John Anthony Dunne: But then, yeah.
John Anthony Dunne: i'm in Minnesota. I'm. In Minnesota. So it's cold, anyway? Right? Yeah. Yeah. And I just wanted to check. Is it crab or crabby. Just want to make sure that
John Anthony Dunne: I mean if it comes out wrong. That's fine. But you think oh, no, that's all right. That's all right. My My last name is like sort of
John Anthony Dunne: straightforward, but it gets messed up a lot, so I understand like that e on the end it could go a number of different ways, you know.
Kylie Crabbe: Yeah, surprising ways, you know. And for all the fame of you know, my compatriot people can get the first name wrong as well.
Kylie Crabbe: Alright.
Chris Porter: That's that's quite impressive. The the first name wrong.
Kylie Crabbe: It's it. I I knew when i'd when I moved back to Melbourne, having lived in the Uk for a long time, and I ordered a coffee, and you know they asked for your name, and they said to me, you're the third Kylie, you know I was like.
Kylie Crabbe: sorry. Sorry. What? What's that name? And then you get something with some really awkwardly kind of phonetically spelled out thing. Yeah, let me say that again. Yeah, yeah, Like, you know, she's probably famous, you know.
Kylie Crabbe: like her. But you know
Kylie Crabbe: not as much to me
Steph Judd: that is awesome.
Chris Porter: It just depends on how long how light it is for the singing doesn't it.
Kylie Crabbe: Oh, well, i'm sure I could. I'd happily do a bit of singing. That's fine. It's not what you want in the podcast, so I see
Chris Porter: I mean, we can always do a cold open.
John Anthony Dunne: Very good. We actually haven't done a cold open in a little bit. I'm trying to think what the last one was. I don't. I don't recall off hand, but it Sometimes we just get these little nuggets for like, yeah, i'm going to put this at the front of the with that right at the front that's it. We i'm. I'm a regular co-host on the by the world Podcast and I did one for the Christmas what we were just like in such a funny. I saw Robin the just before you recorded that, and and she was in
Chris Porter: just just off the wall.
Kylie Crabbe: Well, we were kind of a bit like who's listening for the Christmas episodes, you know, especially by the time we got to like Christmas one you like.
Yeah.
Kylie Crabbe: it's, you know. It's whatever. The day was New Year's day we had to give someone. You have to give everybody a bit of a
Kylie Crabbe: a reward for listening in on those kind of episodes that might. You might feel too busy for.
Chris Porter: Yeah.
Chris Porter: it's true.
John Anthony Dunne: I was gonna say, has John done the blob about editing podcasts? So so just just so, you know, if at any point, because this is an edited podcast. If at any point you want to pause, and you know, reframe something or try again, feel totally free. Sometimes we have logistical conversations like, Where should we take the conversation? All that stuff gets lifted? So Don't don't worry about any of that. And
John Anthony Dunne: and yeah, we're just really excited to talk about your research, and it's part of a broader series that we're doing on Disability and theology. And this is gonna be kind of one of the concluding episodes of of like more textual focused episodes for for our broader series.
John Anthony Dunne: So well we'll have Megan Henning talk about her her recent book. Hell have no fury, and and her broader research either.
John Anthony Dunne: Most well, most likely before this episode, although we, I don't know if you saw Steph: I actually cancelled because I have to W. Who she? She just got a 3 h meeting scheduled during the block that we were gonna record with her.
John Anthony Dunne: So so we're gonna try and record the following Monday. But the thing is is in our schedule. We were hoping to publish that on Wednesday, so there's just a slight chance that what if something comes up again? So your episode will either appear before hers or after hers. But yeah, either way.
John Anthony Dunne: it'll go nicely, both with kind of early Christian focus. So any anything
Chris Porter: so. And then after that, we're pivoting into more pastoral and modern expressions of disability. So John's coming back on the podcast. Talk about dementia again! I want to talk about dementia coming back again. Grab my cask on autism.
Chris Porter: Parent disabilities. A couple of episodes, different people, a few others
John Anthony Dunne: parenting with disabilities. So, and and the birds are coming on for that. Talking about down syndrome and autism in that spectrum. We just did an episode with Marianne Wolfe, who does dyslexia the other day.
John Anthony Dunne: which was a lot of fun.
John Anthony Dunne: But but yeah, yeah, so just different topics different things.
John Anthony Dunne: So yeah, Nick, our our episode this coming out this Wednesday, it'll be, I think. Was it? Thursday morning for y'all or Thursday afternoon and forget. Yeah, yeah, I was stop waiting for it to come. No, no. But by the time you wake up morning is this right? Because I say the tweet. The tweet always comes out at 3 3, am. Louise Louise is next. Yeah, Louise.
Steph Judd: Yeah. And so in in her, like, I think there's a little bit of synergy with
Steph Judd: the work that you've done with the uniting church with her stuff with the Anglican. So maybe it's the maybe in terms of like flow of conversation. We'll start with like, I don't know, Chris, what you were thinking. Yeah, and and finish with the out outcomes. And I was gonna say, if you wanted to, you could
Chris Porter: talk about the
Chris Porter: So I realized how much I know about your project that lots of other people don't necessarily know.
Chris Porter: It looks so cool. I'm searching for the for documents, and i'm like where. Where's this way? Where you say all the stuff about pitchnila, and
Chris Porter: and I've heard you talk about it, and I've heard I've seen it written down, and there's the Fps paper and the and the decor. I'm like I can't keep father of these 21. But
Chris Porter: but the yeah. So I just get my act together and write the book, and then it'll be around. Well, I guess. I yeah, you can talk to talk about. Then the Oxford stuff as well. If you're on, yeah, and you can use it as a primary for that. So okay, cool.
John Anthony Dunne: are you?
John Anthony Dunne: Well, are we ready ready to go?
Chris Porter: Yeah, he kicks up. Sure, sure is there? I mean, I would just answer your question. So I assume I don't need to know where it's going. You just come start with the deck of high, level sort of, and then I I thought it might be good to land in one of the case studies.
Chris Porter: and then come through into some modern applications, and I I sent around that the 3 Bible says he did for the United, and we can. We can include links in the show notes, or whatever as well, if you like us to.
John Anthony Dunne: Yeah. So we, we'll just say thanks for joining us. We'll introduce you properly after you sign off, but we'll just. We'll just be like boom, and right into the first first question.
Kylie Crabbe: Hey, how long is the episode?
John Anthony Dunne: We we'll try to stop at the top of the hour, if that's all right. If you want us to cut it shorter. We can do that, too, if you, if you prefer.
John Anthony Dunne: Well, Dr. Crab, thanks so much for joining us.
Kylie Crabbe: It's a pleasure great to be having this chat with you all.
John Anthony Dunne: So you were recently a awarded a a decra award which stands for the discovery early Career Researcher Award, by the Australian Research Council, and you've got an exciting project called insight. Others early Christian protagonists and their impairments. Can you tell us a bit about that research and what you're what you're doing with that project.
