Attached Paper In-person November Annual Meeting 2025

Entangling the Matters of God, a Prophet, and a She-Ass: Sketching a New Materialist Hermeneutic in Numbers 22:21-35

Papers Session: Theoretically Animals
Description for Program Unit Review (maximum 1000 words)

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Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

The paper I am proposing explores the contributions and interdisciplinary insights of new materialism as a philosophical movement, and how its focus on matter at inherently vibrant could shape method and/or approaches to biblical texts that deal with non-human characters. It also builds on the work of Brittany E. Wilson whose work on God’s body and new materialism has attempted to investigate the role of God’s material interaction with the nonhuman world. I use Numbers 22:21-35 as a test case for my research and observe how the three bodies presented in the encounter of Balaam, his she-ass, and God’s messenger might be read with particular attention to new materialist insights. This paper represents my attempt to outline how a new materialist reading of a biblical text might take shape, and form a new hermeneutic approach to biblical texts.