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Holy mothers of God: sex work, inheritance, and the women of Jesus' genealogy

Rose, Marika orcid logoORCID: 0000-0001-8595-7482 (2019) Holy mothers of God: sex work, inheritance, and the women of Jesus' genealogy. Theology & sexuality, 25 (1-2). pp. 1-20. ISSN 1355-8358

Abstract
In this article I consider the stories of Jesus' women ancestors in the genealogy which opens the Gospel of Matthew. Reading these stories in light of Marxist-feminist analyses of marriage, sex work and reproductive labor, alongside contemporary sex workers' rights discourse, and through Marcella Althaus-Reid's claim that all theology is "a sexual act", I explore their implications for contemporary debates about property and propriety in both Christian systematic theology and contemporary Christian sexual ethics - which cannot, of course, be disentangled from one another. To conclude, I return to the twinned questions of righteousness and purity which centrally define both theological accounts of Christian identity and Christian sexual ethics, suggesting that righteousness relies for its coherence not only on the abjection of those who fall short of its standards, but also on their labor.
Metadata
Item Type:Article (Published)
Refereed:Yes
Uncontrolled Keywords:Theology, Christian identity, Genealogy, Jesus' genealogy, marriage, Matthew's Gospel, Sex work
Subjects:Humanities > Religions
Humanities > Culture
DCU Faculties and Centres:DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Science
DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Science > School of Theology, Philosophy, & Music
Publisher:Routledge
Official URL:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13558...
Copyright Information:Authors
ID Code:32064
Deposited On:06 Jan 2026 15:15 by Marika Rose . Last Modified 06 Jan 2026 15:15
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