What do you think?
Rate this book
EROTIC WORD:SEXUALITY SPIRITUALITY & THE BIBLE: Sexuality, Spirituality, and the Bible
Historically, the Bible has been used to drive a wedge between the spirit and the body. In this provocative book, David Carr argues that the Bible affirms erotic passion. Sexuality and spirituality, he contends, are intricately interwoven; the journey toward God and the life-long engagement with our own sexual embodiment are inseparable.
223 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
9 people are currently reading
134 people want to read
About the author
David M. Carr
16 books10 followersDavid M. Carr is Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at Union Theological Seminary in New York. Over his decades-long academic career, he has become an international authority on the formation of the Bible, ancient scribal culture, and issues of the Bible and sexuality.
Decades into a career as a biblical scholar, he suffered a life-threatening bicycle accident that changed his view of the scriptures he had devoted his life to studying. As he grappled with his own individual trauma and survival of it, he became interested in how the collective trauma of Israel and the early church had shaped the Bible. He saw that these holy texts are defined by survival of communal catastrophe. This is part of what makes them special, what made them last. The result of this basic insight is Carr's forthcoming work, Holy Resilience: The Bible's Traumatic Origins (Yale University Press, Fall 2014).
His academic journey to that point started with dropping out of high school at age sixteen to attend college full-time and completing a BA in Philosophy at Carleton College at age eighteen in 1980. Eight years later, in 1988, he finished his Ph.D. with a focus on the Old Testament and Early Judaism at Claremont Graduate University.
Since then he has taught full time for twenty-five years, first at Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio (1988-1999) and the last fifteen years at Union Theological Seminary in New York City (1999-present). Some of his publications have been directed to fellow specialists on the Bible, such as Reading the Fractures of Genesis (Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (Oxford University Press, 2005) and The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction (Oxford University Press, 2011). While other publications have been directed to a broader audience of students and the general public such as Carr's Introduction to the Hebrew Bible: Sacred Texts and Imperial Contexts (Wiley Blackwell, 2010) and The Erotic Word: Sexuality, Spirituality and the Bible (Oxford University Press, 2001).
A father/stepfather of four, Carr lives, rides his bicycle and plays funk-blues organ in New York City with his wife and fellow biblical scholar, Colleen Conway.
Decades into a career as a biblical scholar, he suffered a life-threatening bicycle accident that changed his view of the scriptures he had devoted his life to studying. As he grappled with his own individual trauma and survival of it, he became interested in how the collective trauma of Israel and the early church had shaped the Bible. He saw that these holy texts are defined by survival of communal catastrophe. This is part of what makes them special, what made them last. The result of this basic insight is Carr's forthcoming work, Holy Resilience: The Bible's Traumatic Origins (Yale University Press, Fall 2014).
His academic journey to that point started with dropping out of high school at age sixteen to attend college full-time and completing a BA in Philosophy at Carleton College at age eighteen in 1980. Eight years later, in 1988, he finished his Ph.D. with a focus on the Old Testament and Early Judaism at Claremont Graduate University.
Since then he has taught full time for twenty-five years, first at Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio (1988-1999) and the last fifteen years at Union Theological Seminary in New York City (1999-present). Some of his publications have been directed to fellow specialists on the Bible, such as Reading the Fractures of Genesis (Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (Oxford University Press, 2005) and The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction (Oxford University Press, 2011). While other publications have been directed to a broader audience of students and the general public such as Carr's Introduction to the Hebrew Bible: Sacred Texts and Imperial Contexts (Wiley Blackwell, 2010) and The Erotic Word: Sexuality, Spirituality and the Bible (Oxford University Press, 2001).
A father/stepfather of four, Carr lives, rides his bicycle and plays funk-blues organ in New York City with his wife and fellow biblical scholar, Colleen Conway.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 24, 2025
Teologiskt svag, författaren väljer aktivt att missförstå bibelord för att få fram sin egen agenda
January 31, 2015
I appreciated this book much more than I thought I would. While I can't say I agree or am at a place to fully endorse all of the author's statements, I can say that I felt challenged by this book to consider interpretations of Scripture in regards to both gender and sexuality that differed from the limited interpretations I encountered growing up. I feel like this book stretched me, and for that, I'm very grateful.
August 17, 2024
A Rare Gem
It has been a long time since I have been so gripped by a scholarly work like this one. Carr illuminates God’s love in a way that few scholars dare to consider. For that reason, his book reads more powerfully and applicably than many scholarly books do. Well worth the read.
It has been a long time since I have been so gripped by a scholarly work like this one. Carr illuminates God’s love in a way that few scholars dare to consider. For that reason, his book reads more powerfully and applicably than many scholarly books do. Well worth the read.
July 19, 2025
Readable and erudite— a fascinating exploration of erotic biblical gardens as a whole, and the Song of Songs in particular. I do wish there’d been a little more than lipservice paid to erotic queer theologies, but I get that the author probably wanted to stay in his lane.
December 6, 2023
I mainly enjoyed the read through of the Song of Songs/Solomon because the author pointed out the connection between the nature imagery and genitalia in certain lines that was a lot less obvious to me than the imagery in other lines, so it was nice to find that out.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews