When Bodies Meet: Fraught Companionship and Entangled Embodiment in Jeremiah 36

Abstract

Abstract This paper uses Donna Haraway’s theoretical work on “companion species” to offer a new perspective on the mutually implicated bodies in chapter 36 of the biblical book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 36 narrates the prophet’s dictation of a scroll to his scribe, Baruch; the scroll is subsequently read aloud, destroyed, and recreated. Though the story is filled with prophets, scribes, secretaries, and a furious king, it is fundamentally the story of a scroll, and of a scroll as body. This paper treats the scroll-body as companion species, foregrounding relations of entanglement and significant otherness. Haraway’s theorization of interdependence, conflict, and co-becoming offers a new model for understanding the individual and compounded bodies of prophet, scribe, king, and nation. The paper experiments in (fraught) companionship and mutual embodiment, offering an alternate framework for imagining the body in and of prophecy. This reading opens new ways of thinking across bodies, texts, and traditions.

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