John Anthony Dunne: Well, Dr. Harvey, thanks so much for joining us.
eric harvey: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
John Anthony Dunne: So with this conversation. Uh, we, we'd love to hear about your research on a blindness in the ancient Near East and um the Hebrew Bible as well. But before we get into some of those um conversations, we'd love to hear a little bit about your personal story and your own research um, And the things that you are uh working on.
eric harvey: Sure. Yeah, thanks. Um. So I am Eric Harvey A. I earned my Ph. D. In two thousand and twenty from Grandeast University in Bible and the aged Near East. So that is the Hebrew Bible in the context uh in which the
eric harvey: various texts that make it up. We're written um so ancient Israel and its neighbors. Uh in Mesopotamia and in the the the West Coast and Mediterranean, you know uh Israel, Syria Palestine area.
eric harvey: Um.
eric harvey: My My doctoral work was actually on the Psalms, and didn't have anything to do with disability.
eric harvey: Uh now did not originally intend to write about disability. But uh, during the course of my Phd.
eric harvey: Uh my vision started to deteriorate. It had never been great, uh, but it started to deteriorate, and midway through my Phd. Slightly after finishing my comprehensive exams. Uh, I became legally blind
eric harvey: at the same time. Uh, I was, you know, sort of reading very widely in disability, criticism, uh and all, you know, disability memoir to
eric harvey: wrap my head around just the transition in my own life.
eric harvey: Um! And I was doing research on the Psalms and started doing some research on
eric harvey: uh, some one, fifteen and one thirty-five, and the parallel text there, which includes in part the line the famous line.
eric harvey: They have eyes that do not see. They have ears, but do not hear. And as I worked through the all of the various connections of this text with different texts in the Hebrew Bible. Uh. I realized that I had
eric harvey: a big contribution to make to the study and interpretation of blindness in particular, in the Hebrew Bible, and throughout the ancient areas, just reading through the secondary literature and realizing um
eric harvey: how significant the caps were that I perceived there, so
eric harvey: that led me to my second project, I'm. Still in the process of publishing my dissertation as a book. But i'm also on the side beginning. My second project, which I call
eric harvey: blindness, lived and imagined in the ancient Middle East, which attempts to be a holistic reappraisal and reassessment of blindness in the ancient Middle East, both as a lived disability and as a construct in what I call the cited imaginary.
eric harvey: That is, sort of the the collection of stereotypes, tropes, expectations, and associations that
eric harvey: cluster around the concept of blindness in the minds and writings of overwhelmingly cited storytellers and writers
eric harvey: that's a longest summary of what I've been up to. Um.
Madison Pierce: That sounds incredible, Eric. Um! I I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about some of what you found in those discussions of the you know, seeing you do not, or sorry, having eyes you do not see, and all that. Um, I I mean, if if you're willing to share some of that kind of cutting edge research that you're doing. But all of this sounds so fascinating.
eric harvey: Sure, absolutely. My My dissertation was on the material aspect of text transmission.
eric harvey: So
eric harvey: I was um studying a lot of manuscripts. But then, as I went back in time trying to disentangle the connections between different Biblical texts. Um sort of this test that's been variously called Inner Bible collects Jesus, or Intertextuality Um, or the study of illusion and citation, et cetera. And
eric harvey: you th This phrase uh, they have eyes, but they do not see. They abuse, but they do not. Here does not just occur in psalms. It also occurs when it occurs twice in songs, but it also occurs in once each in each of the major profits. So in Jeremiah twenty-five
eric harvey: twenty-one. Uh is the heel twelve, two, and Jeremiah I sorry not. Jeremiah. Isaiah forty, three, eight.
eric harvey: And as I read through this one thing I noticed that hadn't really been pulled out was that
eric harvey: there was um. The line, even though it stayed remarkably similar. Um,
eric harvey: with the exception of Isaiah, forty, three, which i'll get to
eric harvey: did not
eric harvey: was not always talking about the same thing. In fact, if it if between the five out of stations there were three vastly different conceptual domains being um discussed with this line um in the pre-exilic prophets, Zikhio and uh Jeremiah we had
eric harvey: in it. It was in this, in this excoration of Judah for being um
eric harvey: for not heating the commandments um
eric harvey: of of I don't know I. And
eric harvey: in the Psalms it was about idols, basically literally having eyes and ears, but not being able to sense or perceive in any way. And then in Isaiah
eric harvey: um you actually have um. The words blind and death appear right. Bring out this people who are blind. They have eyes that they have fears.
eric harvey: And so um! This was. This is doing its own thing, but that i'll get you. But uh, oftentimes these all five of these texts were discussed as if they all concerned disability,
eric harvey: and
eric harvey: I,
eric harvey: as I read them, thought, you know
eric harvey: only one of these. The one in Isaiah really discusses disability.
eric harvey: The other ones um.
eric harvey: They discuss different kinds of not seeing.
eric harvey: So in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, for example, we have uh the these, you know, accusations that they're not seeing or hearing.
eric harvey: Um. But these are moral accusations, and really the only way that the people could be held morally accountable for not seeing or not hearing. Something is, if they had the capability
eric harvey: to here and see. And yet we're not doing so. And in Ezekiel this is extremely explicit, because it's as as you can talk to. They have eyes to see, but they do not see. They have ears to hear, but they do not hear
eric harvey: right. This is the case of a disability. This is the case of
eric harvey: the people, not using faculties which they are perfectly capable of using should they so choose.
