Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Reno, Joshua M

Titel

Pornographic Desire in the Pauline Corpus

Ist Teil von

• Journal of Biblical literature, 2021-03, Vol.140 (1), p.163-185

Ort / Verlag

Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Quelle

Literature Online (LION)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Recent studies of the term mopveia have proliferated; however, the meaning and the consequently appropriate translation of this term remain elusive. Glosses like "(sexual) immorality" and "fornication" have long been recognized as deficient if not misleading. Scholarly examinations have been plagued by two persistent weaknesses: (1) definitions have proceeded largely synchronically, and (2) scholars have presumed that the term indicates disoriented action. Thus, scholars have attempted to identify which sexual acts are included under the rubric mopveia (e.g., sex work, homosexuality, pre- or extramarital sex). This article offers greater clarity as it pertains to Paul's deployment of this term. First, I provide a diachronic analysis that demonstrates shifts in prejudices and stigmas surrounding sex work resulting in a metonymous relationship between sex work and lack of self-control. Second, I argue that, for Paul, mopveia, as his term of choice for sex work, connotes inordinate sexual desire-even within marriage-as evidenced by his correlation of mopveia and åxpaoia ("lack of self-control").