Abandoned to Lust

Abandoned to Lust PDF Author: Jennifer Wright Knust
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231136625
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Early Christians used charges of adultery, incest, and lascivious behavior to demonize their opponents, police insiders, resist pagan rulers, and define what it meant to be a Christian. Christians frequently claimed that they, and they alone were sexually virtuous, comparing themselves to those marked as outsiders, especially non-believers and "heretics," who were said to be controlled by lust and unable to rein in their carnal desires. True or not, these charges allowed Christians to present themselves as different from and morally superior to those around them. Through careful, innovative readings, Jennifer Knust explores the writings of Paul, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, and other early Christian authors who argued that Christ alone made self-mastery possible. Rejection of Christ led to both immoral sexual behavior and, ultimately, alienation and punishment from God. Knust considers how Christian writers participated in a long tradition of rhetorical invective, a rhetoric that was often employed to defend status and difference. Christians borrowed, deployed, and reconfigured classical rhetorical techniques, turning them against their rulers to undercut their moral and political authority. Knust also examines the use of accusations of licentiousness in conflicts between rival groups of Christians. Portraying rival sects as depraved allowed accusers to claim their own group as representative of "true Christianity." Knust's book also reveals the ways in which sexual slurs and their use in early Christian writings reflected cultural and gendered assumptions about what constituted purity, morality, and truth. In doing so, Abandoned to Lust highlights the complex interrelationships between sex, gender, and sexuality within the classical, biblical, and early-Christian traditions.

Abandoned to Lust

Abandoned to Lust PDF Author: Jennifer Wright Knust
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231136625
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

Get Book Here

Book Description
Early Christians used charges of adultery, incest, and lascivious behavior to demonize their opponents, police insiders, resist pagan rulers, and define what it meant to be a Christian. Christians frequently claimed that they, and they alone were sexually virtuous, comparing themselves to those marked as outsiders, especially non-believers and "heretics," who were said to be controlled by lust and unable to rein in their carnal desires. True or not, these charges allowed Christians to present themselves as different from and morally superior to those around them. Through careful, innovative readings, Jennifer Knust explores the writings of Paul, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, and other early Christian authors who argued that Christ alone made self-mastery possible. Rejection of Christ led to both immoral sexual behavior and, ultimately, alienation and punishment from God. Knust considers how Christian writers participated in a long tradition of rhetorical invective, a rhetoric that was often employed to defend status and difference. Christians borrowed, deployed, and reconfigured classical rhetorical techniques, turning them against their rulers to undercut their moral and political authority. Knust also examines the use of accusations of licentiousness in conflicts between rival groups of Christians. Portraying rival sects as depraved allowed accusers to claim their own group as representative of "true Christianity." Knust's book also reveals the ways in which sexual slurs and their use in early Christian writings reflected cultural and gendered assumptions about what constituted purity, morality, and truth. In doing so, Abandoned to Lust highlights the complex interrelationships between sex, gender, and sexuality within the classical, biblical, and early-Christian traditions.

Paradise Lust

Paradise Lust PDF Author: Brook Wilensky-Lanford
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802195636
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
A “certainly weird . . . strangely wonderful . . . [and] often irresistible” search to find the real Garden of Eden (The New York Times Book Review). Where, precisely, was God’s Paradise? St. Augustine had a theory. So did medieval monks, John Calvin and Christopher Columbus. But when Darwin’s theory of evolution changed our understanding of human origins, shouldn’t the desire to put a literal Eden on the map have faded away? Not so fast. This “gloriously researched, pluckily written historical and anecdotal assay of humankind’s age-old quixotic quest for the exact location of the Biblical garden” (Elle) explores an obsession that has consumed scientists and theologians alike for centuries. To this day, the search continues, taken up by amateur explorers, clergymen, scholars, engineers and educators—romantic seekers all who started with the same simple-sounding Bible verses, only to end up at a different spot on the globe: Sri Lanka, the Seychelles, the North Pole, Mesopotamia, China, Iraq—and Ohio. Inspired by an Eden seeker in her own family, “Wilensky-Lanford approaches her subjects with respect, enthusiasm and conscientious research” (San Francisco Chronicle) as she traverses a century-spanning history provoking surprising insights into where we came from, what we did wrong, and where we go from here. And it all makes for “a lively journey” (Kirkus Reviews).

Unprotected Texts

Unprotected Texts PDF Author: Jennifer Wright Knust
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062010824
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 813

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Book Description
“An explosive, fascinating book that reveals how the Bible cannot be used as a rulebook when it comes to sex. A terrific read by a top scholar.” —Bart Ehrman, author of Misquoting Jesus Boston University’s cutting-edge religion scholar Jennifer Wright Knust reveals the Bible’s contradictory messages about sex in this thoughtful, riveting, and timely reexploration of the letter of the gospels. In the tradition of Bart Erhman’s Jesus Interrupted and John Shelby Spong’s Sins of Scripture, Knust’s Unprotected Texts liberates us from the pervasive moralizing—the fickle dos and don’ts—so often dictated by religious demagogues. Knust’s powerful reading offers a return to the scripture, away from the mere slogans to which it is so often reduced.