eric harvey: On the other hand, you have the Psalms talking about idols. You know the the the idols, and the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear.
eric harvey: And here you know the the issue is not
eric harvey: disability,
eric harvey: because the the the statuary, the divine statuary, um of Mesopotamia, which which is what this these are aimed at.
eric harvey: Um we're formed, you know, basically to be physically perfect. And yet the criticism here is that they are lifeless and completely powerless. So here, once again, we don't have the concept of disability brought to the for
eric harvey: um. Finally, in Isaiah we do have disability,
eric harvey: and yet the way that it's being discussed in Isaiah.
eric harvey: Uh, it's very different from the way that many scholars and interpreters assume. It was discussed.
eric harvey: Um! And here we have, I think, prevailing modern metaphors of blindness being read back into the Bible in a way that is um
eric harvey: an anachronistic and inappropriate.
eric harvey: So
eric harvey: you know, we often, or perhaps the the primary metaphorical entailment of blindness in in the modern world, and in modern English especially,
eric harvey: is with ignorance; and in the religious domain we often associated with moral or spiritual ignorance or obduracy. Right?
eric harvey: Uh: that's not exactly what's going on in second is that Yeah.
eric harvey: In second Isaiah, blindness is not being used as a metaphor for ignorance, but for
eric harvey: captivity, for immobility and for a lack of agency. And this shows up throughout Second Isaiah Um, and I should clarify that. I'm. I'm talking here about all all the texts on blindness that i'm discussing here are from uh,
eric harvey: either either the post-exilic stratum or one of these posts to build strata depending on what you uh how you feel about the the composition history of Isaiah. But but those are posted with text that are coming from a different place than the the pre-exilic um
eric harvey: uh temporal orientation of Jeremiah and ezekiel
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): eric could I just ask him a little bit about that idea of the way in which
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): um metaphorical kind of usages of blindness in second is is being used differently. Um, so i'm you mentioned before as I have forty-three eight of so for reference.
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): That's the passage that in one translation says laid out those who have eyes but a blind, who is per deaf? Could you flesh out a little bit. What is some of the handholds in in this kind of section of of Isaiah which
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): give you this indication that that this is being used in a different way about captivity, about um, immobility, and that and that kind of the those are the connotations that are being imported rather than our our kind of
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): Mit, Ctl and um interpretation that's dominant around ignorance today. Could you hash that out a little bit, please? Yeah. And i'll say in general, this is the Primary Metaphorical Association of Blindness in the Hebrew Bible as a whole one.
eric harvey: Um. But in second isaiah it's. It's particularly strong in Um Isaiah chapter forty-two so just one chapter before this verse: Um, that parallel to the
eric harvey: and in in Isaiah, Chapter forty-two you have the very famous First, I say a forty-two-seven where it is talking about the servants bottom of my uh and his mandate to open the eyes of the blind, to release the prisoner, and you know to release from captivity those who dwell in darkness, right?
eric harvey: And in this poetic uh Triplet, or try calling here. Um, we have a real conflation of the conceptual domains of blindness and captivity.
eric harvey: So you have, you know, the first line to open the eyes of the blind, the second line to set free the prisoner or the captive. And then third line sort of combines it, in a sense, you know, to to release those who's to uh, sit or dwell in darkness right where you have um darkness in itself,
eric harvey: which which is often combined with blindness and poetic texts, Um,
eric harvey: being conflated into the same sort of situation of immobility and in captivity
eric harvey: uh it's It's also evident in this long um
eric harvey: passage. And isaiah forty-two uh eighteen to twenty-five, where you know it's uh lucky blind campus, and you deaf um!
eric harvey: And then and then it it talks about It gives sort of this historical, poetic, historical prey of the um plate of the people who have been taken into exile in Babylonia, and it talks about them as blind and deaf uh and talks about them as people who live in picks. Right?
eric harvey: Um
eric harvey: One verse before that long section starts in Isaiah forty-two seventeen. You have this um
eric harvey: statement that that you know um. The Lord is going to lead the blind back from exile back to the homeland. Um!
eric harvey: And so it's this it's this strong sort of um
eric harvey: text of concern and care for the blind. Um, and right after that says, you know he'll lead the blind back by a path they don't know, and those who trust in idols will will uh be turned back and change, or something I butchering that um through paraphrase. But um it it's here contrasting the blind
eric harvey: uh who are a group characterized by their um,
eric harvey: their their sort of need for leading, but also there them as the object of care and concern rather than condemnation.
eric harvey: Compared to you know those who trust in in idols? Um.
eric harvey: And so you can see that the the blind here are being contrasted to those who are being condemned. So in in
eric harvey: Isaiah, Chapter forty. Two especially really lays the groundwork here for blindness, not as a moral condemnation, but it's sort of a symbol of lack of agency, and Im Im mobility, which you know in my assessment. Um still has issues in its characterization of disability. Um, but does pretty clearly disentangle it from the conceptual domain of
eric harvey: um moral failure or or stubbornness or accuracy.
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): Yeah, as you were speaking and and and hashing out that that that significant difference in in, in how it to interpret. Um, the images that are being kind of um laid out in these texts. The moral component completely shifts.