Kylie Crabbe: Yes, thank you. It it is exciting to be working on this, and to have 3 years kind of dedicated to this research. It is it's part of it. It's got a whole lot of different strands to it. The project, but the the central kind of intellectual bit that holds it all together is
Kylie Crabbe: is wanting to build on all the wonderful work that's being done currently in Biblical studies, looking at things from a disability lens, but but also to kind of extend and somewhat refine some of that, and an aspect of that work which is to think about
Kylie Crabbe: the the sources that describe not kind of peripheral characters or characters that might just appear because of their impairment. We've got lots of those in the Biblical text, but to look at the way that impairment functions in in really central or protagonist characters in early Christian literature.
Kylie Crabbe: So there are lots of wonderful, really examples of people applying disability theory to
Kylie Crabbe: to Biblical text and to other early Christian literature, and some some of them. I have been really foundational for me, and thinking about this new project. So one of them is a rosemary. Galen Thompson's idea of the Normate, which is to say.
Kylie Crabbe: I I guess, for for me the easy way I think about. It is also about thinking about what's normal anyway. But it is also this idea that unless we're explicitly told certain features of of a character or of a person, our default understandings will kick in. So if we think intersectionally, we might think that unless we're told otherwise about an early Christian figure, we might think that they're male. We might think they're elite
Kylie Crabbe: able bodied. However, we're going to define that, and and various other sort of attributes. But I, in fact, this is a way of getting behind this kind of veiled subject, this normate subject, and thinking Well, why would we have that set of assumptions, a very modern kind of assumptions.
Kylie Crabbe: If we start thinking about the nature of impairment in antiquity, then we might think actually, there's all kinds of different
Kylie Crabbe: differences, different kinds of differences as there are today, but that, in fact, it's much more complicated picture than that. So my project is about
Kylie Crabbe: using some of that insight to unpack. How we think of early Christian figures.
Kylie Crabbe: and another key one that's been really very important, as as been talking about this idea that Mitchell and Snyder come up with David Mitchell and Sharon Snyder, which is about narrative prostheses. So this
Kylie Crabbe: awesome, snappy phrase is is about talking about the way in which disability, and in fact, they point out that, unlike some other kinds of maybe minority attributes that humans might have
Kylie Crabbe: mit ctl, and that are really obscured in the text of of in contemporary times and and ancient times, is also true. Disability is actually really prevalent in literature one.
Kylie Crabbe: but it is hyper symbolic. It's it's kind of used in this way to make a point about something else. And Biblical scholars have really gotten on board with this great way of thinking about stuff, and said, Yes, check it, check it out. Check out the way that people with disabilities in gospel literature.
Kylie Crabbe: I just used to show the power of Jesus, and they're changed and healed, and then they can participate like normal people can. And so those kind of dynamics which have been really important in in in Biblical studies to point out.
Kylie Crabbe: and but from my perspective sort of extending that a bit, it's kind of interesting that we Haven't then used that to think about what is the place, what? How important is narrative position
Kylie Crabbe: in the way that disability functions cause
Kylie Crabbe: while it's really very helpful to look at those kind of characters that are exploited at the margins of our narratives. We.
Kylie Crabbe: one of the other realities is that all the there's a lot of
Kylie Crabbe: central protagonist characters
Kylie Crabbe: who are presented as having impairments. But we don't pay so much attention to their impairments. So from Moses eli full. All these people are described as having impairments. But when we engage in
Kylie Crabbe: study of these figures, it's not the first thing that comes to mind. So that's the kind of intellectual grounding. I'm happy to say more about what it actually is, on what the what i'm actually doing with that
Kylie Crabbe: if you want.
Chris Porter: Yeah, thanks, Carly. I was wondering if you could could explore a bit more that nature of the Normate, and and then just the the framing of it. So you mentioned Paul so often, I think treatments of poll show policy, sort of superhuman, large and life figure. Yeah, planted. All these judges. Yeah.
Chris Porter: Might equival about whether or not, he actually planted them in the first place aside. And yeah, you have tone biographies written about all of the exploits of Paul, and yet his own self description is of one who is in Roman 7, you know.
Chris Porter: fraught with mental and and psychological sort of challenges, and then his own physical frailty, whatever that is, a thought in the flesh is unimpressiveness, etc. What does that do to our understanding of
Chris Porter: of Paul? And and how do we then frame that in your in. And what have you found in your research?
Kylie Crabbe: Yeah. Great. Exactly. This. I'm. Totally on board with all of the points that you're making there, and and even you know that
Kylie Crabbe: in collation, he says you know it's because of a physical infirmity that I first came to you, and of course there's been a like little strand of Biblical scholarship that's gone like. Oh, let's get all diagnostic about it. What's the physical infirmity? And you get these kind of competing.
Kylie Crabbe: you know, with some kind of visual impairment based on the account in acts, or maybe had epilepsy, or maybe you know all those things. But but you know how to reading the influence of pull it. This you know, 2 millennia of extremely influential theology on the life of the Church
Kylie Crabbe: through the lens of his own account of weakness. I mean, there's a really, I think there's a really creative conversation to be had there about how this how this impacts on it.
Kylie Crabbe: I guess the
Kylie Crabbe: well I mean One of the things for me is, you know, like outbreaks about the
Kylie Crabbe: all of the accounts of the life of the historical Jesus, that it says more about the kind of liberal Biblical scholars who wanted to find their own kind of image in Jesus than it does about the Jesus. Of that we might get a historical glimpse of through the Gospels, and I think that we have it a
Kylie Crabbe: a received tradition in interpreting call that is very similar to that. That is, you know, reformers
Kylie Crabbe: deeply worried about a range of things that they go to poll about, but not necessarily wondering about what that you know. Self disclosed account of finding strength and weakness, recognizing the foolishness of God in the way that they operate. I mean. That's it's
Kylie Crabbe: does seem like it's at the heart of post theology, and even when it is acknowledged in in some of those sources, it's still the kind of
Kylie Crabbe: privileged
Kylie Crabbe: hyper, intellectual kind of Church leader, powerful Church leader, who's interpreting it and finding an image of themselves in in the power of Paul
Kylie Crabbe: The. So. So yeah, I think there, there's a lot of at a part of my project is looking both at the initial sources and then at the reception. And so i'm really interested in historical contextualizations of of the way these characters are a read. These early Christian figures are are read and understood.
Chris Porter: and I don't know if i'm exactly answering it. This is a little remind me what the actual heart of your question was. No, that was perfect, because one of the things I was gonna say at the end. That's a sort of a private question, for at the end I want to ask about what happens in the Church. If we don't have, if we have a different idea of Paul as
Chris Porter: and does that help us with church dynamics and things like that. But we can come to that to the
That's
John Anthony Dunne: so. One of the things as well about about Paul in this dynamic, I mean, as Chris was kind of framing the question. There's this issue about how we, you know, kind of write biographies about Paul, but even canonically it within Acts Acts doesn't present
John Anthony Dunne: the same sort of picture of Paul that Paul Self discloses about himself in his letters. Right. Paul is a kind of a miracle worker, as opposed to somebody who is concerned about the physical weakness that he experiences. I wonder if you could say a bit about that dynamic between Ax and and Paul's self representation in his letters.
