Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of Their Stories

by Tikva Frymer-Kensky

Overview

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award • Reading the Women of the Bible takes up two of the most significant intellectual and religious issues of our day: the experiences of women in a patriarchal society and the relevance of the Bible to modern life.

“Frymer-Kensky addresses both modern hypotheses and traditional beliefs, and acknowledges which arguments can be supported and which questions remain unanswered. [A] very approachable text.” —Houston Chronicle

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780805211825
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/06/2004
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	480
Sales rank:	906,857
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

TIKVA FRYMER-KENSKY is a professor of Hebrew Bible at the Divinity School at the University of Chicago.

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Excerpted from "Reading the Women of the Bible"
by .
Copyright © 2004 Tikva Frymer-Kensky.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction 

Part I. Victors
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle: The Rivka Stories
Saviors of the Exodus
The Guardian at the Door: Rahab
Warriors by Weapon and Word: Deborah and Yael
A Wise Woman of Power
The Shunammite
Villains: Potiphar’s Wife, Delilah, and Athaliah

Part II. Victims
The Disposable Wife
Daddy’s Daughters
Father-right Awry: Jephthah and His Daughter
The Bad Old Days: Concubine and Chaos
Kings to the Rescue?
“Off with His Head”: David, Uriah, and Bathsheba
Trauma and Tragedy: The Betrayals of Tamar
Power and Person: A Problem of Political Life

Part III. Virgins
The Dinah Affair
To the Barricades: Views Against the Other
Queen Jezebel, or Deuteronomy’s Worst Nightmare
Cozbi
Hagar, My Other, My Self
Royal Origins: Ruth on the Royal Way
Royal Origins: The Moabite
Royal Origins: Tamar
The Royal Way
Outsider Women: Exile and Ezra

Part IV. Voice
Oracles of the Conquest of Canaan: Rahab and Deborah
Oracles of Saul: Hannah and the Witch of Endor
The Necromancer at Endor
Abigail
Huldah
Woman as Voice

Part V. Reading the Women of the Bible
Women of Metaphor, Metaphors of Women
The Later Adventures of Biblical Women
Mirrors and Voices: Reading These Stories Today

Notes

Index 

Editorial Reviews

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award and the Koret Jewish Book Award

“This book has much to say about and to women of every era and age, but its spirit, scope, and breadth go beyond any generic limits. Men—perhaps even more than women—can and should learn much from it, both about the Bible and the women in it.”
—David Noel Freedman, editor in chief, The Anchor Bible

“Frymer-Kensky addresses both modern hypotheses and traditional beliefs, and acknowledges which arguments can be supported and which questions remain unanswered. [A] very approachable text that streamlines what could otherwise be a complicated discussion.”
—Houston Chronicle

"You'll never see the women of the Bible in quite the same way after reading Tikva Frymer-Kensky's excellent new book. In her able hands, these women emerge from the ancient texts with new strength and vigor. Frymer-Kensky is a dazzling thinker who presents her ideas with unusual energy and clarity."
—Ari L. Goldman, author of Living a Year of Kaddish and The Search for God at Harvard
 
“A welcome book, engagingly written. It is a valuable contribution to the growing bibliography of feminist biblical interpretation.”
—Dr. Phyllis Trible, University Professor, Wake Forest University Divinity School
 
“Frymer-Kensky advances our understanding of the gender issues in the Bible by proposing a fresh and suggestive taxonomy of four discourses concerning women. Her persuasive power rests upon her immense capacity to read texts carefully and discerningly. A most welcome and important read!”
—Dr. Walter Brueggeman, Columbia Theological Seminary
 
"Frymer-Kensky presents the women of the Hebrew Bible freshly and brilliantly, bringing to her study a profound mastery of the literatures and cultures of the lands surrounding the Bible. Here is biblical interpretation that eliminates much of the distance between the text and the reader: These stories illuminate the themes and dangers, hopes and fears, that are characteristic of human life anywhere and at any time. And the entire work is presented in a style and with a grace that delight the eye, the ear, and the heart."
—Dr. Walter Harrelson, Vanderbilt University

From the Publisher

You'll never see the women of the Bible in quite the same way after reading Tikva Frymer-Kensky's excellent new book. In her able hands, these women emerge from the ancient texts with new strength and vigor. Frymer-Kensky is a dazzling thinker who presents her ideas with unusual energy and clarity.

Ari L. Goldman

A professor of Hebrew Bible at the Divinity School at the University of Chicago, Frymer-Kensky (In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth) investigates biblical stories about women to ascertain why "a clearly androcentric text from a patriarchal society" has "so many stories that revolve around women." Deliberately omitting a few prominent women (e.g., Eve and Miriam), Frymer-Kensky focuses on four groups of women: the victors, the victims, the virgins, and those with voice (prophecy, necromancy). She finds that "[c]ontrary to all assumptions...the Hebrew Bible, unlike other ancient literature, does not present any ideas about women as the `Other.' The role of woman is clearly subordinate, but the Hebrew Bible does not `explain' or justify this subordination by portraying women as different or inferior." The author argues that the Hebrew Bible's notion of women as subordinate but not inferior became a paradigm for Israel's understanding of its own subjugation by other nations. Although the book occasionally employs sophisticated terminology, its main arguments about the biblical presentation of women are accessible to educated lay people as well as to religious specialists. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries. Carolyn M. Craft, Longwood Univ., Farmville, VA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

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