Download or read book Hollow Men Strange Women written by Robin Baker and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-07-11 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Hollow Men, Strange Women, Robin Baker provides a masterly reappraisal of Israel's experience during its Settlement of Canaan as narrated in the Book of Judges. Written under Assyrian suzerainty in the reign of Manasseh, Judges is both a theological commentary on the Settlement and an esoteric work of prophecy. Its apparent historicity subtly encrypts a grim forewarning of Judah's future, and, in its extensive treatment of otherness, Judges explores the meaning of God’s covenant with Israel. Robin Baker's scholarly and perceptive reading draws on a deep understanding of ancient Hebrew and Mesopotamian symbolic codes to interpret the riddles in this many-layered text. The Book of Judges reveals complex literary configurations from which past, present, and future are simultaneously presented.
Download or read book Gendered Violence in Biblical Narrative written by Esther Brownsmith and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-04-15 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book uses three examples of violent biblical stories about women, explored through the lens of conceptual metaphor theory in relation to culinary language used within these texts, to examine wider issues of gender and sexual violence in the Hebrew Bible. Utilising the tools of conceptual metaphor theory, feminist criticism, and classic textual analysis, Brownsmith interrogates some of the most troubling biblical passages for women—neither by redeeming them nor by condemning them, but by showing how they are intrinsically shaped by the enduring metaphor of woman as food in the Hebrew Bible, ancient Near East, and beyond. The volume explores three main case studies: the Levite’s “concubine” (Judges 19); Tamar and Amnon (2 Sam 13); and the life and death of Jezebel (primarily 1 Kings 21 and 2 Kings 9). All depict violence toward a woman as perpetrated by a man, interwoven with culinary language that cues their metaphorical implications. In these sensitive but critical readings of violent tales, Brownsmith also draws on a broad range of interdisciplinary connections from Ricoeur to ancient Ugaritic epics to modern comic books. Through this approach, readers gain new insights into how the Bible shapes its narratives through conceptual metaphors, and specifically how it makes meaning out of women’s brutalized bodies. Gendered Violence in Biblical Narrative: The Devouring Metaphor is suitable for students and scholars working on gender and sexual violence in the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East more broadly, as well as those working on conceptual metaphor theory and feminist criticism.
Download or read book Judges 19 21 and Ruth written by Jennifer M. Matheny and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-08-22 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Judges 19–21 is filled with sexual violence, silent victims, and the lack of an ethical response. Utilizing a Bakhtinian-canonical perspective, this book seeks alternative canonical voices of answerability and non-violence through dialogue with the book of Ruth.
Download or read book Paper Dolls Hollow Men written by Jeff Morris and published by Dog Ear Publishing. This book was released on 2019-03-18 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World War II comes alive through the eyes of three young couples and their families from small towns in Ohio and Kentucky. Virgil Thomas and Louise Forest want to have a future together. But their plans abruptly change when he is called to service, and she makes a crucial decision about their unborn child. John Simon and Charlotte Ross are newlyweds with a young child. When John volunteers for service, Charlotte doesn’t understand why he abandons their small family. And Gabby Thurlow, Laverne Osgood, and Birdie Le Foret are involved in a complicated relationship that challenges their decisions of heart versus head. As the couples navigate these rocky relationships, they also must adapt to the effects of rationed goods, interference from well-intentioned family members, and long gaps in communication. Traditional roles are challenged as women enter the workforce in larger numbers and men return from war with life-changing injuries. Despite these changes, however, residents of the small towns struggle to keep their uniqueness and charm. Paper Dolls and Hollow Men is their story of hope, courage, and love.
Download or read book The Exegetical and the Ethical written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-03-16 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exegesis has ethical dimensions. This innovative essay collection, largely about Hebrew Bible/Old Testament texts, is written by an international team – all Doktorkinder of a pioneer in this area, Professor John Barton, whose 70th birthday this volume celebrates.
Download or read book Unspeakable Things Unspoken written by Isabelle M. Hamley and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2019-01-30 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the raped and murdered woman of Judges 19 and the civil war and mass marriage that ensue in chapters 20–21 are hardly favorite tales of the Hebrew Bible. The chapters have often been dismissed as little more than an anachronistic epilogue, an awkward amalgamation of earlier stories or a “text of terror,” proof of patriarchal oppression. This book argues that, far from being a clumsy collage, Judges 19–21 is a carefully narrated tale that chronicles the descent of a nation into extreme individualism and fragmentation. In dialogue with continental philosopher Luce Irigaray, it will uncover the dynamics of identity formation and how differential constructions of identity of the One and the Other yield patterns of victimization and justification of violence. This literary-philosophical reading will bring out silences and missed possibilities for the subjectivity of women, whilst also shedding light on the victimization of men within the logic of totalitarian identity constructions. The end of Judges therefore offers a theological conclusion to the book as a whole and opens up avenues for thought on theological anthropology, understandings of identity and gender, and a theological commentary on violence.
