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A Question of Sex? Gender and Difference in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond
Published: Dec 2009
Price range: £16.50 through £20.00
Gender differences between men and women are not just a matter of sexual differentiation; the roles that men and women play are also socially and culturally determined, in ancient Israel and post-biblical Judaism as in every other context.
That is the theme of these ten studies. The first part of the volume examines the gender definitions and roles that can be identified in the Hebrew Bible's legal and ritual texts. The second part uses archaeological and anthropological perspectives to interrogate the biblical text and the society that formed it on issues of gender. The third part explores similar gender issues in a range of material outside the Hebrew Bible, from the Apocrypha through Josephus and Philo down to mediaeval Jewish marriage contracts (ketubbot).
Among the questions here discussed are: Why are men, but not women, required to bathe in order to achieve ritual purity after incurring certain types of defilement? What understandings of masculinity and femininity underlie the regulations about incest? Was ancient Israel simply a patriarchal society, or were there more complex dynamics of power in which women as well as men were involved? What do post-biblical re-interpretations of the female figures of Wisdom and Folly in Proverbs 1 —9 suggest about heterosexual masculinity? And what kind of rights did mediaeval Middle-Eastern Jewish women have within their marriage relationships?
This is the first volume in the sub-series King's College London Studies in the Bible and Gender. The second is Embroidered Garments: Priests and Gender in Biblical Israel (2009).
Sale
A Question of Sex? Gender and Difference in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond
Price range: £16.50 through £20.00
Gender differences between men and women are not just a matter of sexual differentiation; the roles that men and women play are also socially and culturally determined, in ancient Israel and post-biblical Judaism as in every other context.
That is the theme of these ten studies. The first part of the volume examines the gender definitions and roles that can be identified in the Hebrew Bible's legal and ritual texts. The second part uses archaeological and anthropological perspectives to interrogate the biblical text and the society that formed it on issues of gender. The third part explores similar gender issues in a range of material outside the Hebrew Bible, from the Apocrypha through Josephus and Philo down to mediaeval Jewish marriage contracts (ketubbot).
Among the questions here discussed are: Why are men, but not women, required to bathe in order to achieve ritual purity after incurring certain types of defilement? What understandings of masculinity and femininity underlie the regulations about incest? Was ancient Israel simply a patriarchal society, or were there more complex dynamics of power in which women as well as men were involved? What do post-biblical re-interpretations of the female figures of Wisdom and Folly in Proverbs 1 —9 suggest about heterosexual masculinity? And what kind of rights did mediaeval Middle-Eastern Jewish women have within their marriage relationships?
This is the first volume in the sub-series King's College London Studies in the Bible and Gender. The second is Embroidered Garments: Priests and Gender in Biblical Israel (2009).
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From the Margins 2: Women of the New Testament and Their Afterlives
Published: Oct 2009
Original price was: £60.00.£20.00Current price is: £20.00.
Despite half a century of biblical interpretation that has sought to put women back on the agenda of ancient texts (written largely if not wholly by men), the dominant threads of narrative and doctrine have —with the notable exception of Mary the mother of Jesus —been focused on the lives and actions of men. Reception history tells a different story. It is not the case that there is a recovery of the lives of women hidden behind the pages of the New Testament, for our information remains as sparse and tantalizing as ever. Rather, the study of biblical women's 'afterlives' allows the imaginative engagement of artists and writers to broaden the horizon of interpretative expectations. Whether it is through historical imagination or the grasp of different portrayals of familiar biblical women (like Mary the mother of Jesus or Mary Magdalene), the creative genius of these interpreters, neglected by mainstream biblical textual scholars, only underlines the importance of the biblical women, viewed in the light of their afterlives.
This volume has its origins in a project entitled 'Biblical Women and their Afterlives' conceived and developed by the Centre for Reception History of the Bible at the University of Oxford and organized together with colleagues from the Luce Program in Scripture and Literary Arts at Boston University, USA. This project resulted not only in the present interdisciplinary collection of 21 essays (with their 66 illustrations) but also its companion volume From the Margins 1: Women of the Hebrew Bible and their Afterlives , edited by Peter S. Hawkins and Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg.
