective, interest, concern, even ideology. Such is the case in Moore's remarkably engaging and sometimes outrageous three studies..." — Religious Studies Review
"Stephen Moore may well be the most brilliant NT scholar publishing today ... And God's Gym is his best book so far ... This little book brims with fascinating readings, packaged in exquisite prose, and informed by sophisticated literary theory and cultural studies." — Journal of Biblical Literature

From the Publisher

Stephen Moore may well be the most brilliant NT scholar publishing today. He is certainly one of the most creative and exciting. And God's Gym is his best book so far.....This little book brims with fascinating readings, packaged in exquisite prose, and informed by sophisticated literary theory and cultural studies.....God's Gym insists that we recognize the violent hypermasculinity of much of the biblical narrative....It is in that challenge that Moore's remarkably playful book is deadly serious.
— Society of Biblical Literature \ \ \

Dale B. Martin

Moore (Poststructrualism and the New Testament, Fortress, 1995) explores torture, dissection, and male physique. Unlike Howard Eilberg-Schwartz in God's Phallus (LJ 8/94), which focused on the known and unknown features of God, Moore states, "You too can have a body like his, if only you are willing to pay the price." Moore begins by graphically examining torture and the transformation torture can produce. "Dissection," his second essay, looks at the anatomy of the Fourth Gospel and an autopsy of Jesus Christ, i.e., Bible study. The last essay looks at Jesus' bodybuilding career and his workout routine. What ties these essays together are the subjection and control found in the Bible. A scholarly work for larger collections.L. Kriz, West Des Moines Lib., Ia.

Library Journal