Thinking Sex with the Great Whore

Deviant Sexualities and Empire in the Book of Revelation

Luis Menéndez-Antuña

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138306998
• eBook ISBN: 9781351392495
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

Many scholars in Biblical and Revelation studies have written at length about the imperial and patriarchal implications of the figure of the Whore of Babylon. However, much of the focus has been on the links to the Roman Empire and ancient attitudes towards gender. This book adds another layer to the conversation around this evocative figure by pursuing an ideological critique of the Great Whore that takes into account contemporary understandings of sexuality, and in so doing advances a de-moralization of apparent sexual deviancy both in the present and in the past.

Offering an emancipatory reading of Revelation 17-18 using Foucauldian, postcolonial and queer historiographies, this study sets out alternative paths for identity construction in Biblical texts. By using these alternative critical lenses, the author argues that the common neglect of the ethical and political impact of Biblical texts in the present can be overcome. This, in turn, allows for fresh reflection on the study of the Bible and its implications for progressive politics.

Situated at the intersection of Revelation Studies, Biblical Studies and Hermeneutics, as well as Contextual/Liberationist Theologies and Queer and Postcolonial Criticism, this is a cutting edge study that will be of keen interest to scholars of Theology and Religious Studies.

1 Thinking resistance in the age of empire

Ethical evaluations of the apocalypse of John

Introduction

After the description of the Whore and the Beast in Revelation 17, Chapter 18 shows the “Fall of Babylon,” and the effects of her demise on those who have had interactions with her. If Babylon/the Whore equals Rome, as scholars unanimously agree, then 18:8 expresses the community’s desire to see Empire destroyed by the hand of the strong God. The woman/territory that shall burn in fire (ἐν πυρὶ κατακαυθήσεται) conjures – in Western culture – images of women being burnt because of their allegedly surreptitious power, as well as of nations scorched for their resistance to submit to imperialism. The fact that it is a strong Lord God who judges her justifies the cause of her burning, as is to be expected in apocalyptic literature, on religious/theological grounds. This is not to say that the trope of women/nations in need being destroyed because of their evil actions has its origin in Revelation, but it is to say that the Apocalypse of John is part of a long tradition (biblical and non-biblical) where the gendered, sexualized, and colonized Other must be destroyed, punished, or disciplined. It is no wonder, then, that, given the cultural influence of the Bible in general, and the Apocalypse in particular, Revelation scholars always make reference to the message’s applicability to the present.

This chapter is designed as an entry point to understanding the methodological assumptions and hermeneutical moves that contemporary scholarship carries out when dealing with the impact of Revelation’s critique of Empire through the image of the Whore. The chapter starts precisely delineating this problem: how different paradigms of interpretation have tackled the issue of the relationship of Revelation to the Roman Empire. The presentation is, however, guided by a contemporary ideological concern in that my goal is to see how those same positions are applied to the present. To put it simply, biblical scholars’ concern with the past is presented, analyzed, and criticized from my own concern for the present – for the potential use of Revelation for emancipatory purposes.

Overview: ethical assessments of Revelation in terms of empire

The relationship between John’s Apocalypse and the Roman Empire has been studied since the second century.¹ Revelation’s stance towards the Roman Empire, its ethical and political evaluation as pro- or anti-imperial literature, has centered recent scholarly debates in Revelation Studies. The so-called “ethical turn” in Biblical Studies provides the context for such inquiry in that scholars are concerned about the sociological, cultural, political, theological, and ideological effects of bringing past texts to the present.² Regarding the Apocalypse of John, scholarship is concerned about the work’s emancipatory potential for its (Roman Empire) and our own (Present Empire) context.

