Authors: Lillian R. Klein
ISBN-13: 9780800635923, ISBN-10: 0800635922
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Augsburg Fortress, Publishers
Date Published: April 2003
Edition: (Non-applicable)
The Hebrew Bible's fascinating narratives about women have occasioned some of the most important biblical scholarship of the last generation. Lillian Klein contributes to that wealth with her absorbing studies of key figures in the narrative material: Deborah, Jephtha's daughter, Delilah, Jael, the whore of Gaza, Kaleb's daughter Achsah, Hannah, Esther, the wife of Job, David's wife Michal, and Bathsheba. With a marvelous eye for the telling detail-or its absence-Klein examines the biblical portraits, often unfortunately brief, of these women and the dynamics of gender, power, and honor at work in their stories.
A remarkably lucid and careful scholar, Klein has surfaced the underlying and ironic ideals of womanhood in a society that both honored and marginalized women in stories of seduction and rivalry, deviation and obedience, public shame and private power.
Preface | ||
Introduction | 1 | |
1 | Wives and Daughters in the Book of Judges | 9 |
2 | Deborah and Jael: Audacious Female Role Models? | 33 |
3 | Hannah: Marginalized Victim and Social Redeemer | 41 |
4 | Bathsheba Revealed | 55 |
5 | Job and the Womb | 73 |
6 | Michal, the Barren Wife | 85 |
7 | Honor and Shame in the Book of Esther | 95 |
Abbreviations | 119 | |
Notes | 121 | |
Scripture Index | 143 | |
Subject and Author Index | 147 |