Lust

Lust PDF Author: Simon Blackburn
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195347544
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
Lust, says Simon Blackburn, is furtive, headlong, always sizing up opportunities. It is a trail of clothing in the hallway, the trashy cousin of love. But be that as it may, the aim of this delightful book is to rescue lust "from the denunciations of old men of the deserts, to deliver it from the pallid and envious confessor and the stocks and pillories of the Puritans, to drag it from the category of sin to that of virtue." Blackburn, author of such popular philosophy books as Think and Being Good, here offers a sharp-edged probe into the heart of lust, blending together insight from some of the world's greatest thinkers on sex, human nature, and our common cultural foibles. Blackburn takes a wide ranging, historical approach, discussing lust as viewed by Aristophanes and Plato, lust in the light of the Stoic mistrust of emotion, and the Christian fear of the flesh that catapulted lust to the level of deadly sin. He describes how philosophical pessimists like Schopenhauer and Sartre contributed to our thinking about lust and explores the false starts in understanding lust represented by Freud, Kinsey, and modern "evolutionary psychology." But most important, Blackburn reminds us that lust is also life-affirming, invigorating, fun. He points to the work of David Hume (Blackburn's favorite philosopher) who saw lust not only as a sensual delight but also "a joy of the mind." Written by one of the most eminent living philosophers, attractively illustrated and colorfully packaged, Lust is a book that anyone would lust over.

Lust in London

Lust in London PDF Author: S. Danielson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781466227668
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
Young Alex had barely been out of Kansas, much less go across the pond. While on a study semester, he meets a charming, handsome businessman on holiday named Mason. They strike up a quick, hot romance that is tested by jealousy and a secret admirer (among other things)! Will their love last beyond the London lust, or was it all an illusion in the fog?

Ancient Mediterranean Sacrifice

Ancient Mediterranean Sacrifice PDF Author: Jennifer Wright Knust
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199876401
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
An investigation of the multiple meanings and functions of sacrifice in diverse religious texts and practices from the late Hellenistic and Roman imperial periods.

Ruin Lust

Ruin Lust PDF Author: Brian Dillon
Publisher: Tate
ISBN: 9781849763011
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 63

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Book Description
Ruin Lust offers a guide to the mournful, thrilling, comic, and perverse uses of ruins in art from the 17th century to the present day. This book, which accompanied a major Tate Britain exhibition, includes more than 100 works by artists such as J. M. W Turner, John Constable, John Martin, Eduardo Paolozzi, Paul Nash, and Rachel Whiteread. Beginning in the midst of the craze that sent artists, writers, architects, and tourists in search of ruins and picturesque landscapes in the 18th century, it shows how ruins have continued to be a source of visual and emo­tional fascination at particular historical moments. Thoroughly illustrated, Ruin Lust explores how ruin has become a way of thinking about art itself and its connection to both the past and the future.

The Romance of Lust - A Classic Victorian Erotic Novel

The Romance of Lust - A Classic Victorian Erotic Novel PDF Author: Anon
Publisher: Read Books Ltd
ISBN: 147334865X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
"The Romance of Lust - A Classic Victorian Erotic Novel" is an 1873 erotic novel of anonymous authorship. It follows the exploits of Charlie, a virile and well-endowed young man with an apparently boundless appetite for sex. He chronicles his various sexual encounters involving his sisters Eliza and Mary, his governesses, and other various male and female friends. The narrative is saturated with taboo subjects, and it almost seems that none are omitted: orgies, masturbation, lesbianism, flagellation, fellatio, cunnilingus, gay sex, anal sex, and double penetration all appear at some point. An unparalleled and a wholly satisfying reading experience, "The Romance of Lust" is a classic Victorian erotic novel not to be missed by fans and collectors of the genre. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in a modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on the history of erotic literature.

Cubic Lust

Cubic Lust PDF Author: gavin hardkiss
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780989352505
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
A DJ wakes up in a pool of blood in a white room in Hong Kong with no recollection of what happened. Over the next twenty four hours, the DJ will perform at a high society wedding and penetrate the inner sanctum of the progeny of the original Opium drug trade. The book balances an exciting hallucinatory story arc with insightful, absurd and sexually charged interludes that give an insider perspective into DJ culture and the hyperreality of the international DJ lifestyle. Centuries old traditions conflict and twist with the digital age in Hardkiss's debut novel. Enter the stream of consciousness of a young DJ who delves into the finest women, drugs, and music that China has to offer. Hard and shocking, poetic and sensual, Cubic Lust toys with the reader's synapses as well as any opiate could.

The Fires of Lust

The Fires of Lust PDF Author: Katherine Harvey
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 9781789146561
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
An illuminating exploration of the surprisingly familiar sex lives of ordinary medieval people. The medieval humoral system of medicine suggested that it was possible to die from having too much—or too little—sex, while the Roman Catholic Church taught that virginity was the ideal state. Holy men and women committed themselves to lifelong abstinence in the name of religion. Everyone was forced to conform to restrictive rules about who they could have sex with, in what way, how often, and even when, and could be harshly punished for getting it wrong. Other experiences are more familiar. Like us, medieval people faced challenges in finding a suitable partner or trying to get pregnant (or trying not to). They also struggled with many of the same social issues, such as whether prostitution should be legalized. Above all, they shared our fondness for dirty jokes and erotic images. By exploring their sex lives, the book brings ordinary medieval people to life and reveals details of their most personal thoughts and experiences. Ultimately, it provides us with an important and intimate connection to the past.