The present volume includes the specially commissioned poem 'To Cast a Stone' by the acclaimed Irish poet John F. Deane.
Sale
From the Margins 2: Women of the New Testament and Their Afterlives
Original price was: £60.00.£20.00Current price is: £20.00.
Despite half a century of biblical interpretation that has sought to put women back on the agenda of ancient texts (written largely if not wholly by men), the dominant threads of narrative and doctrine have —with the notable exception of Mary the mother of Jesus —been focused on the lives and actions of men. Reception history tells a different story. It is not the case that there is a recovery of the lives of women hidden behind the pages of the New Testament, for our information remains as sparse and tantalizing as ever. Rather, the study of biblical women's 'afterlives' allows the imaginative engagement of artists and writers to broaden the horizon of interpretative expectations. Whether it is through historical imagination or the grasp of different portrayals of familiar biblical women (like Mary the mother of Jesus or Mary Magdalene), the creative genius of these interpreters, neglected by mainstream biblical textual scholars, only underlines the importance of the biblical women, viewed in the light of their afterlives.
This volume has its origins in a project entitled 'Biblical Women and their Afterlives' conceived and developed by the Centre for Reception History of the Bible at the University of Oxford and organized together with colleagues from the Luce Program in Scripture and Literary Arts at Boston University, USA. This project resulted not only in the present interdisciplinary collection of 21 essays (with their 66 illustrations) but also its companion volume From the Margins 1: Women of the Hebrew Bible and their Afterlives , edited by Peter S. Hawkins and Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg.
The present volume includes the specially commissioned poem 'To Cast a Stone' by the acclaimed Irish poet John F. Deane.
Sale
Embroidered Garments: Priests and Gender in Biblical Israel
Published: Oct 2009
Original price was: £45.00.£19.50Current price is: £19.50.
This collection of essays, the proceedings of an international conference held at King's College London in 2008, explores issues in the construction of gender that appear in the Hebrew Bible both in relation to priesthood itself and in literature with a priestly world-view (the P source, Chronicles, Ezra —Nehemiah, Ezekiel). Topics covered include female religious functionaries and their absence from the Hebrew Bible, masculinity and femininity as seen through the lens of priestly purity legislation, priestly genealogies as an expression of Jacques Derrida's 'archive fever', the definition of masculinity that is evidenced by priests' clothing, and the marginalization of women in priestly ideologies of nationality and kinship.
This is the second volume in the sub-series King's College London Studies in the Bible and Gender. The first was A Question of Sex: Gender and Difference in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond (2007).
Sale
Embroidered Garments: Priests and Gender in Biblical Israel
Original price was: £45.00.£19.50Current price is: £19.50.
This collection of essays, the proceedings of an international conference held at King's College London in 2008, explores issues in the construction of gender that appear in the Hebrew Bible both in relation to priesthood itself and in literature with a priestly world-view (the P source, Chronicles, Ezra —Nehemiah, Ezekiel). Topics covered include female religious functionaries and their absence from the Hebrew Bible, masculinity and femininity as seen through the lens of priestly purity legislation, priestly genealogies as an expression of Jacques Derrida's 'archive fever', the definition of masculinity that is evidenced by priests' clothing, and the marginalization of women in priestly ideologies of nationality and kinship.
This is the second volume in the sub-series King's College London Studies in the Bible and Gender. The first was A Question of Sex: Gender and Difference in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond (2007).
Sale
Women in the Pentateuch: A Feminist and Source-Critical Analysis
Published: Aug 2009
Original price was: £50.00.£16.50Current price is: £16.50.
For the first time, literary source criticism and feminist biblical interpretation are here brought together systematically. Taking into account recent trends in Pentateuchal source criticism, Shectman divides the narrative into priestly and non-priestly threads, tracing the portrayal of women in each. In both sources, as Moses comes to the fore, women recede increasingly into the background, with the result that far fewer women appear in Exodus —Numbers than appear in Genesis.
A stark contrast between the sources also emerges from this study: non-P contains many more fully developed narrative traditions focused on women, particularly those involving childbirth, pointing to an original genre of narratives unique to biblical women. However, with the combination of traditions in the Pentateuch, these traditions are absorbed into the patriarchal ones, culminating in Genesis 17, P's programmatic statement of the promise and covenant. P significantly limits the roles of women that were preserved in non-P. This difference between the sources is primarily the result of increased centralization: whereas the non-P material reflects a period before centralization had become entrenched, in P, centralization has taken hold, with the result that women's roles are more limited.
