AbstractThe introduction to this special issue reviews the articles collected and presented in the volume. After an overview of the contents, the chapter turns to a more refined discussion of the insights resulting from the collection. These insights concern the productivity as well as limitations of canonicity, the importance of contextuality, the embodied practice of masculinity and the subsequent need to acknowledge intersectionality, and finally, it problematizes the rhetoric of ‘tradition(al)’ or ‘biblical’ masculinity. Mapping the future of the study of biblical reception and masculinities, the introduction identifies key issues and areas for further research. These are the necessity of a greater emphasis on multidisciplinarity, the need to demonstrating hermeneutical self-awareness, and a broadening of the scope of the field to include the Qur’an and Muslim cultures as well as newly emerging forms of Christianity in the global South. These features are key to the study of the reception of biblical masculinities going forward.
The branding, marketing and embodied practice of contemporary yoga