Kylie Crabbe: Yes, absolutely. There, I mean Paul is a figure in act that is also serving a kind of narrative purpose, and it's a similar dynamic. We see across the Apocalypse to as the kind of wonder working nature of the Apostles, the kind of
Kylie Crabbe: further expanded in the early Christian thinking and early Christian kind of witnessing there. There's a kind of apologetic reason for that. I guess
Kylie Crabbe: it. I mean it's never
Kylie Crabbe: a 100% in one direction or the other. Right. There is this kind of complex portrait that's going on
Kylie Crabbe: One of the things that there's a a great book by Anna Rebecca Solo Veg, who's written negotiating the disabled body. There's a chapter in that where she talks about Paul, and she's talking about the ways in which Paul is presented.
Kylie Crabbe: and and in in fact, you get. He. He also writes about Jesus in this: Why is being presented as having a some kind of insanity madness
Kylie Crabbe: going on? You know the way that the family Jesus's family talks about Him, and stuff like that, and and she she points out that there is a complexity in the portrait here, where, on the one hand, these figures can be presented as having some kind of
Kylie Crabbe: stereotypical madness which is pushed against but one of the ways. The sources push against. It is to point out an enduring masculinity that they that I, even though it might look like they're a bit crazy. They're still conforming to the things that they should be conforming to it's proper blokes, and and so trustworthy in that way. So and you you get all these agendas that are that are running through the text. So, on the one hand, showing it the weakness.
Kylie Crabbe: but maybe also wanting to reassert the the ways in which the characters are are nonetheless strong.
Kylie Crabbe: so it's not all or nothing, and I think acts expands on Paul's letters in in that kind of way. The in the portrait of the figure of Paul doing both of those things, so that he can be weak, but also extremely stoic. He's modeled on Jesus from From Luke he's travel. His journey is modeled on the journey, and Luke's Gospel, and and so he and there's a certain kind of
Kylie Crabbe: Well, there's there, there is this stuff about the way that affect and emotions work for both of those characters in parallel, which, of course, Brittany Wilson has done some some wonderful work on as well about these unmanly men in Luke and acts.
Steph Judd: Yeah, thanks so much, Kylie. Something that one of our previous guests Eric Harvey was speaking about was in the context of you know, blindness and the healing narratives in particular, and what you referred to before about
Steph Judd: the function that
Steph Judd: people with disability in these texts function as is as a recipient of a other other person's actions rather than having an agency of their own. I was wondering that, given as you're talking about the role that weakness plays in, in in people with disability.
Steph Judd: and in in the sense that
Steph Judd: in a lot of these texts it's a passive. There's not much agency, and that that's associated with with weakness, a weakness and passivity; whereas in
Steph Judd: in in the context of Paul, who has a different narrative position
Steph Judd: that that seems to pivot the way that weakness functions
Steph Judd: have you found? Have you found that there is like an alignment between Ha! What the narrative function of a particular character is, and the way that weakness is conceived of in your research.
Hmm.
Kylie Crabbe: Great question.
Kylie Crabbe: I think
Kylie Crabbe: the way weakness is conceived of is a good way of wondering about it with the text, and certainly what on noticing. And i'm still early on in this funding has only just recently started.
Kylie Crabbe: What i'm noticing is is about the role that that weakness plays in the characterization of the figure like how much they are defined by this
Kylie Crabbe: and the kind of critique that we get of peripheral characters who are really just exploited, and and the other part to Mitchell. And tonight is idea of narrative processes. Is that the way it works is that it plays on a negative cultural stereotype about the impairment that is being used so sort of like the archetypal example would be someone like
Kylie Crabbe: you know, like Captain Cook in Peter Pan, where his, his, his prosthetic hand as a hook, is part of the negative characterization of the villain.
Kylie Crabbe: and it plays on the idea that somebody with disabilities like this, or like the facial disfigurements of of James Bond, villains and stuff like that. That that this kind of physical visual disability we're meant to assume is a bad thing. So the character that's introduced with this bad thing is going to be
Kylie Crabbe: doing that right? And so so you get characters where the Ho, where you're playing on this cultural stereotype. But then these other sort of central characters that are more powerful like you're saying, Don't.
Kylie Crabbe: have that negative characterization that is based on their physical or other impairment.
Kylie Crabbe: So I I mean, I think a kind of lovely example that that I look at as part of my project. So the project has, as I said, lots of strands of one of them is. I'm writing a book about this with for case studies of individual early Christian figures.
Kylie Crabbe: and one of them is the portrait of Peter's daughter and people may or may not know about, because she doesn't show up, of course, in our New Testament literature. But in as sort of second century text just just survives in a one Coptic manuscript.
Kylie Crabbe: We have a story about Peter's daughter, who is is paralyzed.
Kylie Crabbe: and it's all set in the context of sort of like a layered narrative. There's a story that is kind of the present time where Peter is healing a whole lot of different people. And then the people there say this is all very well, but they criticize him for not healing His own daughter, who's there sitting paralyzed.
Kylie Crabbe: and he does a big kind of, you know. Miraculous wonder working thing where he says. Well, let me show you I can do it. Danny heals her, and then he sends her back to being paralyzed, and the Texas
Kylie Crabbe: send it back to being helpless in the corner, and there, of course.
Kylie Crabbe: they rejoice that she's healed, and then they are despondent and critical, the crowd around when she is paralyzed, and he then tells this story about how, when she was born, he had an insight that terrible things would happen because of her beauty if she was if she stayed well.
Kylie Crabbe: And then, when she's 10, a terrible thing does happen. It's more complicated than just saying a terrible thing happens. But what but basically there is a she she's kind of targeted by this guy, Ptolemy, who
Kylie Crabbe: and there's a missing bit in this one manuscript who seems to abduct her and then return her to the family home, and she's only 10, which is obviously before the age when she should have been married, but returns it to the family home paralyzed.
Kylie Crabbe: and they rejoice that she's paralyzed because it's saved her from this inappropriate sexual aggressor and they had refused her to refuse to have her betrothed also, because the the story is about championing celibacy.
Kylie Crabbe: so that her it is. I should have given a content morning. It's a terrible kind of story. So we have this this account, and throughout it in this version the second century version, Petrila, I mean, Sorry Peter's daughter. She doesn't have a name, so have a name. She doesn't say anything, and she's completely
Kylie Crabbe: sort of just acted upon at these different points in the story to make a different narrative point.
Kylie Crabbe: But then, centuries on fifth or sixth century Latin text, the active nearest, and Achilles we get, which is a kind of loose compilation of martyrdom stories. Suddenly this woman has her own name. It's Patronilla.
Kylie Crabbe: and she is listed as one of these martyrs.
