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Overview
This series brings to a wide audience important new discoveries concerning relationships of women and men in the Bible, ancient Israel, early Judaism, and early Christianity. The books explore the role of gender within the biblical tradition and document its continuing influence on subsequent life and thought. The books emphasize literary and historical methods as well as anthropological, archaeological, and linguistic approaches to biblical characters, gendered imagery, and the history of biblical interpretation. The books are based on thorough scholarship and can be read with pleasure by all serious readers.The first book-length attempt to map the attitude of the ancient rabbis to some of the most signficant feminine figures in the Old Testament, From Esther to Eve traces the biblical stories, their objectives and methods, and then discusses how these original intentions were altered--sometimes beyond recognition--when the women discussed in them were subjected to the unique exegetical technique of midrash.
Synopsis
This is the first book-length attempt to focus on female biblical figures in the ancient rabbinic writings of midrash and Talmud. Primary rabbinic sources employed by the author bring new life and insight into the stories of Eve, Deborah, Hannah, Serah bat Asher, and others. As women and men today attempt to reevaluate past historical models, it serves us well to understand the values and inner workings of rabbinic thinking. The examination of what the sources actually say, and not what others would like them to have said, enable reinterpretation of women's role to proceed on an honest and authentic basis. Biblical women, reclaimed with contemporary midrash, can become paradigms for our modern lives.