Download or read book Women and the Religion of Ancient Israel written by Susan Ackerman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-01 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A synthetic reconstruction of women’s religious engagement and experiences in preexilic Israel “This monumental book examines a wealth of data from the Bible, archaeology, and ancient Near Eastern texts and iconography to provide a clear, comprehensive, and compelling analysis of women’s religious lives in preexilic times.”—Carol Meyers, Duke University Throughout the biblical narrative, ancient Israelite religious life is dominated by male actors. When women appear, they are often seen only on the periphery: as tangential, accidental, or passive participants. However, despite their absence from the written record, they were often deeply involved in religious practice and ritual observance. In this new volume, Susan Ackerman presents a comprehensive account of ancient Israelite women’s religious lives and experiences. She examines the various sites of their practice, including household shrines, regional sanctuaries, and national temples; the calendar of religious rituals that women observed on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis; and their special roles in religious settings. Drawing on texts, archaeology, and material culture, and documenting the distinctions between Israelite women’s experiences and those of their male counterparts, Ackerman reconstructs an essential picture of women’s lived religion in ancient Israelite culture.
Download or read book The Origin and Character of God written by Theodore J. Lewis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-03 with total page 1097 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few topics are as broad or as daunting as the God of Israel, that deity of the world's three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, who has been worshiped over millennia. In the Hebrew Bible, God is characterized variously as militant, beneficent, inscrutable, loving, and judicious. Who is this divinity that has been represented as masculine and feminine, mythic and real, transcendent and intimate? The Origin and Character of God is Theodore J. Lewis's monumental study of the vast subject that is the God of Israel. In it, he explores questions of historical origin, how God was characterized in literature, and how he was represented in archaeology and iconography. He also brings us into the lived reality of religious experience. Using the window of divinity to peer into the varieties of religious experience in ancient Israel, Lewis explores the royal use of religion for power, prestige, and control; the intimacy of family and household religion; priestly prerogatives and cultic status; prophetic challenges to injustice; and the pondering of theodicy by poetic sages. A volume that is encyclopedic in scope but accessible in tone, The Origin and Character of God is an essential addition to the growing scholarship of one of humanity's most enduring concepts.
Download or read book Rediscovering Eve written by Carol Meyers and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-17 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Analyzing the biblical material in light of recent archaeological discoveries about rural village life in ancient Palestine, Meyers depicts Israelite women as strong and significant actors within their families and society.
Download or read book Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel written by Peggy Lynne Day and published by Fortress Press. This book was released on 1989-01-01 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Freed from contemporary theological categories that have been informed by ideological and psychological issues, but ever mindful of the social location of gender analysis, these essays provide fresh and exciting looks at otherwise unfamiliar texts. They jar our minds and our biases.... This book is a valuable contribution to gender-oriented biblical scholarship. Its content is accessible to both the scholarly and the less technically trained reader. All will be well served by this important collection of essays."? Naomi Steinberg, DePaul University"This book is a credit to the quality and breadth of feminine biblical scholarship and presents some creative interpretations of the texts and a wealth of Ancient Near Eastern material."? J. Massyngbaerde Ford, University of Notre Dame
Download or read book Kabbalistic Teachings of the Female Prophets written by J. Zohara Meyerhoff Hieronimus and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-07-21 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The spiritual teachings of Israel’s biblical prophetesses from a kabbalistic perspective • Explores the lives and symbolic significance of seven female prophets: Sarah, Miriam, Devorah, Chanah, Avigail, Chuldah, and Esther • Uses the gematria of Jewish metaphysics to demonstrate that prophecy is a mystical initiatory path by which Divine Will is made known, not only a tool for telling the future • Presents practical applications of kabbalistic teachings for spiritual development The seven prophetesses of Israel--Sarah, Miriam, Devorah, Chanah, Avigail, Chuldah, and Esther--lived between 1800 and 350 BCE. Their combined lives reflect a kabbalistic path of spiritual evolution that is as pertinent to our lives today as it was for the biblical communities in which they lived. From her studies of the Torah and classical gematria, Zohara Hieronimus shows that each prophetess is linked to a Sefirah on the kabbalistic Tree of Life: from creation (Sarah) through learning correct moral action (Devorah) to the promise of redemption and ultimately resurrection (Esther). Using the stories of their lives and teachings, Hieronimus reveals the relationship of each prophetess to the seven days of the week, the seven sacred species of Israel, the human body, and Jewish holidays and rituals. This book presents the kabbalistic teachings of these holy women and what they reveal about the initiatory path of individual development and redemption. The seven prophetesses show that every person has a part to play in the repair of the world, and Hieronimus gives a practical set of maps and spiritual guidelines for that journey.