Kylie Crabbe: But she has quite an active role now she's still at. We still have this story about that she's paralyzed, and that Peter heals her and then re paralyzes her. But the second half of the story is really different, and it cuts in instead with it. Her own speaking part, where she has a sexual aggressor also come with military, with soldiers and stuff to try and do a a marriage by capture, abduction, and she says, No, give me 3 days to do this I i'll contemplate what's going on.
Kylie Crabbe: She then spends those days in in fasting, in prayer, takes communion, and then lies back on her convalescence. Couch convalescence couch and dies.
Kylie Crabbe: and
Kylie Crabbe: and then becomes a, and was recognized as being a martyr. So she she's very active, she I on the one hand, it still seems kind of horrendous, but her choice is to dive rather than to be subject to this.
Kylie Crabbe: This suit is, or aggressive advances which she doesn't want to participate in in order to maintain her commitment to celibacy. But but the story really becomes her own. Her own story she's a protecting us, and one of the things I mean. There's loads of things that are interesting about the comparison between those 2 texts. But
Kylie Crabbe: one of the things that's interesting to me is that she is still paralyzed through through this, this lighter version of the text. That's all happened prior to the this aggressor coming and trying to take her to capture her for marriage.
Kylie Crabbe: But it doesn't feature in this it doesn't stop her from being a protagonist. It doesn't stop her from being active, and for making, you know, really decisive choices, that she bless to be faithful in this in the second text, so that this kind of transition in the story about Peter's daughter to Petronella, the named protagonist.
Kylie Crabbe: I think, illustrates a lot of what sort of at the heart of my project about wanting to to see how it's different when we see the impaired character at the center of their own narrative.
Steph Judd: Yeah, and it's so interesting when you decouple that link between
Steph Judd: a disability and whether or not you have agency
Steph Judd: in that example.
Steph Judd: Have you got any preliminary findings on what happened between in in like kind of the ecosystem of the communities that we're writing these texts that introduce that new degree of agency
Kylie Crabbe: that's specifically, and I mean it would be awesome if we had more sources that fill in all of that they get, and so no on that on that front. But I mean she does. I think it's interesting that she is included in this compilation of martyrs.
Kylie Crabbe: and there there is a a site that is associated with her martyrdom, and has, you know, fresco and stuff on the on the wall about that later reception. Also.
Kylie Crabbe: you know, we get a few illustrations, and and even some statues that are about her, and it it's interesting to me that in some of those she's standing with a palm front, just, you know, without any kind of
Kylie Crabbe: indication of her impairment necessarily being important in some other sources she's lying on a on a couch with
Kylie Crabbe: he figures all around her, and so that clearly the context is still a a recognition of her impairment as part of that. So I I mean, I think that's that's interesting to me about like the way that her tradition goes in a couple of different directions about whether her impairment is important to her
Kylie Crabbe: to our portrait. But I do wonder if it's it's the idea of of her as as a Marta that helps her to become her own character. Have it had, you know she's in a a a calendar where you know there's a same day that recognizes her and and so on.
Hmm.
Steph Judd: Kristy, did you want to ask something? I was gonna just have a follow up on you? You follow up because I was. There was a question I was gonna ask for it just to get my brain
Kylie Crabbe: right. January.
Steph Judd: Something that occurs to me as as you're describing the way in which these
Steph Judd: these narratives kind of
Steph Judd: inhabit. It seems like they're inhabiting their own genre almost, but they they are
Steph Judd: playing on negative caricatures. Negative cultural.
Steph Judd: Is it generally the sense that these impaired protagonists?
Steph Judd: They They have their agency, and they do
Steph Judd: they they, they.
Steph Judd: they they do that, you know great deeds, or whatever.
Steph Judd: in spite of
Steph Judd: their impairment
Steph Judd: like. Yes, this this trope, this, this, this negative cultural caricature it's still in play, and it's still active in the narrative.
Steph Judd: and they it's it, even even though they have this, this disability or this impairment, they've nonetheless been able to to serve the function of
Steph Judd: the protagonist.
Steph Judd: rather than
Steph Judd: which in my mind it it still is complicated because it
Steph Judd: it's still views
Steph Judd: like impairment in a way that is negative negatively construed. I'm not sure if that question makes very much sense. But you you get the kind of I think I do. Yeah, yeah, I'm.
Kylie Crabbe: Yeah, your question is, do they do they kind of like and body something important sort of despite their impairment, rather than that just being part of you. They are understanding the impairment as like.
Steph Judd: or it actually can can be something that is
Steph Judd: not always a bad thing in someone's life like something that one of our previous guests spoke about was the way in which often disability, particularly acquired disability is understood as tragedy and cut off potential.
Steph Judd: And i'm just interested in the way that these texts are conceived of and and received
Kylie Crabbe: in your research.
Kylie Crabbe: Yeah, yeah, I I mean, I guess a part of the
Kylie Crabbe: complexity of impairment and disability is, it's diversity and the diversity of lived experience that's that sits behind it. So the World Council of Churches have this fantastic set of documents, and the
Kylie Crabbe: that there's a revised version of it called the Gift of Being, and it's really clear to say that some people's experience of disability is that it is
Kylie Crabbe: it? It is a hurdle in people's experience so to fullness of life, and people experience it like that. We need to hear when people say that I
Kylie Crabbe: but we should not presume that because loads of people's experiences, that it is just part of life, and and that it's, you know it's in a way it's. It's just part of yeah, the the different kinds of difference that we all experience.
Kylie Crabbe: So I guess one of the things that I like to think about is about the nature of human limitation.
Kylie Crabbe: and the way that these sources might draw our attention to the diversity of human limitations which we all share.
Kylie Crabbe: And and so it is actually a kind of contemporary obsession with perfection that leads us to read ancient sources as though there are only people with impairments and normal people
Kylie Crabbe: at this kind of binary, between ability and disability, which is which is not faithful to our contemporary setting, lift experience. Either. Everybody lives with with human limitations, and there are different kinds of limitations that we deal with. But we we all face this reality.
Kylie Crabbe: and it is a misunderstanding of antiquity to to just put this kind of binary over it, because, in fact, we know all sorts of things, you know, like, what does the ancient world look like if nobody has
Kylie Crabbe: spectacles to be changing their their visual abilities to. If the 4 people in this call would be having all sorts of troubles, I can tell from looking at our pictures as we where our spectacles, and that might be something that changes over a lifetime, or that we're born with. So so there are kind of we
Kylie Crabbe: things that we might think of continuities, of the physical experience of being a human, that some people's vision can be aided in in some kind of ways, or is vision is not as as sharp as as others.
Kylie Crabbe: But but there's all sorts of things in antiquity stuff to do with nutrition stuff to do with military engagement. That means that there's different kinds of physical impairments on the go. And so so, in fact, what we should really be thinking of is, in what ways
Kylie Crabbe: are each of the figures we're dealing with? Impaired not who are the impaired people, and who are not, because, in fact, human experience will be like that in antiquity, even arguably more so than than today. But I think that part of the way that disability theory is, is helping us.
