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 preoccupation therewith and pursuit thereof-is the primary human vocation, that eros is in fact the flavouring of life.
- ISBN10 0195156528
- ISBN13 9780195156522
- Publish Date 19 December 2002 (first published 1 January 2002)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 22 April 2010
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 222
- Language English