Escobedo Saint John’s Bible Lecture: I Am Babylon: A Postcolonial Womanist Interpretation of the Woman Babylon in the Book of Revelation

The Escobedo Saint John’s Bible Lecture Series presents

I Am Babylon: A Postcolonial Womanist Interpretation of the Woman Babylon in the Book of Revelation
featuring Rev. Shanell T. Smith, Ph.D.

The woman Babylon in the Book of Revelation has had more than her share of violence, both in the Christian Bible, as well as in the scholarly writings about her text. Having the name, “Babylon,” she is automatically negatively perceived before one gets a chance to know her. Yet the woman Babylon is so much more than her name. She is so much more than a female-gendered metaphor for a city – representing the Roman Empire – that will be overturned by God’s Empire. She just may be more akin to us than we would ever dare to imagine. By reading the woman Babylon’s text from a postcolonial womanist perspective, the Reverend Dr. Shanell T. Smith (Ph.D.) will highlight the woman Babylon’s simultaneous ambivalent identification as a “brothel slavewoman” and as an “empress/imperial city.” She will then discuss how the woman Babylon incites tension within her because she reflects ever so sharply her continual conflicting reality of being simultaneously a victim of, and participant in, empire.

Register in advance for this virtual event.

About the Escobedo Saint John’s Bible Lecture Series

Thanks to a generous gift from former Board of Trustees Chairman Ruben Escobedo, a 1960 graduate of St. Mary’s, and his wife Veronica Salazar Escobedo, the Escobedo Saint John’s Bible Lecture Series was created and allows St. Mary’s University to share the remarkable illuminated pages with members of the St. Mary’s community, and faith communities from across Texas and the nation. Each year, through the Lecture Series, outstanding biblical scholars are invited to campus for a public presentation at St. Mary’s and at Holy Rosary Catholic Church adjacent to the campus. These presentations take advantage of and enhance our interdisciplinary campus and community learning, while connecting our students and community to the Saint John’s Bible currently on campus. They are also inclusive in nature, often reflecting on God’s revelation in dialogue between Catholic Christian scholarship and scripture of other traditions. The Escobedo lectures are often part of a larger program in collaboration with academic departments and student life programs, such as University Ministry and Community Engagement, pairing scholarly presentations of the Bible with other creative, intellectual, and spiritual endeavors.

For more information, visit www.stmarytx.edu/sjb-lecture-series.

Is This Event Open to the General Public?