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In April of 2001, the headline in the Los Angeles Times read, “Doubting the Story of the Exodus.” It covered a sermon that had been delivered by the rabbi of a prominent local congregation over the holiday of Passover. In it, he said, “The truth is that virtually every modern archeologist who has investigated the story of the exodus, with very few exceptions, agrees that the way the Bible describes the exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all.” This seeming challenge to the biblical story captivated the local public. Yet as the rabbi himself acknowledged, his sermon contained nothing new. The theories that he described had been common knowledge among biblical scholars...
Women in the Hebrew Bible presents the first one-volume overview covering the interpretation of women's place in man's world within the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. Written by the major scholars in the field of biblical studies and literary theory, these essays examine attitudes toward women and their status in ancient Near Eastern societies, focusing on the Israelite society portrayed by the Hebrew Bible.
This book sheds new light on the women in the Fourth Gospel. Unlike most works that approach the topic from a historical-critical perspective, this book approaches the topic from a historical-literary perspective and attempts to illustrate for the modern reader how a first-century reader would have understood the characterizations of the women, given first-century cultural and literary norms and the theology of the implied author. The thesis of this book is that the primary purpose of the women in the Fourth Gospel is to support the portrayal of Jesus as the Messianic Bridegroom and further the plot of Jesus' giving the people the power to become children of God (John 1:12). This historical-literary analysis exposes a highly androcentric and patriarchal text, which leads the author in the end to question current assumptions that behind the text exists a community or school whose egalitarianism extended to women.
Established as an academic field in the 1970s, women's studies is a relatively young but rapidly growing area of study. Not only has the number of scholars working in this subject expanded exponentially, but women's studies has become institutionalized, offering graduate degrees and taking on departmental status in many colleges and universities. At the same time, this field--formed in the wake of the feminist movement--is finding itself in a precarious position in what is now often called a "post-feminist" society. This raises challenging issues for faculty, students, and administrators. How must the field adjust its goals and methods to continue to affect change in the future? Bringing tog...
This interdisciplinary commentary ranges from early midrashic interpretation to contemporary rewritings introducing interpretations of the only biblical book not to mention God. Unearths a wealth of neglected rewritings inspired by the story’s relevance to themes of nationhood, rebellion, providence, revenge, female heroism, Jewish identity, exile, genocide and ‘multiculturalism’ Reveals the various struggles and strategies used by religious commentators to make sense of this only biblical book that does not mention God Asks why Esther is underestimated by contemporary feminist scholars despite a long history of subversive rewritings Compares the most influential Jewish and Christian interpretations and interpreters Includes an introduction to the book’s myriad representations in literature, music, and art Published in the reception-history series, Blackwell Bible Commentaries
This book is for anyone interested in religious studies and women's studies, as well as for biblical scholars. It offers a feminist oppositional reading of the biblical text. The main argument is that the Bible constructs a fictional universe in which women are shown to be intent on promoting male interests, and, for the most part, appear as secondary characters whose voice and point of view are often suppressed. In their limited roles as mothers, wives, daughters and sisters, women are constructed as male-dependent pawns intent on securing the status of their male counterparts. The Biblical narrative highlights the contribution of women as reproductive agents and protectors of sons. In this challenging collection of essays, Fuchs focuses on type-scenes as a way of demonstrating the mechanisms by which the texts validates male power and superiority. She also deconstructs the Biblical sexual politics by asking whose interest is being served by the 'good' women of the Bible.Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement series, Volume 310.
In this volume, Brian Charles DiPalma examines masculinities in the court tales of Daniel as a test case for issues facing the burgeoning area of gender studies in the Hebrew Bible. In doing so, it both analyses how the court tales of Daniel portray the characters in terms of configurations of masculinity in their socio-historical context, and also seeks to advance gender studies in the Hebrew Bible on theoretical, methodological, and political grounds. Masculinities in the Court Tales of Daniel is therefore of interest not only to scholars working on Daniel, but also biblical scholars studying gender in the Hebrew Bible more broadly, including those engaged in feminist criticism, queer criticism, and studies of masculinity, as well as anyone studying gender within an ancient Near Eastern context.
Although women constitute half of the Jewish population and have always played essential roles in ensuring Jewish continuity and the preservation of Jewish beliefs and values, only recently have their contributions and achievements received sustained scholarly attention. Scholars have begun to investigate Jewish women’s domestic, economic, intellectual, spiritual, and creative roles in Jewish life from biblical times to the present. Yet little of this important work has filtered down beyond specialists in their respective academic fields. Women and Judaism brings the broad new insights they have uncovered to the world. Women and Judaism communicates this research to a wider public of stude...
The book of Judges is replete with female figurations, and has, therefore, received a lot of attention from feminist critics. This volume of essays, however, changes the motivation behind this apparent centrality of female figures, claiming that in fact strong androcentric premises underlie the texts. The overall theme of this sparkling collection focusses on wives, daughters and mothers, and their relationships. An introductory section surveys the women of Judges, investigation satire, paradigm and deviation and the midrashic sources; Brenner and Van Dyck investigate the story and song of Deborah; Fuchs and Exum turn their attention to Jephthah's daughter; Amit and Reinhartz look at women in the Samson story. Finally, three essays, including one by Mieke Bal, deal with the brutal finale of the book in chapters 19-21.
Multifaceted insights into female life in prophetic contexts Both prophets and prophetesses shared God’s divine will with the people of Israel, yet the voices of these women were often forgotten due to later prohibitions against women teaching in public. This latest volume of the Bible and Women series focuses on the intersection of gender and prophecy in the Former Prophets (Joshua to 2 Kings) as well as in the Latter Prophets of the Hebrew Bible. Essays examine how women appear in the iconography of the ancient world, the historical background of the phenomenon of prophecy, political and religious resistance by women in the biblical text, and gender symbolism and constructions in prophetic material as well as the metaphorical discourse of God. Contributors Michaela Bauks, Athalya Brenner-Idan, Ora Brison, L. Juliana Claassens, Marta García Fernández, Irmtraud Fischer, Maria Häusl, Rainer Kessler, Nancy C. Lee, Hanne Løland Levinson, Christl M. Maier, Ilse Müllner, Martti Nissinen, Ombretta Pettigiani, Ruth Poser, Benedetta Rossi, Silvia Schroer, and Omer Sergi draw insight into the texts from a range of innovative gender-oriented approaches.