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): Um. And Yeah, it's It's interesting to hear you
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): to. You talk about that. Thank you.
eric harvey: Yeah. And this is something you see. Also in Jeremiah and Jeremiah. Thirty, one eight. Where um you know the the Lord is, is leading people back from exile, including Um, various groups of of vulnerable people, the blind and the lame uh and and pregnant women and young children. Um,
eric harvey: So you have them, being sort of uh objects of special concern in in the return from exile.
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): Yeah, Eric. You mentioned that there some aspects of of that framing um that you feel uncomfortable with, or can't totally accept. You're able to unpack that a bit.
eric harvey: Sure, I mean I
eric harvey: so.
eric harvey: Um:
eric harvey: yeah. So I I think that the
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): Uh-huh. Let me think about this for a moment.
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): Um. And this is something that you know we can, we? We can edit this bit out of the the podcast, but as in um something that so um
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): the context as well, Eric, I I live with a physical disability um as well. Um! And something that is often kind of comes up in conversations is people with disability as
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): only being subjects of pity and concern and and that kind of, and the the way that that interacts with agency, and the contributions that that to be made in in our communities. Um. So that's something that would be cool to kind of
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): yeah, absolutely. And and that's sort of what I was trying to to gather my thoughts in our and articulate.
eric harvey: I think that the the problems arise in the imagination or characterization of of disabled agency. Um, and and the ability of disabled people to shake their own lives and futures. Um, so
eric harvey: you know, There, there's an additional problem
eric harvey: even after we disentangle over. If we disentangle disability from from immorality or moral failure, that we have
eric harvey: um
eric harvey: the portrayal of disabilities of of disabilities primarily as props that is, they they are there um
eric harvey: primarily in relation to to real disabled people. Uh, but they're put in the text to highlight some characters characterization characteristic of the main actors. Right that you have.
eric harvey: And and here you get, you know, not only these leading the blind, but it. All this is everywhere to show the virtue of another actor. Right? Job says, I have the eyes to the blind. Um.
eric harvey: You know that the the God of Israel leads people back like leads blind people back to Israel. Um
it.
eric harvey: You have.
eric harvey: But I think, Yeah. Okay. So there's also, you know, text um in Soms where it's, you know. Um.
eric harvey: God gives sight to the blind right. And and here that is, is main. None of these
eric harvey: are really interested in the lives or experience, or opportunities or possibilities for real disabled people.
eric harvey: What What they're put in there to do is to underscore the the power and the benevolence of some other
eric harvey: actor right? And so you get uh the treatment of disabled people, and and find people specifically here as primarily as props and as metaphors, so that that, I think is is still the problem. Even when you put the characterization of blindness
eric harvey: in in into that frame of concern and care. It's still um objectifying, and um it it it doesn't give agency in the way that. Uh,
eric harvey: I I think that we,
eric harvey: especially in the disability, rights and disability justice movements are uh focusing on emphasizing nowadays.
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): Hmm. They They like passive recipients of the actions of others. Um,
eric harvey: yeah, exactly.
Madison Pierce: Thank you, Eric. This has been really helpful, and it's certainly helping me to understand these passages a lot better, and I I work on New Testament, and so generally i'm thinking about the ways that some of these Isaiah texts are picked up, especially in the Gospels, and how they characterize the ministry of Jesus, and and things like that.
Madison Pierce: Um, I I wonder if you could say a little bit more about um these promises for healing, and how they play a role. And I think this could actually help us to get towards some of your one
Madison Pierce: um kind of foundational understandings of disability studies as well, because I recognize that healing in particular can be a somewhat contentious issue among people who who work on these areas, and that there's not one particular view. But but i'd love to hear your perspective a bit more about this, if you'd be willing.
eric harvey: Sure, Absolutely um.
eric harvey: So I I think i'll take it sort of in reverse order. Um,
eric harvey: because I would like to
eric harvey: it. I I meant earlier to go over my basic orientation and my theoretical commitments, and and how I think about the work that I do
Madison Pierce: perfect.
eric harvey: I I think all disability studies uh, as a broad umbrella category of of a bunch of different disciplines. Um, in academic study revolve around
eric harvey: uh
eric harvey: a set of empirical material phenomena, and that is the the
eric harvey: near infinite variability of human bodies. Right? Human bodies are
eric harvey: different shapes, different colors, different sizes. They they look different. They function different.
eric harvey: Um. And so there's there's a a
eric harvey: problem, not in the sense of uh, something wrong, but it, you know. Cultures have to, uh determine the way that they are going to um represent and deal with this physical diversity, right?
eric harvey: And
eric harvey: so
eric harvey: uh different different cultures. Different societies do this differently. Um.
eric harvey: And so I I think about my work as sort of in intersecting disability, history and uh critical disability studies. That is the study of disability and literature. Um.
eric harvey: And
eric harvey: and these
eric harvey: disciplines the task of these disciplines is to
eric harvey: um.
eric harvey: We did sort of examine and and understand the different ways that uh cultures and um authors throughout time
eric harvey: have represented uh what what the disability. There is Rosemary Garland. Thompson calls the raw materials of human physical variation um, and uses them to create these dichotomous binaries of normalcy and deviance
eric harvey: for for Rosemary darling Thompson, and for a lot of other disability. Um
eric harvey: critical scholars that, you know, disability is really uh talking about. Disability is a discourse of corporeal deviance. Um!