Kylie Crabbe: but asking us to problematize the binary between ability and disability is for us to recognize some continuities in human experience there, and and think.
Kylie Crabbe: perhaps I mean, there are definitely some kinds of human differences that require particular.
Kylie Crabbe: a particularly careful listening on our behalf to hear how that lived. Experience work some ways in which the the the community should adapt to help people participate fully in our communities.
Kylie Crabbe: I I definitely don't mean that because there's a continuity at every experience. That that means we should just, you know, listen to it to ourselves, and not listen any more to to people with particular experiences of impairment, but to to really rethink that. So so, getting back to your original question about whether people at these figures are shown to
Kylie Crabbe: be kind of like held up examples of of Christian disciples despite their impairment. I mean, maybe it would be an interesting thing to wonder about about the role that weakness and weakness and strength and
Kylie Crabbe: foolishness and wisdom Work in, pull and to think about that together, is it? Does he consider it to be despite? But I wonder if it is in fact, just through his, his, his attention to
Kylie Crabbe: human limitation actually helps him to understand something that's already fundamental to the Christian Gospel, which I think it might be closer to the truth.
Chris Porter: Yeah, I I think that's one of the areas that is quite striking with Paul and and Petronella as well where the the disability, the imposition of the disability.
Chris Porter: enables that form of witness in martyrdom and in concrete things. You see, Paul, sort of trying to express that he that
Chris Porter: the his lack of eloquence, his lack of ability, whether that in whatever form that is his limitation, there is actually a
Chris Porter: a a part and parcel of the Gospel, and and the way the Gospel is is, bring the came to proclaim to the Grinians. It's almost the enabling factor, if you like.
Chris Porter: But I wonder what happens. And and perhaps this comes back to the where we started with thinking about the biography support.
Chris Porter: It strikes me that so often when we construct that we have that reception history of of the this Uber Mitch Paul, the the the Superman, who can do everything, we then say that then, that that
Chris Porter: that continuity extends into the Church. And so I I wonder if sometimes we end up in the positions where we enable thing, unhealthy
Chris Porter: patterns of
Chris Porter: belonging in the Church, or, more precisely unhealthy patterns of abuse. Because we've
Chris Porter: dropped the
Chris Porter: the limitations of human experience. I'm: interested yeah.
Chris Porter: then, for your research. How have you seen Have you seen that already, or how? How can you? How you, looking towards let me refr that for your research? How do you think it will affect on church experience and and our lived experience here in Australia and in the West, as we wrestle with this
Chris Porter: tension between ableleness and and the the the perception of of unlimited ability and things like that.
Hmm.
Kylie Crabbe: Well, i'm hoping the research has something to say about this. I mean it is, and it is still. It is a project about historical sources which have important theological implications. And so the way I think about it is
Kylie Crabbe: that our contemporary questions, which are a lot and well in the church experience also in in an Australian setting, in the context of the Royal Commission into the disability sector which is going on in Australia at the moment
Kylie Crabbe: responses worldwide to the Covid pandemic which have really
Kylie Crabbe: brought. You know, we just did something that was really costly and at a global level to protect the vulnerable and part of the motivation for a lot of people about. That was because we thought that we were the vulnerable, so we wanted to. All of a sudden we're very motivated to make sure that everybody was kept safe.
Kylie Crabbe: But but as we sort of grapple with the fundamental insights about that, what does it mean to think about things from the perspective of our shared experience of limitation as shared experience of vulnerability, and then to realize those who are most vulnerable might need some kind of like structural response as well. So all of these things are contributing in our setting, I think.
Kylie Crabbe: and
Kylie Crabbe: mit Ctl. And and the way I think of it is that those contemporary questions sharpen the way. The kind of questions we bring to our historical sources one.
Kylie Crabbe: and then take back into our current setting. And when I think about the historical sources, I should say that the project includes, like I said for this both the and analysis of the the first examples we get of narratives or primary sources about these figures that i'm looking at.
Kylie Crabbe: and the reception over time. So i'm going to be using case studies of you know particular moments when the impairment of my characters, so which is Elizabeth and her infertility one
Kylie Crabbe: Paul and his weakness, John, who, it's described as having many weaknesses in in the act of sorry, just a the act of John, who
Kylie Crabbe: which might be, because, you know, in the Biblical tradition, he's an older person, so it might be about age and infirmity, or it actually might be something else. There's all these sources have problems about. They. They're very
Kylie Crabbe: apocalypse. Literature is very interested in questions of sexuality and celibacy and seeing weakness as associated with weakness, which is basically at a
Kylie Crabbe: New Testament early Christianity word for talking about physical infirmity. It's also the words that are used in the medical literature.
Kylie Crabbe: So I think about weakness as being like sexual desire. So, in fact, wondering about the way in which early Christian sources maybe think of that as a disability that gets in the way of of people's discipleship. So those 3 characters plus Petronella
Kylie Crabbe: at. So i'm looking at those sources and then contextualizing some of of the reception of those figures? When did? When do readers of Paul care about his infirmity? And when did they not even mention it at all. And how does that shape the theology that comes out of reading Poll in different historical settings? So that's part of what is going on with with that.
Kylie Crabbe: and I a as part as a kind of accountability, part of the project as well. I have a reference group only because I've only just, said I'm just setting it up. But a reference group of people with lived experience of disability to be
Kylie Crabbe: not not necessarily, not at experts in the Biblical studies side of it. But accountability partners for thinking about the language we use, the questions we ask, and why that's important. And then, at the end of the project coming back together to look at it's a described as a translation policy lab thinking about research, translation, thinking about. Does any of this
Kylie Crabbe: give us new ways to think about the the place of of
Kylie Crabbe: the way we think about disability and impairment in our contemporary policies, you know, responding to some of this stuff from Covid, or the Disability Royal Commission, and and all of that as well.
Kylie Crabbe: The other part of the project that I have is a is more extended reception, historical bits. I am having a hosting a workshop with people that I used to do a bit of work with when I lived in Oxford, the Oxford Center for reception history of the Bible.
Kylie Crabbe: And we're gonna look at the receptions of Biblical disability in general. So not necessarily all the protagonist characters, but just in general examples of infirmity in the Biblical text or other early Christian literature and examples of the reception over time; and I'm really hoping that that that's
Kylie Crabbe: designed, among other things, to to support a website that we're going to put together with examples of this examples of artwork. So rather
Kylie Crabbe: a otherwise in which people in different historical contexts, different geographical contexts, have engaged with these
Kylie Crabbe: examples of disability, and i'm really hoping that this will both be an important repository, because no one has really compiled this stuff before for other scholars who want to work on disability in the Biblical text, but also for kind of everyday uses of these Biblical texts
Kylie Crabbe: to to prompt
Kylie Crabbe: prompt reflection on these things. So i'm conscious, as someone engaged in church life as well, and
Kylie Crabbe: and in thinking about you know the way that we use the the lecturer, whatever tradition people are coming from the way we use bits of Biblical text in worship services that
Kylie Crabbe: the churches churches are full of faithful, well-meaning people who read these text and don't necessarily have really good resources at to hand to think
Kylie Crabbe: about the problems about how we use these texts, and I would extend that to being the way that Biblical imagery is used in hymns, that it can be, you know. Read if you're if you
Kylie Crabbe: involved in re leading worship, and you're choosing kim like read, you know, verse 3 and 4 of the him before you set it, and you might discover the assembling. Why, some really bad theology in there about disability, and think about it from the perspective of the person in the congregation who identifies in a contemporary setting as having the disability that is used to the metaphor or some kind of other thing. And you him.
Kylie Crabbe: anyway. So I I i'm wanting this website to be a resource for people who engage with these texts week in, week out. I want to do it faithfully and to and to think about at some of these questions along the way.
Kylie Crabbe: So that is, that is another part of the project as well.
John Anthony Dunne: So I was really interested in the 4 case studies, and specifically thinking about Elizabeth's infertility. When we had Dr. Louise Gospel on, she did a a wonderful job talking about the woman with the issue of blood and highlighted how you know this one that was probably in fertile, and why that you know that would have been a a disability in in the ancient world especially to think about to think about the the the woman not being able to have to have children.
John Anthony Dunne: but it it started to make me think about a distinction that's often made between visible and non visible disabilities, and thinking about your 4 case studies, Elizabeth in particular, being one where you know she could pass, so to speak, if we use the language of passing, as somebody who might not have a disability.
John Anthony Dunne: and I I started to wonder to what degree do you address, or do you think might be relevant to address ancient physiognomy? The idea that what we can learn about somebody somebody's character, their virtues, etc., is, is really externally based what they look like. And of course, that implies a lot of assumptions about what is quote unquote, normal, and these sorts of things i'm just curious what
John Anthony Dunne: what you might say about Elizabeth's disability in in light of this kind of ancient physiognomy around disability.
Hmm.
Kylie Crabbe: Yeah, this is great, because, of course, the the literature about physiog move. The macrophy, not saying correctly is, is about
Kylie Crabbe: setting out norms and and so and so we can have writers that are exploiting those norms in order. It's a bit like, you know what we're talking about in terms of narrative pro prostheses that it's it's it's leveraging an assumption. The reader is all remedy meant to have about somebody with you know.
Kylie Crabbe: weekend calls, or you know those those those kinds of physical features in order to make a different point. So so there's some fantastic Biblical studies, or already done. On some of these questions, Mick, our parsons people like this have done some great work about that.
Kylie Crabbe: It it is interesting, thinking about various conditions that might be considered disabilities, but are not
Kylie Crabbe: immediately obvious to the to the viewer.
Kylie Crabbe: and and this will connect with an idea that i'm sure that you others of your guests in this fantastic series you're doing about disability impairment. We'll already have talked about, which is the distinction between disability and impairment and the different models of disability. So.
Kylie Crabbe: of course, this is an an important thing that we that we might think about what, how we understanding these different ideas. So we have impairment as a kind of description of of a condition that we might point out from a cultural perspective is context specific.
Kylie Crabbe: Whether you are are able to. Whether someone might have a a mild intellectual disability that makes literacy really difficult. That is much more impairing in a contemporary setting than it would have been in our kind of first or second century setting.
Kylie Crabbe: So we have a kind of cultural contextual problem with with impairment. But the different models of talking about disability and impairment. We'll point out that disability is this sort of social layer that gets put on top of some kind of description of a condition.
Kylie Crabbe: So in a if we take infertility as an example in a contemporary setting that would be very much recognized as a medical issue. There are lots of medical interventions that people attempt.
Kylie Crabbe: but it's very unlikely, You know. You're not gonna take the disability kind of box on a form for infertility in a contemporary setting. What we encounter in antiquity is that there is the kind of like
Kylie Crabbe: There's the impairment angle. The person doesn't have the children that they are longing for.
Kylie Crabbe: But there is also this extra layer of social
Kylie Crabbe: stigma and critique for the person that doesn't have children so.
Kylie Crabbe: and that's the point at which it might be seen as a disability sort of like. Also, how we think about Lepra like leprosy skin conditions
Kylie Crabbe: in the Biblical text. And and compared to now that that's not really just. God doesn't him as a disability now. But but it it has all these kind of social ramifications in in antiquity that that take it into the realm of disability.
Kylie Crabbe: The one of the things we discover, I think, in in our sources is that the where there is something
Kylie Crabbe: like a kind of invisible impairment.
Kylie Crabbe: I mean, I guess there are some we don't know, because there could be examples where that's going on all over the shopping, and we don't get told, but the way we know about it in text where it is there is that we're told about it. So I've done a bit of research about the the falling sickness
Kylie Crabbe: or the sacred disease in antiquity, which has a lot of the symptoms that we would associate with epilepsy in the contemporary setting. Whether it's the same condition is the open to some debate, or whether it's helpful to retrospectively diagnose is a big debate. But but this kind of condition.
Kylie Crabbe: and of of course, that might not be visual. You know they he healing from the falling disease is not going to be obvious unless you are told. But of course these texts tell us
Kylie Crabbe: that they've that it's been healed. It's not just. They're not currently having some kind of episode. It's we're told that they healed. And so for infertility we see a transition. We say, Elizabeth, have a have a child in John, one
Kylie Crabbe: sorry John one Luke, one have John the baby in Luke One. But
Kylie Crabbe: you know there is also an interesting side to the to the reception, thinking about just the importance on otherwise of infertility change in the early Church when celibacy starts, being a central measure of faithful discipleship, then fertility starts, being a bit less important. Right.
Kylie Crabbe: So so you get this this shift also in some sources at that time.
Kylie Crabbe: So that's what i'm interested in exploring. But I guess even the example that Louis is is
Kylie Crabbe: talking about there. The text is telling you something about the
Kylie Crabbe: gynecological well being of this woman who upon whom Jesus shows compassion and the we need to learn to read it like a first century, Rita, and to hear not just the anguish we would imagine of the kind of symptoms that she is dealing with on a daily basis
Kylie Crabbe: in in that setting. But the further
Kylie Crabbe: points that it makes about that the other layers of stigma that she would be encountering
John Anthony Dunne: final queue.
Chris Porter: Carly. I'm. So interested with the the website and the resource in for modern expressions in in in the church. Then
Chris Porter: you've already produced some initial resources for church use. I know you. You wrote some Bible studies for the
Chris Porter: where it's a Bible studies for the United States in it here in in Australia.
Chris Porter: How how can people engage with that work of yours?
Hmm.
Kylie Crabbe: Well, there is
Kylie Crabbe: those studies. Actually, I did for the Victorian and testimony of the uniting church in Australia are available online with it was a a presentation, but we've also made it available with some discussion questions and stuff like that, so people can
Kylie Crabbe: engage with that. We've encouraged people to use them as the basis for a Bible study in different in in your home congregation or in. You know the the community that that wants to explore those things so definitely in that way. There are various other bits and pieces that I have written for a more general audience as well.