In addition to a new and detailed source-critical analysis of women in the Pentateuch, this book also provides a detailed overview of feminist biblical criticism, from the work of Elizabeth Cady Stanton up to the present, which will be useful for those interested in the history of biblical, particularly feminist, interpretation.
Sale
Women in the Pentateuch: A Feminist and Source-Critical Analysis
Original price was: £50.00.£16.50Current price is: £16.50.
For the first time, literary source criticism and feminist biblical interpretation are here brought together systematically. Taking into account recent trends in Pentateuchal source criticism, Shectman divides the narrative into priestly and non-priestly threads, tracing the portrayal of women in each. In both sources, as Moses comes to the fore, women recede increasingly into the background, with the result that far fewer women appear in Exodus —Numbers than appear in Genesis.
A stark contrast between the sources also emerges from this study: non-P contains many more fully developed narrative traditions focused on women, particularly those involving childbirth, pointing to an original genre of narratives unique to biblical women. However, with the combination of traditions in the Pentateuch, these traditions are absorbed into the patriarchal ones, culminating in Genesis 17, P's programmatic statement of the promise and covenant. P significantly limits the roles of women that were preserved in non-P. This difference between the sources is primarily the result of increased centralization: whereas the non-P material reflects a period before centralization had become entrenched, in P, centralization has taken hold, with the result that women's roles are more limited.
In addition to a new and detailed source-critical analysis of women in the Pentateuch, this book also provides a detailed overview of feminist biblical criticism, from the work of Elizabeth Cady Stanton up to the present, which will be useful for those interested in the history of biblical, particularly feminist, interpretation.
Sale
Recent Research on the Major Prophets
Published: Oct 2008
Original price was: £60.00.£16.50Current price is: £16.50.
Given the many new methods and approaches for interpreting biblical literature that have appeared in the past several decades, it is hardly surprising that our understanding of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel has expanded and diversified at a rapid pace. Historical-critical understandings and perspectives have been challenged and often dramatically altered. New approaches, such as social-scientific criticism, rhetorical criticism, feminist criticism, reader response criticism, literary analysis, anthropological analysis, structuralist criticism, ideological criticism, and deconstructionist criticism have both challenged old approaches and shed new light on the texts being studied.
In this volume, Alan Hauser presents eleven articles, each with an extensive bibliography, that survey the variety and depth of recent and contemporary scholarship on these three prophets. Five of them are new to this volume. All are written by experts in each area of scholarship, including Marvin Sweeney, Paul Kim, Roy Melugin, Robert P. Carroll, Peter Diamond, Katheryn Pfisterer Darr and Risa Levitt Kohn. Hauser introduces the volume with a comprehensive summary and overview of the articles.
Sale
Recent Research on the Major Prophets
Original price was: £60.00.£16.50Current price is: £16.50.
Given the many new methods and approaches for interpreting biblical literature that have appeared in the past several decades, it is hardly surprising that our understanding of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel has expanded and diversified at a rapid pace. Historical-critical understandings and perspectives have been challenged and often dramatically altered. New approaches, such as social-scientific criticism, rhetorical criticism, feminist criticism, reader response criticism, literary analysis, anthropological analysis, structuralist criticism, ideological criticism, and deconstructionist criticism have both challenged old approaches and shed new light on the texts being studied.
In this volume, Alan Hauser presents eleven articles, each with an extensive bibliography, that survey the variety and depth of recent and contemporary scholarship on these three prophets. Five of them are new to this volume. All are written by experts in each area of scholarship, including Marvin Sweeney, Paul Kim, Roy Melugin, Robert P. Carroll, Peter Diamond, Katheryn Pfisterer Darr and Risa Levitt Kohn. Hauser introduces the volume with a comprehensive summary and overview of the articles.