eric harvey: That is the the the process by which some physical variations are treated as normal, and others are treated as deviant. Um, and the the various
eric harvey: consequences. Entailments? Um, that structure, social institutions and relationships based on those attributions. Um.
eric harvey: And the that that is somewhat different from disability studies as it exists as as a um,
eric harvey: as a as a discipline in other areas where the task is not describing or understanding, or interpreting the treatment of disability. But it's really amelior to that is coming up with better ways to think about disability, and
eric harvey: to represent the variability of human bodies in in our discourse, in our uh social and institutional relationships. So um, oftentimes, when you get a history of the field of disability studies it'll sort of start with um,
eric harvey: you know, activists in the sixtys Um, the Berkeley Disability Rights Movement, and then in in the
eric harvey: Uh, in the Uk leading up to Mike Oliver, suggesting the distinction between the medical and the social models of disability, right? And uh, uh,
eric harvey: we might, Michael, as the first one to articulate this in print, although it has been sort of talked about in earlier uh activist circles, but basically, uh, he invents the medical model by rejecting it, and it's. It's a description of sort of what he sees as the uh
eric harvey: general underlying view of disability in society that views it primarily through its medical aspect. Um,
eric harvey: that that disability is sort of a self evident physical condition and a and a tragedy and the um.
eric harvey: The solution to the problems created by disability lie in in the medical um domain that is in curing it, and in, uh,
eric harvey: working medically or otherwise, to help the and disabled person or a person queue the cure of a disability fit into the structures of society as they are. Um,
eric harvey: and all that suggests the the The opposite side of this is the social model with disability. Where he says, you know the problem. Space by disabled people do not come from the disabilities themselves, but come from the ways in which society fails
eric harvey: to uh, accommodate, or accept or um create pathways for them.
eric harvey: Um. And since then there have been a proliferation of disability models where you know, there have been, uh some some very right invalid critiques of Oliver in terms of um sort of the emphasis on a strict social model that all of the problems created by disability come from society, not the individual or the disability itself.
eric harvey: Um,
eric harvey: uh, and and also that the the goal of disability um rights should be um independence in this, in the strict sense. Um, there have been lots of different models that probably that you know the Disability Justice movement. They've been.
eric harvey: Um. But since since that time there's really been this self conscious understanding that, uh the the the stigma and prejudice and discrimination faced by disabled people. Doesn't just come from the disability. But from the negotiation of
eric harvey: the the physical reality of people uh with the social strictures, structures, and relationships in which they're embedded.
eric harvey: Um!
eric harvey: So one of the interesting things about Biblical studies in particular, is that it brings together these two strands of um
eric harvey: of Disability studies. That is the interpretive, the historical and literary study, and then, since the Bible continues to be normative, and so many people of lives today, at this amute, ameliorative approach of of disability, studies
eric harvey: and um, the Biblical scholar. Hect Avalos sort of proposed a a tripartite um view of, or or tripartite taxonomy of uh
eric harvey: approaches to disability texts and biblical studies that I find really helpful when sort of looking at Biblical scholars writing about disability, and he calls these the redemptionist, the rejectionist, and the historicist approaches to reading Biblical disability texts. Um.
eric harvey: And so when we find a Biblical text that seems um troubling,
eric harvey: what do we do with it? From a redemptionist point of view, what we try to do, or what what we jumped in. What redemption is scholars try to do is try to find um
eric harvey: to redeem the text that is to find a text that seems troubling and uh articulate an interpretation of it that is actually laboratory.
eric harvey: Uh, instead of oppressive
eric harvey: rejectionist approaches to disability texts. On the other hand, stay
eric harvey: the original meaning, and the about the most valid interpretations of this text. Um are fundamentally flawed, and we should just reject them out right,
eric harvey: and then the historicist approach
eric harvey: takes a um.
eric harvey: It. It really takes the tackle. The first strand of disability studies that I described. You know the literary and historical, and and just tries to contextualize this
eric harvey: particular text in its historical context without coming to any judgment about whether or how it should be used today.
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): I love that. I love that. Take a drink before it. Yeah, totally. And I just thank you. What was the name of that? That scholar that you mentioned Eric
eric harvey: Hector Avalos.
Yeah,
eric harvey: that's really helpful. Um recently passed. But uh, yeah, he he did a lot of good work on disability.
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): And if you were to situate yourself with a particular inclination towards one of those. It seems it's the the lava category. Yes, I definitely. I definitely take a his source this approach. But I think, um
eric harvey: that I'm also
eric harvey: constitutionally of incapable of sort of anticipating more theological. How How historic this Biblical work get will get
eric harvey: uh use theologically. Um.
eric harvey: So I I. My interpretations tend to be historic. Um,
eric harvey: and it in ways that I sort of at times are are a little bit redemption and a little bit rejectionist. Um,
eric harvey: because
eric harvey: because I think that's the nature of understanding the text that sometimes we find
eric harvey: nuggets of of liberation in there and and other times we find, you know, this historical context where we don't want to emulate um
eric harvey: that sort of historical um
eric harvey: uh view or place of disabled people.
