Burning Bush
Or, Queering Bush’s Bible
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/post.v2i1.97Keywords:
nature, culture, religionAbstract
George W. Bush links the call of Moses at the burning bush (Exod. 3) to his decision to run for US President. This article uses Bush’s appeal to Moses as a point of departure for reflection on the role of biblical rhetoric in and against the Bush Administration. Much attention has been given to the importance of religion in Bush’s 2004 reelection. However, Bush’s appeal to Moses provides openings for potentially subversive readings. Although the politics of marriage (especially as refracted through the “gay marriage” debates) played a role in Bush’s re-election, Moses’ own marriage is a source of contention in the biblical text; and matters of sex and gender create moments of potential instability at several points in the Moses traditions. The claims made about “Bible” by Bush and his supporters are performative rather than constative statements. Like the phrase “Burning Bush” itself, Bush’s Bible therefore remains open for resignification by those who read the Bible for very different purposes.
References
Brenner, Athalya. 2005. I Am…: Biblical Women Tell Their Own Stories. Minneapolis: Fortress.
Bush, George W. 1999. A Charge to Keep. New York: William Morrow & Company.
Butler, Judith. 1993. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex”. New York and London: Routledge.
———. 1997. Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative. New York: Routledge.
———. 1999 [1990]. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. 10th Anniversary Edition. New York: Routledge.
Childs, Brevard S. 1974. The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary. Philadelphia: Westminster.
Derrida, Jacques. 1981. Positions. Trans. Alan Bass. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard. 1994. God’s Phallus: And Other Problems for Men and Monotheism. Boston: Beacon.
Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. 2002. Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of Their Stories. New York: Schocken.
Fuss, Diana. 1991. “Inside/Out.” In Inside/Out: Lesbian Theories, Gay Theories, ed. Diana Fuss, 1–10. New York: Routledge.
Gilmore, David D. 1990. Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity. New York: Yale University Press.
Goldstein, Richard. 2003. “Bush’s Basket: Why The President Had to Show His Balls.” The Village Voice, May 21–27. http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0321,goldstein,44234,1;html.
Hall, Robert G. 1992. “Circumcision.” In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman, 1:1025–31. 6 vols. New York: Doubleday.
Houtman, C. 1983. “Exodus 4:24–26 and Its Interpretation.” Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 11:81–103.
Ivins, Molly, and Lou Dubose. 2000. Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush. New York: Random House.
“Jesusland.” n.d. http://www.jesusland.com. Accessed 10 July 2005.
Jobling, David. 1998. 1 Samuel. Berit Olam Commentary. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press.
Kanoy, Bill. n.d. “Moses and Zipporah.” http://www.preacherscorner.org/kanoy4/htm. Accessed 21 July 2005.
Kengor, Paul. 2004. God and George W. Bush. New York: HarperCollins.
Kugel, James. 1998. Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible As It Was at the Start of the Common Era. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Laclau, Ernesto. 1990. New Reflections on the Revolutions of Our Time. London: Verso.
Mansfield, Stephen. 2003. The Faith of George W. Bush. New York: Penguin.
Mitchell, Andrea. 2005. “All The President’s Women.” NBC Evening News, October 7.
Pardes, Ilana. 1992. Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Propp, William H. C. 1999. Exodus 1–18: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible Commentary. New York: Doubleday.
Sarna, Nahum. 1991. Exodus. The JPS Torah Commentary. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America.
Sasson, Jack M. 1966. “Circumcision in the Ancient Near East.” Journal of Biblical Literature 85:473–76.
Stone, Ken. 2005. Practicing Safer Texts: Food, Sex and Bible in Queer Perspective. London: T. & T. Clark.
