Queering the Ethiopian eunuch

"Were eunuchs castrated guardians of the harem, or were they trusted court officials who may never have been castrated? Was the Ethiopian eunuch a Jew or a Gentile, a slave or a free man? Why does Luke call him a "man" while contemporaries referred to eunuchs as "unmanned" beings? Examining a volatile figure in a key place in the narrative of Luke-Acts, Sean D. Burke pulls at questions that have received dramatically different answers over the centuries of Christian interpretation, showing that eunuchs bore particular stereotyped associations regarding gender and sexual status as well as of race, ethnicity, and class. In this innovative book, Burke argues that Luke intended to "queer" his readers expectations to present the boundary-transgressing potentiality of a new community."--Page 4 of cover.