eric harvey: Um
eric harvey: um,
eric harvey: I i'm going to start again with Isaiah forty, two, seven
eric harvey: um,
eric harvey: the servant of the Lord, and this mandate to open the eyes of the blind to set the prisoners free and to um release from prison those who dwell in darkness.
eric harvey: I I start here because, uh I, second Isaiah becomes really central in various strands of Messianic expectation in second temple texts.
eric harvey: Um, even pre New Testament. So, for example, in in one of the Dead sea Scrolls text uh a little fragment
eric harvey: for Q. Five hundred and twenty. One
eric harvey: Uh. We have this quoted in a context that is clearly talking about some sort of Messianic figure.
eric harvey: Um.
eric harvey: And we also find this first quoted in the canonical New Testament Gospels about Jesus, where
eric harvey: it it's taken out of a metaphorical domain, and literalized as a sign of of sort of
eric harvey: Jesus, messing at it, going to three days right that he, He, He is the one who is expected, because he is uh literally
eric harvey: getting sites in the blind.
eric harvey: So it's this through line where and I mean, I think it's interesting how you have texts uh that are in the Hebrew Bible, sort of metaphorized, and then become a literalized uh
eric harvey: as as a means of, you know, demonstrating the fulfillment of messianic expectation.
eric harvey: Um.
eric harvey: And
eric harvey: in in early Christian literature you really have a proliferation of healing of the blind narratives.
eric harvey: Um
eric harvey: so short of once again, uh where the Blind Service props demonstrating divine power very seldom. Uh do you have you know
eric harvey: the the
eric harvey: meaningful explorations of a person like after being after having site uh, bestowed or restored. And uh, almost never do. You have explorations of what it is like to live face fully while blind. Right? So,
eric harvey: um!
eric harvey: Here is where we get to the the problems of associated with the the healing of blindness. Um,
eric harvey: as as it connects to the lives of of real blind people. Right?
eric harvey: Um.
eric harvey: So I I think there are a few problems that are that are worth dealing with in order, and the first one I call the problem of empty hope, which is um,
eric harvey: you know, miraculous healing of the blind
eric harvey: is is sort of
eric harvey: just by its sheer. The volume of stories appealing to the blind is, is presented really as this paradigmatic
eric harvey: um
eric harvey: the the paradigmatic solution to blindness uh,
eric harvey: for want of a of a better phrase. Um! But if you think about.
eric harvey: You know how many
eric harvey: um, and it fits into the medical model right? Where blindness is the problem and healing is the solution.
eric harvey: Um.
eric harvey: But
eric harvey: if if healing is the solution to blindness and healing. It's miraculous. And you know Jesus and and and and other early Christian miracle workers. Um! We were the in actors of that You know the number of people.
eric harvey: If I
eric harvey: if if that's you know, if you're reading these literally, and taking this as something that that did, and it could and can happen then. Um!
eric harvey: The number of people who were healed in his narrative is is very small, Right? And um, this is Certainly not it. It was not the
eric harvey: the the
eric harvey: what happened to most blind people in the equity, or since. Right so um!
eric harvey: And here is where we get into sort of this this
eric harvey: question that the the blind Uh Christian theologian and emphasis John Hole talks about in his memoir, where he he talks about healing as a even a form of spiritual abuse, right where most blind people are not going to be miraculously healed.
eric harvey: Um. So if that is set up as an expectation
eric harvey: um, and as a a real possibility dependent um
eric harvey: or a real possibility period. Then the the fact that most blind people, historically and today
eric harvey: are not uh given their site.
eric harvey: Um
eric harvey: is often interpreted as a failure, and particularly as as a you know, an a
eric harvey: having too little faith. Right?
eric harvey: Um. So that's that's problem. One of sort of the the presentation of healing. Uh, as a solution to the problem of disability
eric harvey: is is that you know, for those who accept that as as an ongoing possibility, real, on ongoing possibility. Um, it is often an empty help.
eric harvey: Uh and relatedly, is the second problem, which is the tools for everyday life. If we accept that
eric harvey: most blind people will not have their sites restored, then the preoccupation of Biblical texts with healing
eric harvey: uh,
eric harvey: does not give any tools to people to live with the bodies they have.
eric harvey: Um, and each of us has to live with the body that we have.
eric harvey: And so, by focusing on healing,
eric harvey: it actually distracts from the development of um a cot of accommodations and adaptations that can help us to live with the bodies that we have, and it it can, you know,
eric harvey: cause people
eric harvey: to reject
eric harvey: their real life and simple steps forward by focusing on You know something that is um
eric harvey: out of reach, that empty hope of the problem One
eric harvey: um the third problem. And this ties more broadly into a whole host of Biblical texts. Um
eric harvey: that that deal with healing. And and in this um again we find a lot of these text showing up in Second Isaiah um in sort of the the presentation of a post exilic Utopia uh! Which gets taken up into the the
eric harvey: the interpretation, Christian interpretation in in the construction of Christian afterlives. Um. So you'll hear these text. And second, Isaiah talked about as as Utopian or eschatological or heavenly right where you have um.
eric harvey: The eyes of the blind shall see, and the death shall here and the lame shall leap like gazelles. Um! Within these broader Utopian visions, where you have a generalized lack of hunger, a lack of want, the lack of predation of of, you know, predator animals upon prey animals, all of these sorts of things,
eric harvey: and
eric harvey: this is particularly troubling for those of us who accept our bodies as they are, and are putting in work to um,
eric harvey: live with the bodies that we have, and in addition, our
eric harvey: you know, doing societal work? Um on any number of levels to build social structures that are more liberatory and inclusive and accepting of disabled people.
eric harvey: Uh, because it implies that
eric harvey: acceptance or entry into Utopia, whether that is an an earthly or a heavenly Utopia is predicated on becoming people. We are not right that uh
eric harvey: entering Utopia is predicated on losing our disabilities, and for many us our disabilities are inextricable from our identity as a whole, from the people that we are. And so
eric harvey: for many disabled people. Not only is the topic of healing uh very touchy, because it implies that there's some failure in them for not having been healed yet.
