From Deborah to Esther: Sexual Politics in the Hebrew Bible

by Lillian R. Klein

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781451413014
Publisher:	Augsburg Fortress, Publishers
Publication date:	04/15/2003
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Lillian R. Klein is author of The Triumph of Irony in the Book of Judges (1988) and of many contributions to A Feminist Companion to the Hebrew Bible, edited by Athalya Brenner.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction: Men Conceiving Women in the Hebrew Bible
1. Achsah, Deborah, Delilah, and the Daughters and Wives of the Book of Judges
-A Spectrum of Female Characters
-Paradigm and Deviation in Images of Women
2. Deborah, Jael, and Sisera's Mother
3. Hannah: Marginalized Victim and Social Redeemer
4. Bathsheba Revealed
5. Job and the Womb
6. Michal, the Barren Wife
7. Honor and Shame in Esther
Notes, Annotated Bibliography, Index