Historically, the Bible has been used to drive a wedge between the spirit and the body. In this provocative book, David Carr argues that it can--and should--do just the opposite. Sexuality and spirituality, Carr contends, are intricately interwoven: when one is improverished, the other is warped. As a result, the journey toward God and the life-long engagement with our own sexual embodiment are inseparable. Humans, the Bible tells us, both male and female, were created in God's image, and eros--a fundamental longing for connection that finds abstract good in the pleasure we derive from the stimulation of the senses--is a central component of that image. The Bible, particularly the Hebrew Bible, affirms erotic passion, both eros between humans and eros between God and humans. In a sweeping examination of the sexual rules of the Bible, Carr asserts that Biblical "family values" are a far cry from anything promoted as such in contemporary politics. He concludes that passionate love--our preoccupaton therewith and pursuit thereof--is the primary human vocation, that eros is in fact the flavoring of life.
Author(s): David M. Carr
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 212
Cover Page......Page 1
Title Page......Page 4
ISBN 0195156525......Page 5
Acknowledgments......Page 8
Contents......Page 10
1 Introduction......Page 14
I The Eden Garden and the Law......Page 26
2 Before the Garden......Page 28
3 The Eden Garden, Part 1......Page 38
4 The Eden Garden, Part 2......Page 50
5 The "Rules"......Page 60
II Isaiah's Vineyard Garden and the Prophets......Page 68
6 Marriage to God......Page 70
7 Unromantic Eros......Page 86
III The Garden of the Song of Songs amidst the Writings......Page 100
8 Other Gardens......Page 102
9 Come to the Garden......Page 120
10 The Erotic and the Mystical......Page 150
IV Concluding Reflections......Page 164
11 The Word Made Flesh......Page 166
12 Epilogue......Page 182
Notes......Page 190
Index of Scriptural Citations......Page 218
Index......Page 222