Revelation has been read throughout history in very different ways, from a literary and theological source legitimating the status quo to ideological fodder for radical emancipatory movements. Whether such interpretations come from the secular or the religious, the a-confessional or the theological, the popular or the academic, the ideological or the political – Revelation is a controversial book. The “ethical turn” has been especially sharp at pointing at the ambiguous consequences of appropriating Revelation’s emancipatory potential for our times by way of reflecting on the book’s stance toward the Roman Empire. Contemporary interpreters who focus on the question of power reflect on the identity formation of a minority religious group in the midst of the Roman Empire, bringing to the fore the group’s resistant strategies to cope with mainstream culture, but also pointing out the ways in which such resistance plays into the hands of the imperial ideology – especially when it comes to gender configurations. Consequently, the ethical turn reflects on the historical conditions that made liberation and resistance possible in the first century.

Such a project has been carried out in a threefold way: 1) Textual, Literary, and Sociological approaches concern themselves with the first-century milieu contextualizing Revelation in terms of its Roman and Jewish setting; 2) Empire Studies pursue a similar strategy by stressing the oppositional relationship between a Christian minority and the Imperial reality; and 3) Liberation and ideological criticisms conceive of Revelation as an archive that foregrounds or supplements a reflection on the ethical, the political, and the ideological realms both in the present and in the past. All of these approaches concern themselves with the relevance of the apocalyptic in the present, although only Liberation and Ideological Studies have partially pursued a methodological reflection on historiography as a way to theorize the biblical grasp on the present, and on power and agency as notions worthy of critical survey in the present Empire.

In the following, I present approaches to the question of apocalyptic resistance to Empire from all of the above-mentioned approaches. The organization of the material follows ideological criteria, rather than methodological. After briefly introducing the problematic at hand (Empire and Revelation), I present the scholarship by Adela Yarbro Collins and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza as two representatives of the positions that will be analyzed throughout the chapter. Whereas the first author views Revelation as promoting an ultimately inefficient ethics of resistance – what I call “Revelation complicit with Empire” – the second considers Revelation the paradigmatic example of emancipatory politics (“Revelation against Empire”). Both scholars are also exemplary representatives of the methodological/theoretical complexity within Revelation Studies. While Yarbro Collins advocates for historical-critical literary approaches to the text, Schüssler Fiorenza has decisively contributed to the shaping of ideological approaches.

These scholars’ broad concern with the positioning of Revelation within Imperial politics frames the more specific topic of the representation of Empire through the gendered/sexualized trope of Babylon/the Great Whore. The two main sections in the first part of the chapter (“Revelation versus Empire” and “Revelation complicit with Empire”) unfold as expected and focused expansions of these two original positions. I approach these developments with two concerns in mind: First, the ideological underpinning of presenting Empire through the trope of the Whore and second, the consequential effects for the present political context of such diverse understandings of the biblical texts. Consequently, the second part of the chapter concludes by summarizing the main insights from the scholarship into these two concerns and pointing at the problematic aspects of the arguments presented. Specific aspects of such problematizing find its resolution in the following chapters.

Revelation and empire

When it comes to pitting Christianity against Empire, scholars have traditionally classified New Testament writings along a continuum, with rebellion and compliance on opposite ends.³ That same scholarship usually considers Revelation to be the most anti-imperial biblical document. Recent works have contested such agreement by exposing the ways in which resistance is co-opted by the status quo.

Historical-critical, literary, and sociological approaches share an understanding of Revelation as oppositional to Empire. Similarly, Liberation exegesis entirely adheres to such evaluation as it draws conclusions for our present political context,⁴ taking the book as a charter document for the unsettlement of the status quo in the context both of Imperium and of global capitalism.⁵ In the following, I introduce the works by Adela Yarbro Collins and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza as an entry point to survey the wide range of interpretations that, from very different methodological perspectives, conceive of Revelation as literature that either opposes or is complicit with Empire.

Both authors have shaped the debate about the ethical and political import of Revelation since the end of the 1970s. Their contribution remains relevant and it is paradigmatic of different methodological positions that result in oppositional evaluations. In the following, I will present in detail their arguments as paradigmatic examples of “Revelation against Empire,” and “Revelation complicit with Empire,” and as an introductory venue to map more recent theoretical developments in Revelation Studies that address the emancipatory potential of the Apocalypse of John.