Download or read book Daughters of Miriam written by Wilda Gafney and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Women prophets proclaimed and performed the word of God at formative moments in ancient Israel's history, and were expected in biblical visions of the future. Now they come to the foreground as Wilda C. Gafney explores women's involvement in prophetic activities and sacred roles in ancient Israel, its near eastern environment, and early Christianity and rabbinic Judaism as well."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Discovering Eve written by Carol Meyers and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1991-01-10 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking study looks beyond biblical texts, which have had a powerful influence over our views of women's roles and worth, in order to reconstruct the typical everyday lives of women in ancient Israel. Meyers argues that biblical sources alone do not give a true picture of ancient Israelite women because urban elite males wrote the vast majority of the scriptural texts and the stories of women in the Bible concern exceptional individuals rather than ordinary Israelite women. Analyzing the biblical material in light of recent archaeological discoveries about rural village life in ancient Palestine, Meyers depicts Israelite women not as submissive chattel in an oppressive patriarchy, but rather as strong and significant actors within their families and society.
Download or read book Jewish Women s History from Antiquity to the Present written by Rebecca Lynn Winer and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 687 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This publication is significant within the field of Jewish studies and beyond; the essays include comparative material and have the potential to reach scholarly audiences in many related fields but are written to be accessible to all, with the introductions in every chapter aimed at orienting the enthusiast from outside academia to each time and place.
Download or read book The Social World of Deuteronomy written by Don C Benjamin and published by James Clarke & Company. This book was released on 2017-04-27 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book of Deuteronomy is not an orphan. It belongs to a diverse family of legal traditions and cultures in the world of the Bible. The Social World of Deuteronomy: A New Feminist Commentary brings these traditions and cultures to life and uses them to enrich our understanding and appreciation of Deuteronomy today. Don C. Benjamin uses social-scientific criticism to reconstruct the social institutions where Deuteronomy developed, as well as those that appear in its traditions. He uses feministcriticism to better understand and appreciate how powerful elite males in Deuteronomy view not only the women, daughters, mothers, wives and widows in their households but also their powerless children, liminal people, slaves, prisoners, outsiders, livestock and nature. Through the lens of feminist theory, Benjamin explores important aspects of the daily lives of these often overlooked peoples in ancient Israel.
Download or read book The Red Tent written by Anita Diamant and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1997-09-15 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on the Book of Genesis, Dinah shares her perspective on religious practices and sexul politics.
Download or read book Families in Ancient Israel written by Leo G. Perdue and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Four respected scholars of the Hebrew Bible and early Judaism provide a clear portrait of the family in ancient Israel. Important theological and ethical implications are made for the family today. The Family, Culture, and Religion series offers informed and responsible analyses of the state of the American family from a religious perspective and provides practical assistance for the family's revitalization.
Download or read book Did God Have a Wife written by William G. Dever and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2008-07-23 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This richly illustrated, non-technical reconstruction of "folk religion" in ancient Israel is based largely on recent archaeological evidence, but also incorporates biblical texts where possible.
Download or read book Women in Drag written by Caryn Tamber-Rosenau and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "From Jael's tent peg to Judith's sword, biblical interpreters have long recognized the power of the "lethal women" stories of the Hebrew Bible and related literature. The tales of Jael and Judith, female characters who assassinate enemy commanders, have fascinated artists, writers, and scholars for centuries, no doubt partly because of the gender of the characters doing the killing. Tamber-Rosenau presents the first systematic study, both text-centered and deeply engaged with a variety of queer-theoretical frameworks, of the motif of the woman-turned-warrior in ancient Jewish literature. Through analysis from queer-theoretical perspectives and comparison with Ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman literature, Women in Drag shines new light on three strong female characters from the Hebrew Bible and the early days of Jewish literature"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Growing Up in Ancient Israel written by Kristine Henriksen Garroway and published by SBL Press. This book was released on 2018-11-16 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first expansive reference examining the texts and material culture related to children in ancient Israel Growing Up in Ancient Israel uses a child-centered methodology to investigate the world of children in ancient Israel. Where sources from ancient Israel are lacking, the book turns to cross-cultural materials from the ancient Near East as well as archaeological, anthropological, and ethnographic sources. Acknowledging that childhood is both biologically determined and culturally constructed, the book explores conception, birth, infancy, dangers in childhood, the growing child, dress, play, and death. To bridge the gap between the ancient world and today’s world, Kristine Henriksen Garroway introduces examples from contemporary society to illustrate how the Hebrew Bible compares with a Western understanding of children and childhood. Features: More than fifty-five illustrations illuminating the world of the ancient Israelite child An extensive investigation of parental reactions to the high rate of infant mortality and the deaths of infants and children An examination of what the gendering and enculturation process involved for an Israelite child
Download or read book Religion and Female Body in Ancient Judaism and Its Environments written by Géza G. Xeravits and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-04-24 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The volume publishes papers read at the ninth International Conference on the Deuterocanonical Books, Budapest, 2012. The title of the conference and the issuing volume covers an, on the one hand, extremely important and, on the other hand, regrettably neglected aspect particularly of the ancient Jewish and Christian traditions. Traditional manifestations of both Judaism and Christianity are predominantly masculine theological constructions. Despite their harsh masculine orientation, however, neither Judaism nor Christianity lacks elaboration on the female principle. When an ancient author chooses female imagery in order to make his message more emphatic, the female body as such forms an integral part of their metaphors. The contributions in this volume explore this phenomenon within the literature of early Judaism, and within its broad environments.
