Deathless: The Complete, Uncensored, Heartbreaking, and Amazing Autobiography of Serach bat Asher, the Oldest Woman in the World

by Andrew Ramer, Amichai Lau-Lavie (Foreword by)

Overview

She's more than 3,000 years old. Her grandfather was the patriarch Jacob. She's mentioned by name three times in the Hebrew Bible, but there are no stories told about her. She knew Moses and David, Spinoza and Einstein--and now, at long last, Serach bat Asher has written her autobiography. "I was born in a tent," Serach tells us, a woman long silenced by history. She is feisty, funny, and bitter. The stories she tells about what really happened to her and her family will make you laugh and cry and maybe even rage against her, the oldest woman in the world, now living two blocks from the beach in Los Angeles.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781532612039
Publisher:	Wipf & Stock Publishers
Publication date:	01/22/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Andrew Elias Ramer is the author of Torah Told Different: Stories for a Pan/Poly/Post Denominational World; Queering the Text: Biblical, Medieval, and Modern Jewish Stories, and a co-author of the international best seller Ask Your Angels. The world’s first ordained interfaith maggid (sacred story teller), he lives in Oakland, California.

Eli Andrew Ramer is the author of several books from Wipf and Stock including Ever After, a queer extension of the lives of 11 famous writers, Revelations for a New Millennium, and five books of Jewish stories: Texting with Angels, Queering the Text, Torah Told Different, Deathless, and Fragments of the Brooklyn Talmud. He's a co-author of the international best seller Ask Your Angels and the author of Angel Answers. An ordained maggid (sacred storyteller in the Jewish tradition) he lives in Oakland, California up the street from an amusement park called Fairyland. For more information on his writing and teaching please visit his website -

www.andrewramer.com

Table of Contents

Foreword Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie xi

The Family Tree of Serach bat Asher xiv

Chapter 1 In which I introduce myself and begin my ancient story 1

Chapter 2 In which I continue my tale and introduce you to our earliest ancestors 7

Chapter 3 In which you will learn the long-forgotten story of what really happened to Isaac 17

Chapter 4 In which the author reveals one of the major lost secrets of her people 27

Chapter 5 Here the author finally tells you, her dear and patient readers, the story of her birth and of her early years in a tent 40

Chapter 6 Having entered the story herself, the author goes on to tell you more about her family and about their going down to Egypt 49

Chapter 7 Here the author informs you of what happened to our people in Egypt, and how we finally left there 60

Chapter 8 The first wilderness year, Mount Sinai, revelation, and everything that happened to us there 74

Chapter 9 In this the ninth chapter you will learn all about Sinai, where it was, and several other things you may not want to know 82

Chapter 10 Now you will learn everything else that's important about the time we spent in the wilderness 94

Chapter 11 In which your author continues with her tale, from the death of Moses into the time of Joshua and beyond 104

Chapter 12 In which the author goes on with her narrative, from the time of the judges to the cusp of the era of kings 110

Chapter 13 The beginning of the monarchy in Israel and Judah, with a few personal revelations that may delight and/or surprise you 116

Chapter 14 More about David and Solomon, and a painful personal revelation (made for the very first time ever) 123

Chapter 15 The story continued, the death of Solomon, the breakup of the united kingdom, and what followed 129

Chapter 16 Here your weary guide continues her adventures, and shares with you a few favorite stories 138

Chapter 17 Travel with the author and share a few more adventures, one or two of which may be surprising, or not 146

Chapter 18 In which your guide through history tells you a few more stories about war, and texts, and rival sects 151

Chapter 19 Race through history with your narrator from the destruction of the second temple almost until the present moment 159

Chapter 20 Three and more thousand years later, your weary narrator completes her saga, bringing you right up to the present moment (more or less) 169

Afterword 187

Books Andrew Ramer 189

Acknowledgements 191

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“‘Fiction,’ says Andrew Ramer in this remarkable book, provides ‘a marvelous mirror of the soul.’ And, once again, Ramer has produced a profoundly soulful work packed with insight, pathos, and memorable interplay between ancient and contemporary wisdom.”

—Steven J. Zipperstein, Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History, Stanford University



“In this imaginatively recounted story, Andrew Ramer offers a cinematic retelling of one biblical woman, Serach bat Asher. He extends our arc of history through this ‘memoir’—a beautifully written first-person account of a very sage and prescient woman. Suspending our literal understanding of Torah, we hear Serach stretch and spin a tale of forgotten stories.”

—Susan Berrin, Editor-in-Chief of Sh’ma Now: A Journal of Jewish Sensibilities



“Ramer takes us on a delightful romp through the Hebrew Bible, filling in the missing stories of women and LGBT biblical figures. Along the way, he has important things to say about the meaning of inherited tradition and the power of reinterpretation and reinvention.”

—Judith Plaskow, Author of Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective



“Deathless is a radical reimagining of the Hebrew Bible as it has come down to us, ‘another Torah,’ reintegrating the voice of our now almost invisible female lineage and the suppressed Israelite Goddess religion of the ancient world. Andrew Ramer’s epic of the life of Serach bat Asher will pique your curiosity, smash your sacred cows, make you laugh in surprise, and pierce your heart.”

—Risa Wallach, Cantor at Congregation B’nai Shalom in Walnut Creek, California

Editorial Reviews

‘Fiction,’ says Andrew Ramer in this remarkable book, provides ‘a marvelous mirror of the soul.’ And, once again, Ramer has produced a profoundly soulful work packed with insight, pathos, and memorable interplay between ancient and contemporary wisdom.”

—Steven J. Zipperstein, Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History, Stanford University



“In this imaginatively recounted story, Andrew Ramer offers a cinematic retelling of one biblical woman, Serach bat Asher. He extends our arc of history through this ‘memoir’—a beautifully written first-person account of a very sage and prescient woman. Suspending our literal understanding of Torah, we hear Serach stretch and spin a tale of forgotten stories.”

—Susan Berrin, Editor-in-Chief of Sh’ma Now: A Journal of Jewish Sensibilities



“Ramer takes us on a delightful romp through the Hebrew Bible, filling in the missing stories of women and LGBT biblical figures. Along the way, he has important things to say about the meaning of inherited tradition and the power of reinterpretation and reinvention.”

—Judith Plaskow, Author of Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective



“Deathless is a radical reimagining of the Hebrew Bible as it has come down to us, ‘another Torah,’ reintegrating the voice of our now almost invisible female lineage and the suppressed Israelite Goddess religion of the ancient world. Andrew Ramer’s epic of the life of Serach bat Asher will pique your curiosity, smash your sacred cows, make you laugh in surprise, and pierce your heart.”

—Risa Wallach, Cantor at Congregation B’nai Shalom in Walnut Creek, California

From the Publisher