Maternal Grief in the Hebrew Bible

Maternal Grief in the Hebrew Bible PDF Author: Ekaterina E. Kozlova
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198796870
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 263

Get Book Here

Book Description
Maternal Grief in the Hebrew Bible explores the stories of biblical mothers who were placed at key junctures in Israel's history to renegotiate the destinies not only of their own children, dead or lost, but also those of larger communities, i.e. family lines, ethnic groups, or entire nations. These women used the circumstance of child loss as a platform for a kind of grief-driven socio-political activism. As maternal bereavement is generally understood as the most intense of all types of loss and was seen as archetypal of all mourning in the ancient Near East, Israelite communities in crisis deemed sorrowing motherhood as a potent agent in bringing about their own survival and resurgence back to normalcy. Book jacket.

Maternal Grief in the Hebrew Bible

Maternal Grief in the Hebrew Bible PDF Author: Ekaterina E. Kozlova
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198796870
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 263

Get Book Here

Book Description
Maternal Grief in the Hebrew Bible explores the stories of biblical mothers who were placed at key junctures in Israel's history to renegotiate the destinies not only of their own children, dead or lost, but also those of larger communities, i.e. family lines, ethnic groups, or entire nations. These women used the circumstance of child loss as a platform for a kind of grief-driven socio-political activism. As maternal bereavement is generally understood as the most intense of all types of loss and was seen as archetypal of all mourning in the ancient Near East, Israelite communities in crisis deemed sorrowing motherhood as a potent agent in bringing about their own survival and resurgence back to normalcy. Book jacket.

Dress, Adornment, and the Body in the Hebrew Bible

Dress, Adornment, and the Body in the Hebrew Bible PDF Author: Laura Quick
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192598872
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book Here

Book Description
Dress, Adornment, and the Body in the Hebrew Bible is the first monograph to treat dress and adornment in biblical literature in the English language. It moves beyond a description of these aspects of ancient life to encompass notions of interpersonal relationships and personhood that underpin practices of dress and adornment. Laura Quick explores the ramifications of body adornment in the biblical world, informed by a methodologically plural approach incorporating material culture alongside philology, textual exegesis, comparative evidence, and sociological models. Drawing upon and synthesizing insights from material culture and texts from across the eastern Mediterranean, the volume reconstructs the social meanings attached to the dressed body in biblical texts. It shows how body adornment can deepen understanding of attitudes towards the self in the ancient world. In Quick's reconstruction of ancient performances of the self, the body serves as the observed centre in which complex ideologies of identity, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and social status are articulated. The adornment of the body is thus an effective means of non-verbal communication, but one which at the same time is controlled by and dictated through normative social values. Exploring dress, adornment, and the body can therefore open up hitherto unexplored perspectives on these social values in the ancient world, an essential missing piece in understanding the social and cultural world which shaped the Hebrew Bible.

Jeremiah 26-52

Jeremiah 26-52 PDF Author: Carolyn Sharp
Publisher: Kohlhammer Verlag
ISBN: 3170400819
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 473

Get Book Here

Book Description
This commentary illumines Jer 26-52 through historical, literary, feminist, and postcolonial analysis. Ideologies of subjugation and resistance are entangled in the Jeremiah traditions. The reader is guided through narratives of extreme violence, portrayals of iconic allies and adversaries, and complex gestures of scribal resilience. Judah's cultural trauma is refracted through prose that mimics Neo-Babylonian colonizing ideology, dramatic scenes of survival, and poetry alight with the desire for vengeance against enemies. The commentary's historical and literary arguments are enriched by insights from archaeology, feminist translation theory, and queer studies.

Creation and Emotion in the Old Testament

Creation and Emotion in the Old Testament PDF Author: David A. Bosworth
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1506491049
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Get Book Here

Book Description
Creation conjures emotion and thereby shapes how we think and act. People fear snakes and enclosed spaces, and delight in well-watered landscapes. Language about nature evokes these emotional meanings and their consequences. We may construe nature as a mother to enhance love of creation and motivate care for our common home. Mother nature becomes a caregiving source of life rather than an inert resource. Alternatively, we may focus on the dangers or uselessness of a swamp so that we may drain it and plant crops. Creation and the ways we speak about it reflect and shape emotion and influence behavior. Every reference to the natural word in biblical literature involves some emotional resonance. Any animal might have intruded into the paradise of Eden, but the biblical narrative gives this role to a snake. The serpent elicits ominous foreboding because snakes evoke fear and fascination. Isaiah amplifies the joy of Israel's restoration by depicting deserts transforming into fertile fields and creation itself rejoicing. Biblical authors draw on human emotional responsiveness to creation to express and elicit emotions. David A. Bosworth analyzes how biblical texts use creation to conjure emotion. He draws on the science of emotion, including research on human emotional responsiveness to nature. Ancient texts correlate with contemporary research on how human environments shape emotion and behavior. The chapters unfold how specific emotions emerge from biblical references to aspects of creation.

