Books by Martijn Stoutjesdijk
In ‘Kerk, kolonialisme en slavernij’ belichten Bente de Leede en Martijn Stoutjesdijk de relatie ... more In ‘Kerk, kolonialisme en slavernij’ belichten Bente de Leede en Martijn Stoutjesdijk de relatie tussen het christendom en slavernij door de eeuwen heen, aan de hand van casussen uit de Nederlandse geschiedenis. Lange tijd werd er in de Nederlandse kerkgeschiedenis nauwelijks aandacht besteed aan slavernij en kolonialisme. In deze actuele bundel bespreken specialisten case studies uit het hele Nederlandse koloniale rijk die tonen hoezeer kerk en kolonialisme in al deze aspecten tegenover elkaar staan én door elkaar heen lopen.
The recent production of case studies in chaplaincy care combines the narrative nature of chaplai... more The recent production of case studies in chaplaincy care combines the narrative nature of chaplaincy with the rigors of research demanded in contemporary care settings. The contributions in this volume from both practitioners and academic researchers join reflections on the challenges and promises of case study research in chaplaincy care with the results of specific case studies.
Dat Jezus gelijkenissen of parabels vertelde, is veel mensen bekend: wie is er niet vertrouwd me... more Dat Jezus gelijkenissen of parabels vertelde, is veel mensen bekend: wie is er niet vertrouwd met de barmhartige Samaritaan? Ook de rabbijnen deelden hun wijsheid bij voorkeur in de vorm van parabels. De Rabbijnse literatuur heeft er honderden van bewaard. In dit boek worden die gelijkenissen uit beide tradities zij-aan-zij besproken. Een dergelijke werkwijze levert niet alleen nieuwe inzichten op over jodendom en christendom. Ze werpt ook licht op de unieke vertelvorm van deze parabels: ontleend aan het dagelijkse leven, maar met een verrassende (actuele) twist. Het boek bevat niet alleen illustraties van de parabels van Jezus, maar brengt voor het eerst ook rabbijns-joodse gelijkenissen op moderne en kleurrijke wijze tot leven. Gespreksvragen maken de uitgave compleet. De volgende auteurs, allen als onderzoeker verbonden aan het Parabelproject (zie www.parabelproject.nl), schreven bijdragen: Annette Merz, Albertina Oegema, Eric Ottenheijm, Jonathan Pater, Marcel Poorthuis, Martijn Stoutjesdijk en Lieve Teugels.
This volume aims to broaden our understanding of the related genres of parables, fables, and simi... more This volume aims to broaden our understanding of the related genres of parables, fables, and similes in the Graeco-Roman world. These genres, which make use of narrative analogy, appear in early Christian and ancient
Jewish literatures and in various Graeco-Roman sources. However, despite the fact that these texts were part of the wider cultural context of Graeco-Roman antiquity, they have not yet been thoroughly studied in
relation to each other. The present volume brings together contributions on a range of Graeco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian sources, so as to contribute to the study of parables, fables, and similes across disciplinary boundaries. The contributions highlight the fluid boundaries between these different genres, but also demonstrate how their adoption and adaption in different literary works give expression to the distinct identities of the composers.
This work offers a comparative study of early Christian and early rabbinic slavery parables in th... more This work offers a comparative study of early Christian and early rabbinic slavery parables in their Greco-Roman context. While a number of studies on slavery parables in Christianity exist, a systematic study of and comparison with rabbinic slavery parables is still lacking. This work seeks to resolve that shortcoming. Not only does it study the rabbinic slavery parables in relation to the Christian parables (and vice versa), but it also tries to embed both corpora in the broader Greco-Roman world. By bringing together these three worlds (Christianity, Judaism, Greco-Roman culture), it seeks to develop a broad view on the ancient institution of slavery and the way slavery was represented in (popular) ancient literature. By using metaphor theory (Bildfeld theory, Conceptual Blending Theory), combined with James Scott’s theory of the hidden transcript, this study aims to investigate the imagery of slaves and slavery and to discover how slavery parables, as literary constructions, convey certain theological and ideological (possibly subversive) messages. In order to do so, four underlying methodological issues have been addressed: 1. The extent to which ancient Jewish and Christian slaves are like slaves in the surrounding Greco-Roman context; 2. The extent to which slaves in the early Christian and rabbinic slavery parables are like slaves in Greco-Roman literature; 3. The extent to which the slaves in the parables are like actual Jewish and Christian slaves in ancient social reality; 4. The extent to which the slaves in the early rabbinic slavery parables are like the slaves in the early Christian slavery parables.On the basis of a review of existing scholarly literature, this study concludes that Jewish and Christian slavery in antiquity did not essentially differ from Greco-Roman slavery in general (ad 1). From the comparison with Greco-Roman literature (comedies, novellas, etc.) that this study offers, it becomes clear that many motifs and stereotypes (lazy slave, stupid