Download or read book Violence in the Hebrew Bible written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-07-27 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Violence in the Hebrew Bible scholars reflect on texts of violence in the Hebrew Bible, as well as their often problematic reception history. Authoritative texts and traditions can be rewritten and adapted to new circumstances and insights. Texts are subject to a process of change. The study of the ways in which these (authoritative) biblical texts are produced and/or received in various socio-historical circumstances discloses a range of theological and ideological perspectives. In reflecting on these issues, the central question is how to allow for a given text’s plurality of possible and realised meanings while also retaining the ability to form critical judgments regarding biblical exegesis. This volume highlight that violence in particular is a fruitful area to explore this tension.
Download or read book Womanist Midrash Volume 2 written by Wilda C. Gafney and published by Presbyterian Publishing Corp. This book was released on 2024-11-12 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Womanist Midrash, Volume 2, continues Wilda Gafney’s unique and imaginative work of in-depth explorations of the well- and lesser-known women of the Hebrew Scriptures. This volume focuses on women and girls in Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. As in her successful and widely read first volume, Gafney uses her own translations and offers midrashic interpretations of the biblical text rooted in the African American preaching and rabbinic traditions to tell the stories of a variety of female characters, many of whom are often overlooked and nameless. Grounded in rigorous scholarship, this volume employs solid womanist and feminist approaches to biblical interpretation and the sociohistorical culture of the ancient Afro-Asiatic world, expanding conversations of and about biblical interpretation.
Download or read book Characters and Characterization in the Book of Judges written by Keith Bodner and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-12-28 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Book of Judges, why, if we view Samson as a heroic Übermensch, do we read his story one way, yet if we read him as a buffoonish and violent oaf, we read the story another way? How does our assessment of the characters of a story, our empathy with them or suspicion of them, shape the way we read it? This book addresses these questions by analyzing the complex characterization in the Book of Judges, paying attention to an often neglected but important area of study in the Hebrew Bible. Its international group of contributors explore the implications of characterization on storytelling, situating their contributions within the context of literary studies of the Hebrew Bible, and offering multiple perspectives on the many and various characters one encounters in the Book of Judges. Chapters examine a range of topics, including the relationship between humor, characterization and theology in Judges; the intersection of characterization and ethics through the story of the story of Jephthah's daughter; why the 'trickster hero' Ehud disturbs interpreters; and the ways in which Abimelech's characterization affects the key narrative themes of succession and kingship in his story.
Download or read book Judges written by Mercedes L. García Bachmann and published by Liturgical Press. This book was released on 2018-07-02 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A woman called blessed for killing a Canaanite general; another called "Mother in Israel" for leading troops into war; several other mothers absent when their children need them; a judge, Deborah, with a proper name and a recognized place for public counseling; a single woman, Delilah, who seduces and conquers Samson. The book of Judges features an outstanding number of women, named and unnamed, in family roles and also active in society, mostly objects of violent dealings between men. This volume looks not only at women in their traditional roles (daughter, wife, mother) but also at how society at large deals with women (and with men) in war, in strife, and sometimes in peace.
Download or read book Heroic Bodies in Ancient Israel written by Brian R. Doak and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-26 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Authors from the ancient world rarely used great detail to describe the physical features of characters in their works. When they did mention bodies, they did so with very specific goals in mind. In particular, the bodies of "heroic" figures, such as warriors, kings, and other leaders became loaded sites of meaning for encoding cultural, religious, and political values on a number of fronts. Brian Doak analyzes the way biblical authors described the bodies of some of their most iconic male figures, such as Jacob, the Judges, Saul, and David. These bodies represent not mere individuals-they communicate as national bodies, signaling the ambiguity of Israel's murky pre-history, the division during the period of settlement in the land, and the contest of leading bodies fought between Saul and David. Heroic Bodies in Ancient Israel examines the heroic world of ancient Israel within the Hebrew Bible, and shows that ancient Israelite literature operated within and against a world of heroic ideals in its ancient context. The heroic body tells a story of Israel's remembered history in the eventual making of the monarchy, marking a new kind of individual power. Not merely a textual study of the Hebrew Bible in isolation, this book also considers iconography and compares Israelite literature with other ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern materials, illustrating Israel's place among a wider construction of heroic bodies.
Download or read book Why Jephthah s Daughter Weeps written by Margaret Murray Talbot and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-02-28 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why does Jephthah’s daughter weep? This new child-oriented reading reveals that a complex mix of emotional, familial, socio-cultural, and sexual consequences of menarche and menstruation lies behind her tears. There’s more blood flowing in this Judges story than you’ve likely imagined!