Um!
eric harvey: But the the idea of Utopia of Heaven as a place without disability
eric harvey: is
eric harvey: really
eric harvey: troubling, because it represents not just an act of erasure, but an act of self-destruction
eric harvey: to enter into that
eric harvey: on
eric harvey: what I call the use Eugenesis terms that up on on which most Utopia is are constructed.
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): Yeah, and um, that's something that I know. I've
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): I've kind of had conversations with um Brian brock about this particular context of intellectual disabilities. Um, Um, in which so much of the person,
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): the personality and personhood of of um people is, is intertwined with their experience of the world. But I think it's, and I've kind of often had in my mind that there's a a demarcated um
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): like I kind of have separated between physical and intellectual disabilities in my thinking about that, I think because um,
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): honestly, I think because in my experience of disability it's so bound up in pain. And so when you're thinking
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): about, you know, eschatologically, it's it's. You know, the removal of pain
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): it's, I think, that often the shortcut that we're making is all that must mean.
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): X being the removal of all kinds of disability. Um, but it's it's an important qualification um to to kind of query that
eric harvey: um Well, I think that's it. Part of that derives from how we think about disability today, with where our our modern umbrella category of disability includes a lot of things that have important similarities. But aren't all the same, and those include, you know, there are. There are divides in in
eric harvey: really important ways between sensory disabilities, motor disabilities,
eric harvey: cognitive and emotional disabilities. And then, you know, chronic pain, conditions, or chronic illness in in ways that
eric harvey: allowed him to function as as a social and political coalition, but also have important differences that shouldn't be papered over right and it's. It was really the chronic pain and illness communities
eric harvey: who who came with some of the first critiques of the social model of disability, saying, like no being in constant pain, Is not society putting a burden on me that is, inside my body? And and
eric harvey: we would like it gone right. Whereas for people with with motor and and sensory disabilities, you know you, you have the the the the contention that like. Listen. If if society accommodated us better,
eric harvey: this physical condition would not be inherently disabling, or as it as disabling as it as it is currently so, Yeah, it's it's, you know, when we talk about disability as a social construction, all of those things go into it, and we have to think about the way that we talk about. Disability today also has a social construction.
eric harvey: Um! That that's
eric harvey: under negotiation right now in a very exciting way. But you know there's a lot of um
eric harvey: aspects and and things to consider there as well
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): kind of like a follow up question on on the first of those problems. Um,
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): as a shorthand kind of um Brian blindness is the problem. Healing is a solution. When we look at um the kind of
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): the story of Jesus hearing, healing the paralytic
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): um, and his diagnosis of of that not being
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): the the paralyzed man's physical condition, but his spiritual moral condition. In that you know he he goes to the friendly s guess in a given How does that kind of
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): factor into our thinking about
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): um? The way in which healing is described in the New Testament. Maybe, Madison, this is something you can
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): speak to as well.
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): Yeah, I mean, admittedly, this is out of my disciplinary specialty. But but I think you see there
eric harvey: in some ways the the use of disability as a symbol,
eric harvey: Right? Um, and as an and sort of entanglement. With this the the moral domain right? And
eric harvey: you you have, I think, in that story, Jesus doing both at the same time
eric harvey: in such a way that the miraculous physical, healing sort of it uh gives credence to his claim of
eric harvey: removing sin Right? Um, and
eric harvey: where both are presented as um
eric harvey: ways in which the individual is lacking or um broken, that both need to be remediated.
eric harvey: That that's my right off the cuff. Take.
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): Thank you.
Mhm,
Madison Pierce: Yeah, I think I think that makes sense, and you know I think it's also tied up in the in some purity regulations and some stuff tied to uh the law
Madison Pierce: erez agmoni. And so you know, if you think, especially with like the woman ah cured of her flow flood, I mean, you know, for her there's this enabling, you know, for her to be richly pure alongside being, you know, quote unquote, morally pure to whatever extent we can separate those two hundred and fifty.