T&T Clark Handbook of Anthropology and the Hebrew Bible

T&T Clark Handbook of Anthropology and the Hebrew Bible PDF Author: Emanuel Pfoh
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567704742
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 577

Get Book Here

Book Description
This handbook presents an overview of the main approaches from social and cultural anthropology to the Hebrew Bible. Since the late 19th century, biblical scholarship has addressed issues and themes related to biblical stories from a perspective which could now be considered socio-anthropological. It is however only since the 1960s that biblical scholars have started to produce readings and incorporate analytical models drawn directly from social anthropology to widen the interpretive scope of the social and historical data contained in the biblical sources. The handbook is arranged into two main thematic parts. Part 1 assesses the place of the Bible in social anthropology, examines the contribution of ethnoarchaeology to the recovery of the social world of Iron Age Palestine and offers insights from the anthropology of the Mediterranean for the interpretation of the biblical stories. Part 2 provides a series of case studies on anthropological themes arising in the Hebrew Bible. These include kinship and social organisation, death, cultural and collective memory, and ritualism. Contributors also examine how the biblical stories reveal dynamics of power and authority, gender, and honour and shame, and how socio-anthropological approaches can reveal these narratives and deepen our knowledge of the human societies and cultural context of the texts. Bringing together the expertise of scholars of the Hebrew Bible and Biblical Archaeology, this ethnographic introduction prompts new questions into our understanding of anthropology and the Bible.

Why the Bible Began

Why the Bible Began PDF Author: Jacob L. Wright
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110849093X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 501

Get Book Here

Book Description
With a bold new thesis about the discovery of 'peoplehood,' this book revolutionizes our understanding of the Bible and its historical achievement.

Constructions of Gender in Religious Traditions of Late Antiquity

Constructions of Gender in Religious Traditions of Late Antiquity PDF Author: Shayna Sheinfeld
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1978714564
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 405

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume examines questions concerning the construction of gender and identity in the earliest days of what is now Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Methodologically explicit, the contributions analyze textual and material sources related to these religious traditions in their cultural contexts. The sources examined are predominantly products of patriarchal elite discourses requiring innovative approaches to unveil aspects of gender otherwise hidden. This volume extends the discussion represented in the volume Gender and Second-Temple Judaism (2020) and highlights the fruitfulness of interdisciplinary research beyond anachronistic discipline distinctions.

Sexual Reformation?

Sexual Reformation? PDF Author: Manitza Kotze
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1666708119
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
Inasmuch as “sex” and “sexuality” are not words often spoken from pulpits and in academic theological circles, a vast number of utterances have been made in the name of so-called “Christian values” and “biblical views” on sex and sexuality. These are often given from moral-ethical perspectives, and seemingly very prescriptive: who should have sex with whom, when sex should take place, which purposes sex should serve—and especially, when sex is wrong. Moreover, often there is little or no recognition of the complexities surrounding human sexuality, resulting in what appears to be a blueprint for sexuality, applicable to all persons. This volume contains fourteen theological and ethical reflections by South African scholars on human sexuality, with the aim of exploring what a sexual reformation within Christian dialogue might entail. Presented in three sections—namely, systematic theological reflections, biblical reflections, and ethical reflections—the essays represent a range of topics from a variety of perspectives: Luther and marriage; sexual abuse in the Catholic Church; body theology and the sexual revolution; reproductive technologies, sexuality and reproduction; reproductive loss; hermeneutical choices and gender reformation in (South) Africa; queer engagements with “bra” Joseph; explorations on Paul and sex; rape culture and violent deities; the church’s moral authority and sexual ethics; practical-theological considerations regarding infertility; empirical research on masculinities in Zambia; and the lived experience of transgender people in African Independent Churches.

Musical Illuminations of Genesis Narratives

Musical Illuminations of Genesis Narratives PDF Author: Helen Leneman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 056767374X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 318

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume examines the stories of Genesis in music, showing how musical settings can illuminate many of the Bible's most noted tales. Helen Leneman studies oratorios, operas and songs (as well as their librettos) to shed light on how Genesis has been understood and experienced over time. Examining an extensive range of musical settings of stories from the book of Genesis, Leneman offers an overview of chiefly 19th and 20th century musical engagements with this biblical text. Leneman first discusses how Eve's inner thoughts are explored by noted French composers Jules Massenet and Gabriel Fauré. The text then enters the deep waters of Noah's flood in examination of several compositions, including two unusual settings by Igor Stravinsky and Benjamin Britten, as well as more conventional settings by Saint-Saëns and Donizetti. Two major 19th century oratorio settings of Abraham's story by lesserknown German composers Martin Blumner and Karl Mangold provide fascinating illuminations of the Abraham narratives, whereas parts of Rebecca's story are found in works by César Franck, Ferdinand Hiller, and most unusually, by a French woman composer, Célanie Carissan. Finally, Leneman shows how Joseph's story was set in numerous oratorios (including by Handel) but that one of the most important works based on his story is an opera by 18th century French composer Etienne Méhul. In addition to discussing these larger 19th century works, Leneman also examines several interesting atonal 20th century works based on the stories of Eve and the Flood, shedding new light on the history of the interpretation of the Book of Genesis.

Tobit

Tobit PDF Author: Michele Murray
Publisher: Liturgical Press
ISBN: 0814681395
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Get Book Here

Book Description
Blindness by bird excrement, seven husbands murdered by a love-sick demon, a father with the corpses of his sons-in-law interred in the backyard, and a magical fish. These farcical elements make the book of Tobit a striking work of humorous fiction in a long Jewish tradition of storytelling. But it is more than just an entertaining read. We might well laugh, but we cannot laugh too hard, for we also sympathize with the characters’ sincere struggles to understand God’s plan for their lives. This commentary considers the book of Tobit through a specifically feminist lens, discoursing on topics fundamental to the human experience in the story, such as grief, death, family relationships, belonging to a minority community, disability issues, and contending with why bad things happen to good people.