In Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen author Susan Ackerman offers a keen analysis of the main types of women found in Judges, and looks to other biblical books and to ancient Near Eastern literature to demonstrate how these types recur elsewhere. The roles they play significantly impact other events in the Bible, and in the history of Israel.
This collection of essays, originating in the SBL International Meetings in Berlin (2002) and Cambridge (2003), explores the current reception of historical criticism in feminist biblical studies, pushing the boundaries of past study and opening new vistas for future research. By framing the discussion in the context of the current reevaluation of both historical criticism and feminist exegesis, the contributors highlight the ongoing need to engage methodological issues. In addition, a strong postcolonial emphasis throughout the volume challenges the hegemony of Western biblical interpretation, promoting a format of dialogue and engagement. The collection brings together diverse cultural and geographical perspectives on biblical criticism, with over ten countries represented. Consisting of Western and non-Western perspectives, female and male scholars, junior and senior voices in the field, and a range of feminist scholars situated alongside postcolonial and gender critics, this collection reveals not only the multiplicity of perspectives but also the various transitions in scholarship that have taken place over the past thirty years. Volume contributors include Roland Boer, Athalya Brenner, Ann Graham Brock, Kristin De Troyer, Esther Fuchs, Archie Chi Chung Lee, Joseph Marchal, John Marshall, Hjamil Martínez-Vázquez, Madipoane Masenya (ngwana Mphahlele), Judith McKinlay, Priscilla Geisterfer Nyvlt, Jorunn Økland, Todd Penner, Vernon Robbins, Susanne Scholz, Hanna Stenström, and Caroline Vander Stichele.Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org).
Feminist Theory and the Bible: Interrogating the Sources conceptualizes, contextualizes and maps a new kind of burgeoning scholarship that has grown up in recent decades. This scholarship emerged in the margins of Feminist Studies and Biblical Studies and has yet to find a foothold in either one of these more established contexts. In this book, Esther Fuchs argues that in order to find an enduring, stable place in the academe, this scholarship requires a theoretical perspective. Biblical Studies as a whole has not yet been sufficiently theorized as an academic field, and currently consists of multiple disciplines relying for the most part on traditional scholarly discourses. In this regard, Feminist Biblical Studies is both a departure from and an important supplement to both Feminist Studies and Biblical Studies.
A synthetic reconstruction of women’s religious engagement and experiences in preexilic Israel “This monumental book examines a wealth of data from the Bible, archaeology, and ancient Near Eastern texts and iconography to provide a clear, comprehensive, and compelling analysis of women’s religious lives in preexilic times.”—Carol Meyers, Duke University Throughout the biblical narrative, ancient Israelite religious life is dominated by male actors. When women appear, they are often seen only on the periphery: as tangential, accidental, or passive participants. However, despite their absence from the written record, they were often deeply involved in religious practice and ritual observance. In this new volume, Susan Ackerman presents a comprehensive account of ancient Israelite women’s religious lives and experiences. She examines the various sites of their practice, including household shrines, regional sanctuaries, and national temples; the calendar of religious rituals that women observed on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis; and their special roles in religious settings. Drawing on texts, archaeology, and material culture, and documenting the distinctions between Israelite women’s experiences and those of their male counterparts, Ackerman reconstructs an essential picture of women’s lived religion in ancient Israelite culture.
Toward the end of the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh King, Gilgamesh laments the untimely death of his comrade Enkidu, 'my friend whom I loved dearly'. This book examines the stories' sexual and homoerotic language and suggests that its ambiguity provides fresh ways of understanding ideas of gender and sexuality in the ancient Near East.
In this groundbreaking work to identify and address God’s absence in three key rape narratives in the Hebrew Bible, Leah Rediger Schulte finds a pattern that indicates a larger community crisis. With a careful look at Genesis 34, Judges 19, and 2 Samuel 13, this study outlines God’s absence, a foreign presence, and a persistent problem that is resolved incorrectly to highlight consequences of the Israelites breaking their covenant with God. Using methodologies from literary criticism and gender studies and situating rape in its historical context, this volume makes distinctions between modern constructs of rape and biblical rape. Commentaries and studies on rape in the Bible often read a modern understanding of the victim and rapist back into the biblical text, missing how it would have been understood in ancient Israel. These biblical rape scenes are intimately connected to and assist in telling the story of Israel’s history as a people and their covenantal relationship with their deity.
Although the Hebrew Bible as a whole is centered on God and God's relations with Israel, the character of God appears in most biblical stories only indirectly. How are modern readers to make sense of this paradox? God as an Absent Character in Biblical Hebrew Narrative establishes a set of literary methods that both academic and non-academic readers can use to understand the character of God, who is the single most important character in Hebrew Bible narrative and, strangely, absent from the majority of it.
This outstanding collection of essays, presented at the 2005 Wheaton Theology Conference, explores the current issue of women in ministry from biblical, theological and ecclesiological perspectives. Bringing to bear the ministerial and sociological insights on the issue, this impressive integrative work aims to break through the current impasse between complementarians and egalitarians. These essays point the way forward for women and men in ministry in our churches. Contributors include Henri Blocher, Timothy George, James Hamilton, I. Howard Marshall, Cheryl J. Sanders, Sarah Sumner and Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen
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.