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• W4320184853 abstract "Reviewed by: A Dangerous Parting: The Beheading of John the Baptist in Early Christian Memory by Nathan L. Shedd Joshua W. Jipp nathan l. shedd, A Dangerous Parting: The Beheading of John the Baptist in Early Christian Memory (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2021). Pp. x + 218. $49.99. The meaning and symbolism attached to the particular manner of John the Baptist’s death have not attracted nearly the same amount of scholarly research as that of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. This is surprising given that our earliest account of John’s death is fixated not just on the fact of his death but on the act of the Baptist’s beheading. Nathan Shedd’s work rectifies this lack by attending to “the communicative impact of the violence of John’s death in the Gospels and in the Gospels’ early reception” (p. 3). Beheadings are obviously a particularly unnatural form of violence and are, therefore, particularly capable of communicating ideas and conceptual frameworks. Thus, S.’s study treats not the typical questions taken up in Gospels’ scholarship on John’s death (When did John die? Are the accounts historically accurate? What is the meaning of John’s death?), but rather the question of “how John’s beheading mediates meaning in its present actualization” (p. 14; italics original). Shedd employs a social memory approach to examine how the literary accounts of John’s death function as vehicles of communication. S.’s approach, then, is concerned not only with what the Gospel texts mean but also with the reception history of the memories of John’s beheading. Given that violent deaths carry the potential for the negotiation of group identities, the reception of John’s beheading functions as one powerful site for understanding the, at times, fraught relationship among (second and third centuries c.e.) Christians and Jews. In chap. 1 (“Violence Exposed: Social Memory Theory and the Negotiation of Trauma”), S. provides a readable and carefully researched framework for understanding how social memory theory illuminates the Gospels. In particular, S. argues that violent [End Page 165] events “force themselves upon the present as phenomena that must be overcome in terms of memory” (p. 45). Past violent events are never simply passed on as mere history but are rather constructed by the present. Chapter 2 (“Cultures of Violence: Beheading in the Ancient World”) is a detailed study of the cultural scripts of beheading in the ancient Mediterranean. S. offers three lines of cultural discourse connected with beheading. First, beheading was often used to humiliate and dishonor the victim. Beheading resulted in “a loss of identity, self-control, and virtue on the part of the victim; simultaneously, it represented an assertion of virtue, control, and enhanced esteem on the part of the perpetrator” (p. 65). Second, beheading also posed grave concerns with respect to the afterlife. Could a beheaded person be bodily resurrected? Could a mutilated individual be properly buried? Third, beheading was often related to public spectacles. Chapter 3 (“Contesting Violence: John’s Beheading and Degradation in the Gospel of Mark”) contains S.’s analysis of Mark in light of his understanding of social memory theory and cultural scripts of beheading. S. argues that Mark contests the potential memories of John’s beheading as a humiliating and dishonorable form of death in three ways. First, Mark keys John’s beheading to Jesus’s crucifixion. Thus, both John and Jesus are seen as righteous and innocent prophets whereas their executioners are culpable for their violence. Second, Mark counters the possibility of seeing the Baptist’s death as dishonorable by narrating his death against the background of Herod Antipas’s lack of masculine rule. Antipas has no self-control over his sexual desires; he is manipulated by two women; and, against his desires, he is incapable of protecting John. Third, Mark narrates the story in such a way as to emphasize Jesus as one who heals and thereby destroys bodily impurity while simultaneously emphasizing Antipas’s paranoia. In particular, Antipas is portrayed as hearing the rumor that Jesus has resurrected a beheaded man thereby overcoming the power of ritual impurity. In chap. 4 (“The Violence of Memory: Christian Identity via Anti-Jewish..." @default.
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• W4320184853 title "A Dangerous Parting: The Beheading of John the Baptist in Early Christian Memory by Nathan L. Shedd" @default.
• W4320184853 doi "https://doi.org/10.1353/cbq.2023.0027" @default.
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