slave, servus callidus) from Greco-Roman popular literature can also be found in the slavery parables, most notably the motif of absente ero, the absent master (ad 2). However, we also find some differences. The very popular GrecoRoman story motif of the free person who is enslaved and regains his or her freedom is not something we find in the parables, nor do we find manumission in general. Connected to that, we have observed how the concept of freedom plays a minor (or at least different) role in Christian and rabbinic literature, perhaps under the influence of the theological concept of the covenant. With respect to the difference between slaves in the parables and in reality (ad 3), we find that parables greatly rely on images and practices from social reality. At the same time, some parables contain strange, illogical, or even absurd elements, which were probably used to draw the attention of the listeners to a certain message or conclusion. Finally, we have studied how the early rabbinic slavery parables relate to the early Christian slavery parables (ad 4). Although some differences occur between both corpora (specifically, the greater use of violence in Christian slavery parables), the general conclusion is that in early rabbinic and early Christian slavery parables the same motifs and themes occur and the settings and plots overlap. The most striking observations with regard to the slavery parables from both religions are summarized in this study in five points: (a) that the relation between God and his people (Israel or the followers of Jesus) is compared to that of a slave and an (often absent) master; (b) that there are good and bad slaves and that the de facto status of slaves is determined by the complex intricacies of gender, occupation, and the slaveowner’s position; (c) that, with one exception, slaves do not find freedom in the slavery parables but keep their station as slaves; and related to this, (d) that slaves might be punished and rewarded for their actions but (generally) are not killed, sold, or manumitted, which, again, points to the permanency of their position; and (e) that while reversal of roles can be found in both corpora, it is very rare. However, when role reversal does happen, humans might be called to imitate God and serve their subordinates (imitatio dei). Moreover, critique of God as the supreme master of humanity, usually represented by the slave-owner in the parables, is rather rare as well. In conclusion, this study proves a great degree of continuity in the use, themes, motifs, and plots of slavery parables in early Christianity and early rabbinic Judaism, as well as considerable similarity with stereotypes and type scenes, but also with the social reality, of the wider Greco-Roman world.
Papers by Martijn Stoutjesdijk
Heilzame verwerking slavernijverleden voor 'wit' en 'zwart': Een bijdrage vanuit de kerken, 2020
De Moravische zendeling Tank schreef in 1849 over de situatie van slaven in de Nederlandse koloni... more De Moravische zendeling Tank schreef in 1849 over de situatie van slaven in de Nederlandse kolonie Suriname: "Wanneer de negers christenen worden, dan moeten ook sommige blanken - tenminste uitwendig - leeren zich christelijk te gedragen." Maar wat betekent het eigenlijk je 'christelijk' te gedragen, wanneer het aankomt op de slavernij? Wat betekende dat toen, en wat betekent het vandaag? En is men het er altijd over eens geweest wat een christelijke houding is ten opzichte van de slavernij? Zoals we zullen zien in dit essay is dat zeker niet het geval. In dit essay staat de betrokkenheid van de christelijke kerken bij het Nederlandse slavernijverleden centraal. Deze betrokkenheid heeft vele kanten en kan op allerlei manieren bestudeerd worden. Men kan kijken naar rituelen, bijvoorbeeld naar wie er in de kerk gedoopt en begraven werden. Men kan kijken of christelijke slaveneigenaren zich anders gedroegen dan, bijvoorbeeld, joodse slaveneigenaren. Men zou ook de verschillende kerkstromingen die actief waren in Nederland en de Nederlandse koloniën met elkaar kunnen vergelijken. In dit essay heb ik er echter voor gekozen de figuur van de predikant (of de zendeling) centraal te stellen. Als geen ander vormde de predikant immers de spil van het religieuze, kerkelijke leven. Hij (altijd een hij) was als ambtsdrager gerechtigd de sacramenten (avondmaal, doop) uit te voeren én te bepalen - in samenwerking met de kerkenraad - wie er al dan niet voor die sacramenten in aanmerking kwamen. Hij was hoogopgeleid en had in de kolonie-hiërarchie een tamelijk voorname rang. Daarnaast had hij een unieke mogelijkheid: via de preken die hij twee tot drie keer per week uitsprak, kreeg hij de kans zijn gemeente aan te sporen tot rechtvaardig en godsvruchtig gedrag. Bovendien schreven veel predikanten boeken, brieven, en andere teksten. Dat maakt dat de predikant in Nederland en de Nederlandse koloniën een unieke positie als opiniemaker, of-om Instagram-terminologie te gebruiken-influencer had. In dit essay wil ik ingaan op de rol van de predikant als influencer in zowel het historische slavernijdebat ten tijde van de trans-Atlantische slavenhandel, iii alsook een blik vooruitwerpen: hoe kunnen hedendaagse Nederlandse predikanten een rol vervullen in de heling van de wonden van het Nederlandse slavernijverleden? Hoe kunnen zij zich hun rol als influencer in het moderne debat toe-eigenen?