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With Eyes of Flesh: The Bible, Gender and Human Rights
Published: Aug 2008
Price range: £13.50 through £22.00
Carole Fontaine, well known among biblical scholars for her feminist studies in the biblical wisdom traditions and the ancient Near East, is also a human rights and interfaith activist working on issues of violence against Muslim women in the Middle East and Southern Asia and a board member of many agencies such as the International Network for the Rights of Female Victims of Violence in Pakistan, and the Women's Forum against Fundamentalism in Iran.
In this collection of her essays, mostly previously unpublished, she brings together these two concerns, distilling from the scriptures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam valuable insights into current questions of human rights. Unlike many writers, Fontaine recognizes the critical role of gender in the fundamental concept of the 'Other', so determinative for our view of humanity.
In our days, Fontaine argues, human rights issues have taken on a new dimension in political discourse about war, peace and terror, where often an appeal is made to religious and scriptural justifications for the violation or preservation of rights. Fontaine urges attention to the priority of the sufferer in adjudicating meaning, and turns to the 'little texts' of daily ethics rather than grand theological abstractions in order to place 'scriptures' in meaningful conversation with the concrete realities of our world.
This is the second volume of the Amsterdam Studies in the Bible and Religion (ed. Athalya Brenner), a sub-series of the Bible in the Moden World.
Sale
With Eyes of Flesh: The Bible, Gender and Human Rights
Price range: £13.50 through £22.00
Carole Fontaine, well known among biblical scholars for her feminist studies in the biblical wisdom traditions and the ancient Near East, is also a human rights and interfaith activist working on issues of violence against Muslim women in the Middle East and Southern Asia and a board member of many agencies such as the International Network for the Rights of Female Victims of Violence in Pakistan, and the Women's Forum against Fundamentalism in Iran.
In this collection of her essays, mostly previously unpublished, she brings together these two concerns, distilling from the scriptures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam valuable insights into current questions of human rights. Unlike many writers, Fontaine recognizes the critical role of gender in the fundamental concept of the 'Other', so determinative for our view of humanity.
In our days, Fontaine argues, human rights issues have taken on a new dimension in political discourse about war, peace and terror, where often an appeal is made to religious and scriptural justifications for the violation or preservation of rights. Fontaine urges attention to the priority of the sufferer in adjudicating meaning, and turns to the 'little texts' of daily ethics rather than grand theological abstractions in order to place 'scriptures' in meaningful conversation with the concrete realities of our world.
This is the second volume of the Amsterdam Studies in the Bible and Religion (ed. Athalya Brenner), a sub-series of the Bible in the Moden World.
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Marxist Feminist Criticism of the Bible
Published: Jun 2008
Original price was: £40.00.£18.50Current price is: £18.50.
This volume seeks to spur a lively discussion on Marxist feminist analysis of biblical texts. Marxism and feminism have many mutual concerns, and the combination of the two has become common in literary criticism, cultural studies, sociology and philosophy. So it is high time for biblical studies to become interested.
This collection is the first of its kind in biblical studies, bringing together a mixture of newer and more mature voices. It falls into three sections: general concerns (Milena Kirova, Tamara Prosic and David Jobling); Hebrew Bible (Gale Yee and Avaren Ipsen); New Testament (Alan Cadwallader, Jorunn Økland, Roland Boer and Jennifer Bird).
Thought-provoking and daring, the collection includes: the history of Marxist feminist analysis, the work of Bertolt Brecht, the voices of prostitute collectives, and the possibilities for biblical criticism of the work of Rosemary Hennessy, Simone de Beauvoir, Juliet Mitchell, Wilhelm Reich and Julia Kristeva. All of which are brought to bear on biblical texts such as Proverbs, 1 Kings, Mark, Paul's Letters, and 1 Peter.
Sale
Marxist Feminist Criticism of the Bible
Original price was: £40.00.£18.50Current price is: £18.50.
This volume seeks to spur a lively discussion on Marxist feminist analysis of biblical texts. Marxism and feminism have many mutual concerns, and the combination of the two has become common in literary criticism, cultural studies, sociology and philosophy. So it is high time for biblical studies to become interested.
This collection is the first of its kind in biblical studies, bringing together a mixture of newer and more mature voices. It falls into three sections: general concerns (Milena Kirova, Tamara Prosic and David Jobling); Hebrew Bible (Gale Yee and Avaren Ipsen); New Testament (Alan Cadwallader, Jorunn Økland, Roland Boer and Jennifer Bird).
