Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical Differences / Edition 1

by Saul M. Olyan

Overview

Mental and physical disability, ubiquitous in texts of the Hebrew Bible, receive their first thoroughgoing treatment in this monograph. Olyan seeks to reconstruct the Hebrew Bible’s particular ideas of what is disabling and their potential social ramifications. Biblical representations of disability and biblical classification schemas – both explicit and implicit – are compared to those of the Hebrew Bible’s larger ancient West Asian cultural context, and to those of the later Jewish biblical interpreters who produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. This study will help the reader gain a deeper and more subtle understanding of the ways in which biblical writers constructed hierarchically significant difference and privileged certain groups (e.g., persons with “whole” bodies) over others (e.g., persons with physical “defects”). It also explores how ancient interpreters of the Hebrew Bible such as the Qumran sectarians reproduced and reconfigured earlier biblical notions of disability and earlier classification models for their own contexts and ends.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521888073
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	05/26/2008
Pages:	202
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Saul M. Olyan is Samuel Ungerleider Jr. Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies at Brown University. His previous publications include: Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions (2004), Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (2000), A Thousand Thousands Served Him: Exegesis and the Naming of Angels in Ancient Judaism (1993), and Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel (1988). He has contributed to, and served as editor of, various journals and publications in the areas of biblical literature and ancient religions.

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Constructions of beauty and ugliness; 2. Physical disabilities classified as 'defects'; 3. Physical disabilities not classified as 'defects'; 4. Mental disability; 5. Disability in the prophetic Utopian vision; 6. Non-somatic parallels to bodily wholeness and 'defect'; 7. Exegetical perpetuations, elaborations and transformations: the case of Qumran; 8. Conclusion.

Editorial Reviews

"Olyan's book constitutes an excellent overview of disability in the Hebrew Bible. Though the book represents careful and very sound scholarship, it is also clearly written and accessible to the reader. The book remains interesting and thoughtful throughout."
Biblical Interpretation, Sarah J. Melcher, Xavier University

From the Publisher