Tussen de Voorn en Loevestein, 2021
Every year during Passover Jews commemorate the liberation of their ancestors from Egypt. It was ... more Every year during Passover Jews commemorate the liberation of their ancestors from Egypt. It was God who ‘broke the bars of their yoke’ and who ‘made them walk erect’ (Lev 26:13). Elsewhere, however, the Torah seems to suggest that the redemption from Egypt’s service was not so much a release from slavery, as it was a change of master (cf. Ex 4:23 and Lev 25:42). This paradoxical way of thinking about slavery is perpetuated by the early rabbis in the midrashic and halakhic literature of the first centuries C.E. By means of a close reading of a parable from Sifre Numbers (chapter 115) I will clarify the early rabbinic perspective on slavery: becoming a slave of God was the ultimate purpose of the people of Israel, while being a slave of Egypt’s ruler formed its ultimate degradation. We will also see that in Sifre Numbers, as in other early rabbinic and early Christian writings, the metaphor of slavery competes with the metaphor of sonship. In Sifre Numbers the metaphor of slavery is preferred over that of sonship, due to the absolute obedience that God expects from his people, an aspect that cannot be sufficiently expressed by the relation between a father and his son. Finally, this paper will also contribute to the way we understand slavery metaphors in the New Testament, especially in Romans 6.
Some scholars have argued that the parables attributed to Jesus in the New Testament featuring wo... more Some scholars have argued that the parables attributed to Jesus in the New Testament featuring women as characters have had a specifically radical and liberating quality for women within early Christianity. The present article challenges a similar appreciation of the texts by comparing them to rabbinic parables which use the same imagery and narrative techniques. This comparison demonstrates that parables as such cannot simply be used to reconstruct the sociohistorical position of women within either early Christianity or early Rabbinic Judaism.
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Books by Martijn Stoutjesdijk
Jewish literatures and in various Graeco-Roman sources. However, despite the fact that these texts were part of the wider cultural context of Graeco-Roman antiquity, they have not yet been thoroughly studied in
relation to each other. The present volume brings together contributions on a range of Graeco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian sources, so as to contribute to the study of parables, fables, and similes across disciplinary boundaries. The contributions highlight the fluid boundaries between these different genres, but also demonstrate how their adoption and adaption in different literary works give expression to the distinct identities of the composers.
Papers by Martijn Stoutjesdijk
Jewish literatures and in various Graeco-Roman sources. However, despite the fact that these texts were part of the wider cultural context of Graeco-Roman antiquity, they have not yet been thoroughly studied in
relation to each other. The present volume brings together contributions on a range of Graeco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian sources, so as to contribute to the study of parables, fables, and similes across disciplinary boundaries. The contributions highlight the fluid boundaries between these different genres, but also demonstrate how their adoption and adaption in different literary works give expression to the distinct identities of the composers.
This paradoxical way of thinking about slavery is perpetuated by the early rabbis in the midrashic and halakhic literature of the first centuries C.E. By a close reading of a hitherto unexplored parable from Sifre Numbers (parasha 115) I will clarify the early rabbinical perspective on slavery - that at the same time becoming a slave of God was the ultimate purpose of the people of Israel, while being a slave of Egypt’s ruler formed its ultimate degradation. The theological discourse also had its imprint on social reality. On the basis of halakhic discussions in the Babylonian Talmud I will argue that although slavery was taken for granted, it was encouraged in early Rabbinic Judaism to redeem Hebrew slaves from foreign slavery - not in order to be freed, but in order to serve in Israel, under Jews and under God. In this way, this paper will not only shed new light on the early Rabbinic discourse on freedom and slavery, but it will also contribute to the way we understand slavery metaphors in the New Testament, thereby substantiating Dale Martin’s claim that self-designations as ‘slave of Christ’ could draw on positive images of authority, honor and status-by-association.