Thought-provoking and daring, the collection includes: the history of Marxist feminist analysis, the work of Bertolt Brecht, the voices of prostitute collectives, and the possibilities for biblical criticism of the work of Rosemary Hennessy, Simone de Beauvoir, Juliet Mitchell, Wilhelm Reich and Julia Kristeva. All of which are brought to bear on biblical texts such as Proverbs, 1 Kings, Mark, Paul's Letters, and 1 Peter.
Sale
The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives, Expanded Twentieth Anniversary Edition
Published: Oct 2006
Price range: £17.00 through £19.50
This work of impeccable New Testament scholarship was a sensation when it was first published in 1987. Jane Schaberg argued that Matthew and Luke were aware that Jesus had been conceived illegitimately, probably as a result of a rape of Mary, and had left in their Gospels some hints of that knowledge, even though their main purpose was to explore the theological significance of Jesus' birth. By having the Messiah born out of the exploitation of a woman of the poor, God demonstrates the vindication of the oppressed in a truly miraculous manner. Exegetical precision, theological passion, and an exquisite prose style are combined in this landmark book, whose importance is yet to be fully recognized.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the book and its author were vilified, even though scholarly reviewers found much to praise in it, and it still features on many classroom reading lists. For this Anniversary Edition, we have added Schaberg's own disturbing account of the reception of the book, and two extensive responses--one respectfully dissenting, one fully supportive--from other New Testament scholars.
Sale
The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives, Expanded Twentieth Anniversary Edition
Price range: £17.00 through £19.50
This work of impeccable New Testament scholarship was a sensation when it was first published in 1987. Jane Schaberg argued that Matthew and Luke were aware that Jesus had been conceived illegitimately, probably as a result of a rape of Mary, and had left in their Gospels some hints of that knowledge, even though their main purpose was to explore the theological significance of Jesus' birth. By having the Messiah born out of the exploitation of a woman of the poor, God demonstrates the vindication of the oppressed in a truly miraculous manner. Exegetical precision, theological passion, and an exquisite prose style are combined in this landmark book, whose importance is yet to be fully recognized.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the book and its author were vilified, even though scholarly reviewers found much to praise in it, and it still features on many classroom reading lists. For this Anniversary Edition, we have added Schaberg's own disturbing account of the reception of the book, and two extensive responses--one respectfully dissenting, one fully supportive--from other New Testament scholars.
Sale
Reframing Her: Biblical Women in Postcolonial Focus
Published: Jun 2006
Price range: £13.95 through £15.95
How does one read the story of Sarah and Hagar, or Jezebel and Rahab today, if one is a woman reader situated in a postcolonial society?
This is the question undergirding this work, which considers a selection of biblical texts in which women have significant roles. Employing both a gender and a postcolonial lens, it asks sharp questions both of the interests embedded in the texts themselves and of their impact upon contemporary women readers.
Whereas most postcolonial studies have been undertaken from the perspective of the colonized this work reads the texts from the position of a settler descendant, and is an attempt to engage with the disquietening and challenging questions that reading from such a location raises. Letters from early settler women in New Zealand, contemporary fiction, and personal reminiscence become tools for the task, complementing those traditionally employed in critical biblical readings.
Sale
Reframing Her: Biblical Women in Postcolonial Focus
Price range: £13.95 through £15.95
How does one read the story of Sarah and Hagar, or Jezebel and Rahab today, if one is a woman reader situated in a postcolonial society?
This is the question undergirding this work, which considers a selection of biblical texts in which women have significant roles. Employing both a gender and a postcolonial lens, it asks sharp questions both of the interests embedded in the texts themselves and of their impact upon contemporary women readers.
Whereas most postcolonial studies have been undertaken from the perspective of the colonized this work reads the texts from the position of a settler descendant, and is an attempt to engage with the disquietening and challenging questions that reading from such a location raises. Letters from early settler women in New Zealand, contemporary fiction, and personal reminiscence become tools for the task, complementing those traditionally employed in critical biblical readings.
Nahum, Second Edition
Nahum, Second Edition