Doctorate Theses

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The Scandal of the Scandal of Particularity: An Exploration of Early Church Understandings of Jesus as the Female Divine
(2015-02) Douglas, Sally
Jesus’ status inflames debate. Central to debate is whether Jesus uniquely embodies the divine: thus “scandal of particularity”. Both those who affirm and those who reject this “scandal” regularly eclipse a central proclamation of who Jesus is in many earliest christologies. The scandal of the scandal of particularity is that in various Second Testament and early church texts Jesus is understood as the female divine. Insufficient attention has been devoted to why this is so. Through interdisciplinary research across biblical studies and systematic theology this thesis demonstrates that in the early Jesus movement Wisdom christology and Wisdom soteriology were ignited by collective experiences of “kinesthetic transformation”. The multivalent motivations for the eclipsing of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in the second and third centuries are excavated. The potential implications of this ancient understanding in contemporary context are assessed and it is demonstrated that this scandalous particularity continues to shimmer with vitality and provocation.