Download or read book Family and Household Religion in Ancient Israel and the Levant written by Rainer Albertz and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2012-04-05 with total page 717 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the past several decades, family and household religion has become a topic of Old Testament scholarship in its own right, fed by what were initially three distinct approaches: the religious-historical approach, the gender-oriented approach, and the archaeological approach. The first pursues answers to questions of the commonality and difference between varieties of family religion and describes the household and family religions of Mesopotamia, Syria/Ugarit, Israel, Philistia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Gender-oriented approaches also contribute uniquely important insights to family and household religion. Pioneers of this sort of investigation show that, although women in ancient Israelite societies were very restricted in their participation in the official cult, there were familial rituals performed in domestic environments in which women played prominent roles, especially as related to fertility, childbirth, and food preparation. Archaeologists have worked to illuminate many aspects of this family religion as enacted by and related to the nuclear family unit and have found evidence that domestic cults were more important in Israel than has previously been understood. One might even conceive of every family as having actively partaken in ritual activities within its domestic environment. Family and Household Religion in Ancient Israel and the Levant analyzes the appropriateness of the combined term family and household religion and identifies the types of family that existed in ancient Israel on the basis of both literary and archaeological evidence. Comparative evidence from Iron Age Philistia, Transjordan, Syria, and Phoenicia is presented. This monumental book presents a typology of cult places that extends from domestic cults to local sanctuaries and state temples. It details family religious beliefs as expressed in the almost 3,000 individual Hebrew personal names that have so far been recorded in epigraphic and biblical material. The Hebrew onomasticon is further compared with 1,400 Ammonite, Moabite, Aramean, and Phoenician names. These data encompass the vast majority of known Hebrew personal names and a substantial sample of the names from surrounding cultures. In this impressive compilation of evidence, the authors describe the variety of rites performed by families at home, at a neighborhood shrine, or at work. Burial rituals and the ritual care for the dead are examined. A comprehensive bibliography, extensive appendixes, and several helpful indexes round out the masterful textual material to form a one-volume compendium that no scholar of ancient Israelite religion and archaeology can afford not to own.
Download or read book The Wiles of Women The Wiles of Men written by Shalom Goldman and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2016-03-22 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the world's oldest recorded folktales tells the story of a handsome young man and the older woman in whose house he resides. Overcome by her feelings for him, the woman attempts to seduce him. When he turns her down she is enraged, and to her husband she accuses the young man of attacking her. The husband, seemingly convinced of his wife's innocence, has the young man punished. But it is precisely that punishment that leads to the hero's vindication and eventual rise to power and prominence. In the West we know this tale--classified in folklore as the Potiphar's Wife motif--from its vivid narration in the Hebrew Bible. But as Shalom Goldman demonstrates in this book, the Bible's is only one telling of a story that appears in the scriptures and folklore of many peoples and cultures, in many different eras, including ancient Egypt, classical Greece, and ancient Mesopotamia, as well as post-Biblical Jewish literature, the Qur'an, and Inuit culture. Goldman compares and contrasts the treatment of this motif especially in the literature and lore of the ancient Near East, Biblical Israel, and early Islam, at the same time touching on gender issues--the status of women in Middle Eastern societies and the varying constructions of male-female relationships--and the vexed question of "originality" in the narratives of the monotheistic traditions.
