"Negotiating the Disabled Body explores how non-normative bodies are presented in early Christian literature through the lens of disability studies. In a number of case studies, Solevåg shows how early Christians struggled to come to terms with issues relating to body, health, and dis/ability. These efforts towards interpretation of unruly and extraordinary bodies appear in the texts in a multitude of ways, from healing in the Gospels to inflicting disability in the Acts of Peter) and from theologizing in Paul's letters to using disability as invective in Papias. Solevåg uses concepts of 'narrative prosthesis,' gaze and stare, stigma, monster theory, and crip theory to examine early Christian material to reveal the multiple, polyphonous, contradicting ways in which non-normative bodies appear"-- Provided by publisher.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Introduction: disability and early Christian literature -- Healings as narrative prosthesis in Mark -- John and the symbolic significance of disability -- Disabling women in the Acts of Peter -- The rhetoric of madness and demon possession -- Judas the Monster: policing the borders of the human -- Eunuchs in/and the Kingdom of God -- Conclusion: polyphonic voices.

Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on November 26, 2018).

Master record variable field(s) change: 650