Madison Pierce: So it's really interesting. And of course this all comes back to your models. You know around. How do we deal with Scripture? Because there's one
Madison Pierce: that can still be a rather problematic schema that we're kind of accepting the the laws presentation of that
Madison Pierce: mit Ctl. And going going in a slightly different direction. I I wonder, Eric, if you could say a little more. You've You've been talking about some of the societal um, or the ways that society perpetuates or exacerbates the experiences of those um with disabilities two hundred and fifty
Madison Pierce: mit
Madison Pierce: um academic work or um I mean not to say that you're late in your career. But um, it's obviously come at a point when you're already established. So could you say a little bit about that? And sorry before you jump in as a side note, I may jump off of the call at some point, and you all go ahead and keep going. But I I'll ask the question and see what we can do so. Thanks, Eric.
eric harvey: Okay.
eric harvey: Um:
eric harvey: yeah. I mean, I I think that
eric harvey: my experience is unique
eric harvey: because of the point to which I uh became disabled and really became unable to continue doing my work through visual means that are customary,
eric harvey: uh in academia,
eric harvey: right? And and so
eric harvey: in some ways that
eric harvey: prevented me from from encountering some of this context, where um I find that people who are blind at younger ages or in different stages in in their academic journey, encounter um,
eric harvey: but
eric harvey: exclusions and inaccessible things, and and at the table table is discrimination variously right.
eric harvey: Um! I was. I was after my conference exams. I was working on my dissertation. So um I had the ability to slow down to adapt um. I also, you know I have um a spouse who is very supportive. Um,
eric harvey: and you know so so
eric harvey: in some ways I I escaped some
eric harvey: uh
eric harvey: experiences that others have very commonly um, such as difficulty getting accessible materials in time for coursework, but is on deadline. Um, you know I I had problems with an accessibility of resources, but I had time to work through those um
eric harvey: in in general, I think. What
eric harvey: what the process did for me Was it really
eric harvey: undid the idea of, uh, of independence in academia? Uh. It made me realize just how interdependent we are on everything, and how much support structures have to do with the success of anyone disabled or not. But it becomes very clear when
eric harvey: um
eric harvey: you acquire a disability, you know I I think of the support structures on which we all rest this sort of this scaffolding, and then, you know, when you require a disability, It's like somebody built all the scaffolding, scaffolding about ten feet to the left to where you need it. Um,
eric harvey: for a
eric harvey: A. About it. Scholars are,
eric harvey: you know, out at this massive scaffolding of technologies and structures that people have built to help them do research. Right?
eric harvey: You know you can go back to to the foundation of writing and of text, and then of libraries, and then of you know, institutional databases, and then administrators and librarians, and all of these people who are contributing to the work of scholars.
eric harvey: Um. And then, when you acquire a disability, you see that none of this
eric harvey: it becomes impossible, but so many of the support structures have just been built a little bit
eric harvey: differently from what you need, or a lot differently from what you need.
eric harvey: Um. So you know, in terms of my own research, I do research not only in Hebrew Um, but also in in Aramaic and Akkadian, which is the cuneiform of of ancient Mesopotamia,
eric harvey: and for some of this blind researchers had begun to build the scaffolding
eric harvey: that that I needed right um beginning in in the late nineteenth century, and especially in the in up through the nineteen thirties. Um! There were. There were
eric harvey: blind rabbis and and Jewish educators who are working on Hebrew braille codes um, and and you know, transcribing the Tanak into Hebrew later on, you know, there was a Greek braille, code, and then in the early twentieth century there was this: a group of blind um
eric harvey: Biblical scholars, Sarah Blaker, Rose Ray Mcallister, uh Matt Yator, who worked on expanding the braille codes for for Hebrew and Greek, so that they could handle academic study so they could handle the Hebrew cancellation and dive. And, like you know, the these little ah
eric harvey: critical markings and apparatus that we have in critical editions of the text that we need to do with scholarly work as opposed to just. You know. Um
eric harvey: uh reading of the text.
eric harvey: Um, but you know I I joined the effort of, you know right when we were starting to work on the Braille code for Akkadian and for Sumerian and um for a number of other languages. So
eric harvey: in some ways it's also felt like a little bit like hanging off the front of the train laying track Right? Um, so that you can keep to to train moving. Um,
eric harvey: So it Yeah, it's been a It's been a complicated experience. It's it's it's been um
eric harvey: in some ways. I I've been impressed at how really many people are to accommodate uh me, and how I do things differently. Um, It's required a lot of extra communication in terms of how I do things, how I do things differently, how I won't do things or can't do things. Um.
eric harvey: And And then just a lot of education of myself and others in terms of um, what disability means, what it doesn't mean, and uh, how to move forward. Um in in communities of of mutual aid and and care and collaboration.
Madison Pierce: Thank you, Eric. Wow. I mean, Not only was that you know just a great insight into what you personally experienced, but I really appreciate the history that you provided there, and the work of of various scholars that you've highlighted in your answer. So thank you.
eric harvey: Yeah, absolutely
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): something that
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): has come up for me as you've been speaking. And
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): is I I thought I. Wanna
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): I want to pick up on the um
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): the kind of deficiency that you raised in a lot of our conceptions of kind of the paradigm of disability is moving from, you know, blindness to healing, and that healing is the is the kind of end end State
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): um in that it it's failure to equip you to to live with the body that you have, and to live faithfully in in, in the kind of all the diversities of various kinds of disabilities. Um, that we all that we all um well, a lot of us do have,
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): and I just I thought I would love to hear more from you about um what that has looked like for you as you've tried to
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): to to do that
eric harvey: um, sure.