Download or read book Reading Gender in Judges written by Shelley L. Birdsong and published by SBL Press. This book was released on 2023-04-21 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much of the content of Judges can be understood only when read together with other parts of the Hebrew Bible. Narratives in Judges comment, criticize, and reinterpret other texts from across what became the canon, often by troubling gender, disrupting stereotypical binaries, and creating a kind of gender chaos. This volume brings together gender criticism and intertextuality, methods that logically align with intersectional lenses, to draw attention to how race, ethnicity, class, religion, ability, sex, and sexuality all play a role in how one is gendered in the book of Judges. Contributors Elizabeth H. P. Backfish, Shelley L. Birdsong, Zev Farber, Serge Frolov, Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher, Susan E. Haddox, Hyun Chul Paul Kim, Richard D. Nelson, Pamela J. W. Nourse, Tammi J. Schneider, Joy A. Schroeder, Soo Kim Sweeney, Rannfrid I. Lasine Thelle, J. Cornelis de Vos, Jennifer J. Williams, and Gregory T. K. Wong provide substantial new and significant contributions to the study of gender, the book of Judges, and biblical hermeneutics in general. This volume illustrates why biblical scholars and students need to take the intersectional identities of characters and their intertextual environments seriously.
Download or read book Before There Were Kings written by Elie Assis and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2024-04-04 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the great periods of national leadership by Moses and Joshua, the book of Judges depicts the stewardship of various judges that rose to power to solve local religious and military challenges in the premonarchic period. This volume provides a close reading of the entire book of Judges, taking seriously the distinct elements of the book and how they are interconnected. Elie Assis explores the ways in which the ideology and theology of Judges unfold through a careful literary analysis. Moving beyond the cycle of sin, punishment, and salvation, Assis demonstrates how differences in the descriptive language applied to each judge, as well as the evaluations in the opening and concluding chapters, provide clues as to the organization and message of the text. Most works on Judges focus on the historical background of the period or the historical process of the book’s composition and seek to dissolve its stories into component parts. In contrast, Before There Were Kings points to the deep underlying unity of Judges and the function of the individual stories within the whole. New and carefully drawn insights related to the purpose of each section and the themes that shape the book as a whole make this a groundbreaking, programmatic contribution to research on the book of Judges. It will be of particular interest to students and scholars of the Old Testament and the Hebrew Bible.
Download or read book Mesopotamian Civilization and the Origins of the New Testament written by Robin Baker and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-06-30 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this ground-breaking study, Robin Baker investigates the contribution ancient Mesopotamian theology made to the origins of Christianity. Drawing on a formidable range of primary sources, Baker's conclusions challenge the widely held opinion that the theological imprint of Babylonia and Assyria on the New Testament is minimal, and what Mesopotamian legacy it contains was mediated by the Hebrew Bible and ancient Jewish sources. After evaluating and substantially supplementing previous research on this mediation, Baker demonstrates significant direct Mesopotamian influence on the New Testament presentation of Jesus and particularly the character of his kingship. He also identifies likely channels of transmission. Baker documents substantial differences among New Testament authors in borrowing Mesopotamian conceptions to formulate their Christology. This monograph is an essential resource for specialists and students of the New Testament as well as for scholars interested in religious transmission in the ancient Near East and the afterlife of Mesopotamian culture.
Download or read book Gift of the Grotesque written by Daniel J. D. Stulac and published by Wipf and Stock Publishers. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “No other book of the Bible is quite so R-rated. No other book is quite so ugly or grotesque. Judges offers its reader not a roster of angelic saints, but an astonishing tempest of brutality, feces, slaughter, assassinations, conspiracy, genocide, child sacrifice, rage, betrayal, mass graves, gang-rape, corpse mutilation, kidnapping, and civil war.” Gift of the Grotesque offers readers a series of seven theological essays focused on one of the most confusing and challenging books in the biblical canon. Stulac’s captivating style combines sensitive exegesis with broadly accessible meditations on culture, art, music, literature, memoir, theology, and spirituality. Better understood as a companion rather than a biblical commentary, this unusual resource will kickstart the theological imagination of anyone who struggles to understand how the book of Judges points forward to the life and work of Jesus Christ. Dare to follow an experienced biblical scholar into the heart of Israel’s theological Dark Age, and you will encounter there the transformative Word of God in ways you do not expect. The prophetic book of Judges, writes Stulac, “wants to gut you like a fish, because on the far side of that unenviable prospect, it wants you alive like you’ve never lived before.”
Download or read book Judges 1 written by Mark S. Smith and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 2021-11-23 with total page 924 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking volume presents a new translation of the text and detailed interpretation of almost every word or phrase in the book of Judges, drawing from archaeology and iconography, textual versions, biblical parallels, and extrabiblical texts, many never noted before. Archaeology also serves to show how a story of the Iron II period employed visible ruins to narrate supposedly early events from the so-called "period of the Judges." The synchronic analysis for each unit sketches its characters and main themes, as well as other literary dynamics. The diachronic, redactional analysis shows the shifting settings of units as well as their development, commonly due to their inner-textual reception and reinterpretation. The result is a remarkably fresh historical-critical treatment of 1:1-10:5.
