Gossip And Gender —— Othering of Speech in the Pastoral Epistles

----- 流言和性别

ISBN: 9783110215632 出版年：2009 页码：256 Kartzow, Marianne Bjelland De Gruyter

This book suggests that gossip can be used as an interpretive key to understand more of early Christian identity and theology. Insights from the multi disciplinary field of gossip studies help to interpret what role gossip plays, especially in relation to how power and authority are distributed and promoted. A presentation of various texts in Greek, Hebrew and Latin shows that the relation between gossip and gender is complex: to gossip was typical for all women and risky for elite men who constantly had to defend their masculinity. Frequently the Pastoral Epistles connect gossip to false teaching, as an expression of deviance. On several occasions it is argued that various categories of women have to avoid gossip to be entrusted duties or responsibilities. "Old wives′ tales" are associated with heresy, contrasted to godliness in which one had to train one self.