In this penultimate episode in our cultural identity series we discuss the role of whiteness in New Testament scholarship with Prof. David Horrell, who is Professor of New Testament Studies and the Director of the Center for Biblical Studies at the University of Exeter (England), and the author of Solidarity and Difference: A Contemporary Reading of Paul’s Ethics (T&T Clark, 2005), and, more recently, Ethnicity and Inclusion: Religion, Race, and Whiteness in Constructions of Jewish and Christian Identities (Eerdmans, 2020). Over the course of our conversation, Prof. Horrell talks with us about his new book on the particularities that contribute to the modern state of New Testament scholarship, and specifically the particularities that have contributed to New Testament scholarship on the relationship between Judaism and nascent Christianity, that the former is particular and ethnocentric, whereas the latter is non-particular and universal. Prof. Horrell situates this within a Euro-centric perspective that lauds western liberal values, with many implications that continue to impact New Testament Studies. In our conversation Prof. Horrell also reflects on his former research under this light, particularly his studies on Paul’s ethics, and helps us consider how we can come to see the effects of whiteness on New Testament scholarship as “strange” by de-centering white western perspectives on the text. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Dr. Grace Emmett, Dr. Chris Porter, and Dr. Logan Williams.
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