Children and Childhood(s) in the Bible and Biblical World

Children in the New Testament

“…Several recent annotated bibliographies, both spanning the whole biblical corpus (Aasgaard 2018; Lindeman Allen 2020c) and specific to the New Testament and its environs (Lindemann 2011; Vuolanto 2015; Aasgaard 2021; Lindeman Allen 2021a, 2021b) seek to address this diffusion of scholarship. Unfortunately, such work has frequently fallen short, especially with attention to research written in languages other than English and originating from scholars of the global South.…”

“…Nevertheless, it was not until the latter half of the twentieth century that children themselves received sustained attention in New Testament studies; and even later that the study of children in biblical texts, the New Testament included, began to grow at an accelerated rate. Several recent review essays trace the field’s development with attention to this latter growth (Aasgaard 2006, 2019; Gallagher Elkins and Parker 2016; Lindeman Allen 2020c; see also Bunge, Fretheim, and Gaventa 2008: xiv-xxvi; Lindeman Allen 2019a: xiv-xix; Lim 2021: 8-26), linking increased attention to the characterization and metaphorization of children in the New Testament with parallel studies of children in the Hebrew Bible and, in particular, the recent emergence of childist criticism as a distinct methodological and perspectival approach (Gallagher Elkins 2013; Gallagher Elkins and Parker 2016; Betsworth and Parker 2019; Garroway and Martens 2019b; Garroway 2020; Parker 2023).…”