Read on Twitter
Fellow biblicists, strap in. This is rough. I've been watching the reactions to Jan Joosten's recent conviction for possession of child pornography and have been dismayed at the dismal, predictable bifurcation between the man & his scholarly legacy made by senior scholars. [1]
You don't have to look far for this crap. It seems to have been the immediate reaction by many who consider Joosten a friend, collaborator, and respected colleague. [2]
http://ralphriver.blogspot.com/2020/06/statement-regarding-prof-jan-joosten.html
http://ralphriver.blogspot.com/2020/06/statement-regarding-prof-jan-joosten.html
We don't need to throw out the man's oeuvre, they argue, & we can have concern for him *as a person* or pray for him as a sinner while still decrying his crimes. To younger scholars, as
@JamesNati1 rightly notes, this defense rings completely hollow. [3] https://twitter.com/JamesNati1/status/1275628650356895744
@JamesNati1 rightly notes, this defense rings completely hollow. [3] https://twitter.com/JamesNati1/status/1275628650356895744
Most of us have come into the profession during an era of job scarcity and financial precarity. For us, the split between person and legacy is the comfortable illusion of the tenured senior scholar. We know exactly what had to be sold or compromised to get where we are. [4]
Some have even observed that Joosten, despite his claim to have sought help, was downloading child porn as late as May. We've had the image of him switching from scholarly production in his perch at the pinnacle of the academy to erotic engagement with images of child rape. [5]
Amid all this, something was really bugging me about the lone quote from Joosten in the Guardian article from a couple of days ago. I have been working it over in my mind, worrying at it like a splinter beneath the skin. [6]
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/22/oxford-university-professor-jan-joosten-jailed-france-child-abuse-images
![Amid all this, something was really bugging me about the lone quote from Joosten in the Guardian article from a couple of days ago. I have been working it over in my mind, worrying at it like a splinter beneath the skin. [6] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/22/oxford-university-professor-jan-joosten-jailed-france-child-abuse-images](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbR32EGXgAUZz62.png "Amid all this, something was really bugging me about the lone quote from Joosten in the Guardian article from a couple of days ago. I have been working it over in my mind, worrying at it like a splinter beneath the skin. [6] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/22/oxford-university-professor-jan-joosten-jailed-france-child-abuse-images")
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/22/oxford-university-professor-jan-joosten-jailed-france-child-abuse-images
The quote is revolting. I focused on the obviously Protestant reference to justification by faith. Joosten implies that he exists apart from his works. He acknowledges his sin, but "apart from myself" implies the ongoing promise of salvation. [7]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_fide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_fide
But it was the reference to the "secret garden" that sticks with me. It feels like a sick, sweaty nudge into the private space where Joosten sought sexual release from images of the brutalization and degradation of children. It's bizarre that a journalist would include it. [8]
My 1st association was Francis Hodgson Burnett's famous children's novel. The resonances are disturbing. Neglected, lonely 10 y/o Mary Lennox is sent to a Yorkshire uncle. She finds a secret garden, befriends a disabled child & rehabilitates him. [9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Garden
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Garden
But this morning, I thought immediately of the more primal & powerful, theological resonance of the hortus conclusus, "the enclosed garden." A metaphor for the virginity of Mary, the mother of Jesus and a powerful image of Christian devotion. [10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hortus_conclusus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hortus_conclusus
As any Hebraist (like Joosten) can tell you, the hortus conclusus is rooted in Christian exegesis of the Song of Songs, that powerful and richly textured biblical erotic poem. The reference is found in 4:12
גַּ֥ן נָע֖וּל אֲחֹתִ֣י כַלָּ֑ה גַּ֥ן נָע֖וּל מַעְיָ֥ן חָתֽוּם׃
[11]
גַּ֥ן נָע֖וּל אֲחֹתִ֣י כַלָּ֑ה גַּ֥ן נָע֖וּל מַעְיָ֥ן חָתֽוּם׃
[11]
A garden enclosed/
My sister-bride/
A garden enclosed/
A sealed spring.
[12]
My sister-bride/
A garden enclosed/
A sealed spring.
[12]
In the pages of an international newspaper, Joosten was not only forcing us to sit with him in that private space of awful transgression. He was giving us a glimpse of his theological and erotic self-justification. The sister-bride of Songs 4 is a newly pubescent child.
[13]
[13]
The movement in chapters 4 and 5 in the Song of Songs is toward a moment of highly ambiguous erotic consummation of desire between the child-lovers who speak in the poem. The image of consummation is described in potent, metaphorical terms.
[14]
[14]
To read the poem in Hebrew is to feel the nearness of sexual pleasure and the painful mediation of metaphorical language. There is a reason it has been such a powerful text for Jewish and Christian mystics.
[15]
[15]
That Joosten would use its language and poetics as a kind of justification for the consumption of images of brutalized children is beyond vile. That he would force the theological concept of deferred eroticism as a frame for his crime is stomach-churning.
[16]
[16]
I don't want to hear another scholar tell me we can separate the man from his scholarly work. He, himself, observed no such separation and he has forced his disgusting self-justification upon our consciousness.
As I've said elsewhere: pulp his books. Blot out his name.
[fin]
As I've said elsewhere: pulp his books. Blot out his name.
[fin]