Revelation as “ultimately” complicit with empire: Adela Yarbro Collins

Yarbro Collins was one of the first scholars to suggest that there were no systematic prosecutions directed against Christians and that consequently Revelation could not be conceived as addressing an “empirical” reality as much as a “perceived crisis.” Revelation, she said, is a “response to a perceived crisis,”⁶ an attempt to hinder any Christian involvement with Imperial ideology in terms of religion, wealth, and gender.⁷ Yarbro Collins understands Revelation’s oppositional stance as deriving from inner communitarian conflicts between two parties: John and his uncompromising position towards Empire on one side,⁸ and his adversaries who seek a compromise with Empire as a way to live comfortably on the other. Among these, Jezebel and Balaam would represent an accommodating branch of Christianity that questions John’s authority and his countercultural position. While the seer seeks a radical disengagement from civil society and Roman religious cults, Jezebel represents those Christians who aspire to live peacefully in the midst of Imperium. Using Niebuhr’s terminology, Jezebel advocates a “Christ embracing culture” while John defends a “Christ against culture.”⁹

Yarbro Collins argues that Revelation’s attack on Empire does not come from a material or historical persecution as much as from a tension between two value systems,¹⁰ two cosmovisions that collide at economical, religious, and social levels. Revelation represents an attempt to promote social radicalism by way of building a symbolic system that, on the one side, represents an alternative kingdom and, on the other, can help Christians to cope with aggressive feelings that derive from their marginal social situation.¹¹ The radical nature of Revelation is best appreciated in its oppositional stance towards Rome’s economic rule. Yarbro Collins interprets the χάραγμα (Rev 13:16–17) as a sign of exclusivism – as a call to skip the imperial economy not because John considers wealth to be an intrinsic evil,¹² but because it perpetuates the Roman rule by participating in its trade. John’s uncompromising approach is rooted, according to Yarbro Collins, in his own religious beliefs, but it has religious, political, economic, and cultural consequences. For Yarbro Collins, Revelation is a response to a perceived crisis that, due to the expectation of an imminent judgment, seeks to trigger a response from its audience of total withdrawal from Empire.¹³

Religious conflict triggers a series of economic and social measures that isolate the Christian group from its immediate context, which, in turn, ends up causing despair among the believers. Revelation functions as an antidote to the perceived contradiction between reality and expectation,¹⁴ simultaneously providing the diagnosis and the cure. The cathartic experience of allowing the audience to witness the demise of the present world while envisioning a utopian realm empowers believers not to succumb to a perceived overwhelmingly oppressive reality. The apocalyptic genre is empowering in itself for it mitigates feelings of powerlessness by providing privileged information of heavenly origin,¹⁵ repeated over and over so as to confirm that the fate of the adversaries is imminent and bleak. Yarbro Collins reads the dichotomous and Manichean cosmovision as John’s strategy to comfort his listeners that there is a different, more important, and ultimate reality that trumps the present one.¹⁶ Such a strategy works, however, against a cohesive resistant strategy because it resolves the tension only at the imaginative level, not materially or historically.¹⁷

Babylon/the Great Whore, as an anti-imperial trope, serves the rhetorical purposes of Revelation because, on one side, it summarizes Rome’s evil traits at many levels and, on the other, her demise symbolizes the breakdown of the world she stands for.¹⁸ In Yarbro Collins’s view there are four reasons that explain Babylon’s doom: 1) the idolatrous and blasphemous worship offered and encouraged...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Thinking resistance in the age of empire: Ethical evaluations of the apocalypse of John
• 2 Thinking apocalyptic resistance in the age of empire
• 3 Thinking sex with the whore of Revelation
• 4 Thinking sex with the whore in the present
• 5 Conclusion: Manifesting Revelation among the manifestos
• Bibliography
• Index