Shaily Patel: Queer Criticism

Shaily Patel, “Excursus: Methods of Ideological Criticism,” in Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction To the Early Christian Writings, sixth edition (OUP, 2016), 193.

Like feminist criticism, queer criticism is a way of reading the New Testament that contests certain norms depicted in the text, especially those that privilege heterosexuality and fixed gender roles. Queer criticism analyzes how these norms are established and maintained both in the biblical text and in modern scholarship. Those who use queer criticism question the use of the biblical text to privilege heteronormativity (i.e., the position that only heterosexuality is normal and valid.