The Bible is no relic. The stories it tells mirror human behavior of our own time. It is, in fact, one of the most powerful and influential texts we know. Barbara Thiede, Ph.D.’s Male Friendship, Homosociality, and Women in the Hebrew Bible: Malignant Fraternities explores how male relationships—both divine and mortal—are depicted in these texts. Male friendships and alliances are crucial to both biblical culture and our contemporary one. They undergird biblical culture as they undergird our own. Disturbingly, both in the Bible and in our own time, male relationships often rely on shared sexual experience and sexual violence against women. We should ask: why do the Bible’s toxic male relationships seem so familiar and frighteningly real even in our own time? Doing so will empower and enable us in finding solutions, answers, and hope.￨clas.charlotte.edu/ps
Jan.30; 7 p.m. with a reception at 6 p.m.; The Dubois Center