Kylie Crabbe: and certainly that will be a part of the project when I say that i'm hoping that the website will be both a resource for scholars and for people who are interested in a more kind of lay or applied kind of context.
Kylie Crabbe: There will be things written on that website and website that will give give a general audience a a way in to looking at the reception. So that yeah, there's various ways like that for people to engage with it.
Steph Judd: I'm
Kylie Crabbe: you mind if I just have a follow up to that. That. It's place because I think I've run out of. I don't know what it is.
Steph Judd: Well, I just think that
Steph Judd: i'm really grateful for the way that you've done this kind of translation piece between the reception history that you've looked into, and then trying to say, Well, practically, what does this mean for our communities?
Steph Judd: And
Steph Judd: I've only looked in the cursory way in those resources, but i'm really looking forward to getting stuck into them
Steph Judd: for our listeners. If you were to have
Steph Judd: 1, one or 2 kind of key, take homes for them, the things that you'd like to see change in the way that people handle text, so that they the way that they arrange things in their communities, and then local church communities. What will be the one or 2 things that you'd say.
Steph Judd: if you can be mindful of this, or pay more attention to this or shift the way you do this. What would those? What would those things be? Kylie?
Hmm.
Kylie Crabbe: Fantastic question. And I think one of them would be to to bring
Kylie Crabbe: a broader understanding about
Kylie Crabbe: the nature of the impairment in antiquity, to our reading of Biblical text, to kind of interrogate the assumptions we bring to to our reading of of figures in Biblical sources, and our kind of normate veiled subject assumptions that that's there are.
Kylie Crabbe: you know, people with disabilities and people without, and that we identify as the people without. So I I would encourage
Kylie Crabbe: that kind of reading
Kylie Crabbe: I would encourage, I and I think there are a few things that would flow on from that. One is that we would be much less likely to use
Kylie Crabbe: examples of impairments as metaphors in the way that we lead worship. It's really easy for liturgy to
Kylie Crabbe: fall into this trap of using blindness and deafness
Kylie Crabbe: metaphorically. But to think about how that feels to someone with a visual impairment, and or you know, or whichever other kind of sensory or physical impairment that people might have so to just interrogate the easy ways that we kind of perpetuate
Kylie Crabbe: divisions amongst people in the in. You know the people of God in in the way that we do this things, I think more helpful. Metaphors are things like thinking about different kinds of difference in in the model, from pull on the the nature of the body, where all parts are important.
Kylie Crabbe: where, in fact, the more vulnerable parts are treated with the greatest honor. And so we might think about what that means for our practice in our churches.
Kylie Crabbe: and and I think
Kylie Crabbe: I mean like one of one of the other important things that different models of disability teach us, you know. So the social model of disability will say to us: the problem at the classic example, for this is the problem is not the need to use a wheelchair. The problem is the community that doesn't build a ramp.
Kylie Crabbe: So we have this challenge here to think about. How how are we ensuring the full participation of all the people of God in our in our midst.
Kylie Crabbe: But we are also needing to think about. Where do we truly.
Kylie Crabbe: Who is the
Kylie Crabbe: who are the voices that will most
Kylie Crabbe: mit ctl. And helpfully give us this sense of what the Gospel is. So in the same way as treating with greatest honor, the most vulnerable parts, 101.
Kylie Crabbe: We might also say just now that we're all in the building, whether we use the stair or the ramp, we should make sure still to attend to the voices of the people who needed to use the ramp, because they might have other things to tell us about God's true nature, and and also other challenges that all of us need to hear
Kylie Crabbe: might also be some solace for everybody in it, as we think about the human limitation, which is what we all struggle with.
John Anthony Dunne: Dr. Crab. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for your great work, and we hope that our listeners will check out your website and and the results of this award that you receive congratulations on that, and look forward to seeing the completed projects.
Kylie Crabbe: Thanks so much. It's been great to talk to you, and i'll look forward to following along. Thanks.
Steph Judd: beautiful thanks so much.
Kylie Crabbe: Thank you
Kylie Crabbe: right. Thanks for taking, you know, time to think about my project, for now
Chris Porter: it's been living red, for in my head for a quite a while. Well, I was gonna say it was a thanks, for give me so much a hand on my project as well. Kind of like. Very kindly gave me your entire decor pack
Chris Porter: to help with mine. So
John Anthony Dunne: hmm. I I wanted to check in with you Dr. Kab, about the title. I usually like to have short titles, and like the most like central term first. So I was actually kind of thinking about, maybe inverting your subtitle.
John Anthony Dunne: If that's okay, like impairment and early Christian protagonists.
Kylie Crabbe: Yeah. I mean the I guess one of the words that I like in the subtitle is their impairments. So it's because the point is that they have impairments, but feel free to ditch the inside of this part as well. I didn't really explain that very well. I'm bit ambivalent about that part of the title today.
John Anthony Dunne: Typically, we try to go for punchy short titles that it's really clear what the topic is, you know.
Kylie Crabbe: Edited: If that is
Chris Porter: okay, yeah, or may we disrupt the inside others and go for that? That's right. You could just say early Christian protagonist in their impairments.
Kylie Crabbe: But that's
John Anthony Dunne: Alright.
Kylie Crabbe: beautiful. Thank you. That's right. Given where the locals that yeah, you could all go to 7 seats. I'm our name. I've only recently moved to Melbourne. So i'm still getting my bearings. Where did you move from?
Steph Judd: From? Sydney?
Kylie Crabbe: Good move!
Kylie Crabbe: You have a I don't know if you are on the mailing list and stuff, but we and I see we have, like a Biblical and all the Christian studies.
Kylie Crabbe: regular seminar, and all sorts of stuff. So if you want to be looped into things.
John Anthony Dunne: Just so. I've I've heard a lot of Melbourne and's throw shade at Sydney Centers. Does it? Does it go the other way around? Do city about you guys
John Anthony Dunne: not really. I don't know who would listen to these, I mean, I mean I I I I have not really heard Sydney's Ciders talk about like
Kylie Crabbe: It's not really. It's not really. They can just go sit in the beautiful harbor and not worry about any of it. So you know why concern themselves?
Kylie Crabbe: Hmm. That's it.
Chris Porter: Okay, I think I see you more, Kylie overseas. I do it in Melbourne.
Kylie Crabbe: We should. We should change that. But yes.
Kylie Crabbe: so good.
Kylie Crabbe: Oh, I know!
Kylie Crabbe: Oh, and like! Last year I returned to international travel with the Vengeance, after having not been, I do it for years totally what I did as well. In the last 6 months of the year I spent 10 weeks overseas. I had to calculate it for insurance, and i'm like.
Kylie Crabbe: Are you serious? That's why I felt like I was away every single month. You actually were. That's right. It was like I was trying to catch up on all the Qantas
Kylie Crabbe: status. So I my platinum last year.
Kylie Crabbe: did you? My Gosh! I remember that. So it means you can take me into the yeah if we're on the same flight, you can come. We can get some.
Kylie Crabbe: That's the only thing I any good thing that the first it's a it's a difficult thing to have to do. I mean, you could also just like, stay in Melbourne and eat beautiful food and with the travel. But yes.
Kylie Crabbe: right okay. Well, i'll let you get on with the next bit of your organizing. But thanks so much for the chat, and i'm taking an interest which sounds awesome. You've got such good people in
John Anthony Dunne: in your series.
John Anthony Dunne: all right. I'm gonna do 2 different Eps episode numbers because just you know, I I feel like I've gone back and forth with Megan. I think we'll get her eventually. But
John Anthony Dunne: you know there's a chance. Maybe we don't get her so it I mean, she's been
John Anthony Dunne: like, oh, yeah, yeah, I want to do it. And then it's like, oh, wait! Actually, I can't do it. Oh, I can't do that day. Oh, I can't do it like this. The reason why it's not scheduled it. It it does make a
Chris Porter: it it so. The other place. It. It might make logical sense
Chris Porter: to do is at the end
John Anthony Dunne: I think about. Well, yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah. So we've got actually got like Theoretically, we've got quite a way.
Chris Porter: Yeah, yeah.
John Anthony Dunne: I think I think we'll get her on Monday. She said. She was available on Monday, but i'm just gonna say 2 episode numbers right now. Monday is in tomorrow, or I'm: gonna. Oh, sorry. Sorry next next week. Yup, Yup, Yup. Partly because it's already Monday here. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm: Sorry not not.
John Anthony Dunne: Are tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, i'm gonna say 1 57 and 1 58 just really quick. Okay.
John Anthony Dunne: And this is.
John Anthony Dunne: And this is episode 157.
John Anthony Dunne: And this is episode 1, 58.
John Anthony Dunne: Yeah. It's like mandatory muting for this part. This is like no other way around it. Okay.
John Anthony Dunne: And this is John Anthony. Well, that's the thing, is you? I feel like you have to emote, or else it will sound like, you know, just a little like, cause it's. You know the music's playing. It's like you got it mo, you know. Okay, All right
John Anthony Dunne: in this episode. We're talking about impairment. But no, we don't
John Anthony Dunne: in this episode. We're talking about early Christian protagonists and their impairments with Dr. Kylie Krab.
John Anthony Dunne: Dr. Kylie Krab is senior research fellow in Biblical and early Christian Studies and Director of Graduate Research programs for the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry as part of the Australian Catholic University.
John Anthony Dunne: She also holds a current discovery early Christian.
John Anthony Dunne: She also holds.
John Anthony Dunne: She also. She also holds a current discovery. Early Career Researcher Award from the Australian Research Council for her project inside others early Christian protagonists and their impairments.
John Anthony Dunne: Team members on the episode from the 2 cities include Stephanie, Kate, Judd.
John Anthony Dunne: Reverend Dr. Chris Porter
John Anthony Dunne: and myself, Dr. John Anthony done
John Anthony Dunne: so, Steph and Chris. This was a wonderful conversation. I always say that that is my line
John Anthony Dunne: and over to you, John, for this wonderful conversation, I know, but it's like it's like, I am so stink and repetitive. Okay, hold on.
John Anthony Dunne: Stefan. Chris. This will.
John Anthony Dunne: I was gonna say it again.
John Anthony Dunne: Stefan Chris. What wonderful
John Anthony Dunne: conversations were had just now.
Chris Porter: I wonder what wonderful conversations we shall have today? Said Poo to Piglet.
John Anthony Dunne: Okay, okay. I got this hold on
John Anthony Dunne: Stefan Chris.
John Anthony Dunne: Dr. Kylie Crab was a a delight to have on with us.
John Anthony Dunne: It was.
John Anthony Dunne: It was exciting to hear about the research that she's currently working on, and the various things that she is doing.
John Anthony Dunne: This is garbage.
John Anthony Dunne: Try it again. I'm: just not gonna look at the screen. Okay.
John Anthony Dunne: So carrying on in our conversations.
John Anthony Dunne: So, carrying on in our series on disability and theology, we've been doing a lot of textual studies, thinking about the representation of disability in various texts, and in this conversation we're we're extending from the New Testament into early Christianity, early Christian text, and and Dr. Kelly Krab has a lot to share with us, especially drawing from this
John Anthony Dunne: from this interesting research project that she's that she's begun that she received this award for Steph and Chris. What were some of the takeaways that you had from our conversation with Dr. Krab.
Steph Judd: I think something that i'm going to be mulling over for quite a while is
Steph Judd: the concept that she picks up from Mitchell and Snyder about narrative prostheses, and the way in which
Steph Judd: well, when you look into where is the character positioned in the narrative. Where is it an and and what's what does that mean for how we do interpret what this impairment means?
Steph Judd: I think that something that has come up a lot in this series is the way in which
Steph Judd: disability and impairments are used as a metaphor and
Steph Judd: just being thoughtful about that rather than just unthinkingly
Steph Judd: adopting that approach to the way we think about disability. There's just such a richness to her work, and I think
Steph Judd: this is a really important contribution a research is going to make to the field.
Chris Porter: Yeah. And I I really appreciate the way that she
Chris Porter: yeah, I really appreciate the way that she contextualizes the all Christian protagonists in terms of the nomite and the and the presume normativity that we have of health healthy and in scarecrow bodies, and the way that that then comes across in the the received tradition; how
Chris Porter: how these characters are received and understood, and filled it down into the church, as
Chris Porter: as the the normative nature is presumed rather than explicitly
Chris Porter: described; and therefore how that then impacts on the way that we do church, the way that we sing. Song is the way that we use the metaphors, you know, in sermons, and the way that we describe different aspects of our life together, and
Chris Porter: and just the the do you think that should be doing there in the past for hot that she has is great?
John Anthony Dunne: If you haven't already, please subscribe wherever you get your podcast and leave us to review. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or visit us at our website at the 2 cities.com.
John Anthony Dunne: and with that
John Anthony Dunne: here's our conversation with Dr. Kylie Crab.
Chris Porter: You mean our wonderful conversation
Steph Judd: we got there.
Steph Judd: Hmm.
John Anthony Dunne: I don't know why that is my
John Anthony Dunne: like
John Anthony Dunne: we all I also also on reflective like way of introducing the episode. We just had a wonderful conversation with X Guest.
John Anthony Dunne: What did you think about it
John Anthony Dunne: X Co-host and x co-host.
Steph Judd: you you you saying that we're exco host. Now you kick in oh, my gosh placeholder, placeholder. I'm just saying like we always say like we are. Pre: I really appreciated the way blah
Steph Judd: I know we all have our little verbal ticks. We should.
Chris Porter: Yeah.
Steph Judd: I always say.
Steph Judd: I always bring my bloody legal ease.
Steph Judd: I think one of the last episodes I was like saying, in which
John Anthony Dunne: i'm fine, with in which
Steph Judd: it's like the circumstances in which not just adds, like an another like an unnecessary sub, close to a sentence.