eric harvey: And then just uh so, your listeners know. Uh, I have a blog that I started back in two thousand and seventeen to sort of
eric harvey: chronicle my way through this path of adapting
eric harvey: um, and it's it. The blog does a lot of other things now, too. But there's a lot of posts in there about learning how to use it. Assistive technology, learning how to use mobility devices. Um
eric harvey: as well as the the real psychological ships necessary to um
eric harvey: keep going to do these things productively, right? And I,
eric harvey: and
eric harvey: so it's. It's there's been a lot of learning
eric harvey: um new skills. You know how to use a white cane, how to read braille um, and and in some ways it's on because their their skills that
eric harvey: I already
eric harvey: learned how to do these things another way as a child and i'm having to relearn them in a different way as an adult.
eric harvey: Um, you know I learned to read print as a child I learned to navigate visually as a child, And now i'm, i'm re learning these things in a different modality. Um.
eric harvey: And
eric harvey: so that has been interesting. There's also been, you know, just there. There is the big shift in identity, and understanding myself as a disabled person,
eric harvey: and in how I think about being a disabled person. How I think about disability.
eric harvey: You know most of us are not raised, and I was not raised in in a situation where we were. Um surrounded by an elevated disability, consciousness of the disability, rights of disability, justice. And so we were raised in these um
eric harvey: sort of
eric harvey: naive context of of disability, essentialism of that medical model where you know there's something wrong with the body. You fix it right. Um. And if you can't fix it, then that's very sad, and it's a tragedy, and um people worry about your future. Um,
eric harvey: I I love the writer, Allison K. For who writes about? You know that this view that many people have a disability as the loss of the future right.
eric harvey: And so it
eric harvey: did take some mental effort to
eric harvey: Really It's my my, my stake in there, and say no. A disability is not a tragedy.
eric harvey: You know it. Tragedy! It doesn't have to be a tragedy. It can be
eric harvey: that you can turn anything into a tragedy. But um
eric harvey: tragedy to me
eric harvey: has to do with the you know, really the
eric harvey: cut off potential right? Um
eric harvey: in a in a way that is, that is understood as abnormal,
eric harvey: and so for me, acquiring a disability in my thirties. It it did, in a sense, sort of it's, you know, if you
eric harvey: think of all the life possibilities ahead of you as this branching tree. You might get pruned off some of those branches.
eric harvey: Um, but it does not represent it. It also opened up other ones, and and there are still many left, and so it does not represent the total loss of potential, a total loss of the future.
eric harvey: Um!
eric harvey: So you know there were. There were big changes in self concept in understanding that I was going to
eric harvey: um be treated differently, be looked at differently. You know, I think particularly about the
eric harvey: the
eric harvey: carrying my white cane everywhere, and using it when I needed it. Um! And and sort of my inner resistance to that based on how I knew it would change how people looked at me Right Um,
eric harvey: you know you you carry away can. And suddenly you're not just man, you're i'm a blind man, right, and that's the first thing people notice about me. And
eric harvey: um, it also
eric harvey: means that it is in in some sense um
eric harvey: more effort to be understood in many experience, many interactions,
eric harvey: and that that takes work to get used to and to know how to know how to navigate um, and and all of these are difficult things that rely on that negotiation between Um,
eric harvey: the body and the social structures and relationships, and in in some cases
eric harvey: I can tell the the difference in easiness. Uh or or
eric harvey: yeah, it's different, based on who i'm talking to, and and their experience with disability, and how they think about it. And and um, you know their emotional resonances with it, so that a I that's sort of a rambly answer. But those are the things that come to mind
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): um to he. You unpack that. Thank you so much for sharing, and I think it. I think my my disability is also acquired, and I think that it is interesting hearing you describe that that shift, that mental shift that that takes place in your self understanding, and I love that idea of um
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): uh you talking about how tragedy is a cut off potential. And whereas I think I mean, this is not always the case, and it's important not to kind of um cast all disabilities in the same light, because there is such diversity. But I mean, I think, that you know in often,
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): you know, a lot of cases um being, you know, I think I I have tendencies towards a fuse independence, and my disability has forced me to be more dependent on other people in a way that actually has deepened my relational intimacy with people.
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): And if if you think of what it is to be
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): at at heart. To be. To be human is to be in relationship with other people, and so in some ways, in unexpected ways, and probably not ways that I would have chosen, not ways that other people would have chosen. Um. It can open up potential in in, in, in profound ways. Um, And that's that, I think. Um:
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): yeah. I'm really grateful to you for unpacking
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): just such a wealth of wisdom. I I would feel like we want to keep talking forever. Um, maybe we could do another episode. But yeah, thank you so much.
eric harvey: Yeah, no. And I'm: i'm the same. I have that fiercely independent and stubborn streak. Uh,
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): I wish I could say that I had a fully learned how to be productively interdependent. I don't think it's ever really something that you put on you land on. I think it's a continual iteration of, I think I like this: Five years ago i'm working on it. Yeah, yeah,
John Anthony Dunne: great uh um! Sorry to jump in here at the end. Uh, Eric. I I was uh totally derailed by the the the drain guy. Um, but uh step, Do you just do you just want to say like, uh, you know, just a quick, you know, I know you basically did. But just like um um
John Anthony Dunne: the thanks again. So much for joining us, or it just likes a quick little boom.
Yeah, sure,
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): Eric. Thank you so much for joining us, for making the time and sharing your
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): your wisdom, your expertise, and your experience. Um, we are all the better for it. So thank you so much for making the time
eric harvey: it was my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Madison Pierce: Thanks, Eric.
Stephanie Judd (Prolegis Lawyers): Thank you all.