2023.02.05 | Ekaputra Tupamahu. Contesting Languages: Heteroglossia and the Politics of Language in the Early Church. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023.
Review by Isaac T. Soon, Crandall University, Moncton, NB.
The author begins the book with three subjects that experience struggle at the site of language: Medea, the Corinthian community, and Tupamahau himself. From its first pages, the reader becomes fully aware that this book is not only a critique of Paul’s handling of a multilingual community in Corinth but of the way that dominant languages, such as English (not least in the study of the New Testament), function as colonizing and suppressive forces. Tupamahu’s book is carefully written, and—more than any other academic monograph I have read in a long while—the distinct voice of the author comes across in its pages. The self-aware inclusion of first-person narratives detail the formation of the study and personal experiences that have shaped the research question and approach provides a refreshing frame for receiving Tupamahu’s work. At times, he even leaves expressions in German (e.g., p. 84) or in Greek untranslated to remind the reader of the way language (and its unintelligibility) can be othering for the person who is not proficient in it. Language is a political struggle, and Tupamahu’s book invites readers to learn about its dynamics in Corinth and to experience it themselves through his study itself.
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Biblical and Early Christian Studies 