| abstract | This dissertation, "You Yourselves Are Our Letter": A Feminist and Decolonizing Approach to 2 Corinthians, argues that a feminist decolonizing approach to 2 Corinthians enables readings that are ethically and historically viable. This work assumes that 2 Corinthians reflects diversity and debate between Paul and this early community of Christ over questions of how best and who best to lead. I examine how questions of community identity and leadership are situated within broader discourses of power in the Roman imperial and patriarchal contexts of the first-century Mediterranean. My approach to this text envisions the marginalized in Corinth as empowered by a message of the upheaval of contemporary power structures and thus, as actively participating in community debates. I explore the ways in which Paul's rhetoric is dependent on various gendered, classed, and imperial symbol systems. By assuming the dialogical presence of strong and diverse wo/men leaders in the community, I argue that it is possible to develop counter-readings to ones that assume Paul's singular authority. This dissertation will be the first monograph-length feminist decolonizing interpretation in the scholarship on Second Corinthians. It also contributes to conversations about the formation of early Christian identity by suggesting that various aspects of identity performance can shift in ways that are dependent on complex contexts and relationships. When Paul is moved out of the center of scholarly inquiries, questions from and about ancient and modern communities come to the fore. In the first two chapters, I situate my decentering project within the history of New Testament scholarship on this text and introduce the feminist decentering and decolonizing method I will use. The next three chapters focus on key passages within 2 Corinthians where this approach proves particularly productive. While the majority of scholarship on 2 Corinthians has represented the identities of the various figures in the letter, including Paul, as if identity is a fixed category, this dissertation assumes that identity is constructed, multiplicative, and malleable along shifting gender, ethnic, imperial, and class spectra. From a position within feminist decolonizing New Testament studies, this project shows how the letters of Paul are sites of debate and diversity. |
