13 December 2012

King’s College, London

Theology and Religious Studies

6AAT3051
WOMEN AND THE OLD TESTAMENT/HEBREW BIBLE

Module Level: 6
Credit Value: 15 Credits
Lecturer: Dr Sandra Jacobs
Semester: Lent (Spring) 2013
Day and Time: From Tuesday 15 January 2013, 10:00-12:00am
No Class Reading Week - 19 February 2013
Location: AAN 304

MODULE AIMS

This course explores the characterization and role of women in the Hebrew Bible in English
translation, with a view to understanding the patriarchal context in which these traditions
evolved. Students will develop the capacity to critically assess a variety of ancient and modern
approaches to the biblical texts, including feminist exegesis and gender criticism, among others.
Archaeological data and other external evidence, including papyri, epigraphic sources and
available case law (particularly when these do not support the ideology of the biblical writers) will
also be examined.

GENERIC LEARNING OUTCOMES

Students will develop the ability to interpret biblical texts critically in translation and also gain:
 The skills to analyze and evaluate secondary literature relating to issues of gender, status
and the subordination of women.
 An understanding of the role of inner-biblical exegesis and its importance.
 An awareness of the significance of ancient translations and versions, together with their
role in shaping subsequent interpretations.
 An appreciation of the historical context of the biblical scribes, particularly in light of
relevant extra-biblical sources.

SPECIFIC LEARNING OUTCOMES

Students will gain the skills to produce written work that engages sensitively with issues of
gender, status and the position of women in the Hebrew Bible, avoiding oversimplification and
identifying the complexities inherent in the text. They will additionally acquire:
 The ability to independently locate ancient and modern interpretations on any aspect of
women and gender in the Hebrew Bible.
 The ability to develop a short, oral presentation that can generate further discussion.
 The opportunity to engage in constructive scholarly debate with other students.

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TEACHING METHOD

Sessions will be interactive, with lecture handouts provided at each class. In preparation, relevant
texts and articles for students to read in advance will be identified on these handouts. Those
who may have missed the class will be able to download hand-outs from the electronic
blackboard (Keats) shortly after each lecture and will be expected to prepare for future sessions
appropriately.
Students need to bring to class a copy of this syllabus, together with any English language
translation of the Hebrew Bible. For all (oral and written) assignments, any edition of either of
the following translations is specified:
 NRSV: The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version
 JPS/NJPS: The (New) Jewish Publication Society Bible
For those who may be considering purchasing a copy of either of these volumes, the NRSV
“cross-referenced” edition is particularly helpful for locating textual parallels in English
translation. The designation “Hebrew Bible” is used in scholarship to avoid conveying the
erroneous impression that together the “Old” and “New” Testaments constitute a continuous
corpus: The text of the latter was written in a different language, at a different time and cannot
be placed in the same critical framework. A chronological outline of ancient Israelite and Judean
history is provided as a separate resource for this module on Keats, and students may find it
helpful to have this with them in classes for reference.

ASSESSMENT

There are three components to the assessment of this course:

i. A 400-500-word (5-6 minute) class presentation (15%)

ii. A 2500-word course essay (35%)
iii. A 3500-word end-of-session essay (50%)

For all assessed work, students are expected to access further material independently: both
electronically from the databases accessed through the library catalogue, but also from within the
University of London libraries and the British Library.

(i) CLASS PRESENTATIONS

Each member of the class is expected to prepare a short presentation (c. 400-500 words, lasting
no more than six minutes) on any of topics listed below and must sign up for this on the
departmental notice board by 9:30am on 29 January 2013. No more than two student
presentations (per topic) are scheduled and these will be followed by a class discussion of the
most interesting aspects raised. Students should be prepared to answer questions from the tutor
and the audience, and need to ensure that they can address any linguistic difficulties in the
relevant biblical texts. After 9:30am on 29 January 2013, any change to the arrangement of this
assessment can only be authorized by Dr David Crankshaw. Power-point facilities cannot be
used, although students can provide hand-outs to accompany their presentation. Hand-outs are
not assessed formally for examination purposes. The assessment criteria are available at:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/humanities/depts/trs/myhandbook/assessment/ugassess/prese
ntations.html

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 Assessed Presentation Topics:

29 January– Marriage Matters

 1. Defining Incest
 2. Defining Adultery
05 February – Manipulating Women
 3. Rebecca and Her Teraphim
 4. Rachel: “Do Not Put a Stumbling Block Before the Blind”
12 February - Trophy Wives:
 5. Rahab: “God’s Trophy Whore”
 6. Michal, daughter of Saul
26 February - Smashing Women
 7. Athalya
 8. Jezebel
05 March– More Smashing Women (Post-Biblical Literature)
 9. Yael
 10. Judith
12 March - Any Aspect of Female Imagery in one of the following:
 11. Isaiah, Ezekiel, Hosea
 12. Proverbs or Psalms
19 March - Literary Stereotypes?
 Esther and Vashti
 Ruth and Orpah

(ii) FIRST ASSESSED ESSAY

A 2,500 word essay is required, to be selected from one of the following titles:

1. “Eve Was Framed”

Evaluate the sources in Genesis which suggest that “Eve was framed” and trace their
reception in early Christian and/or subsequent rabbinic tradition. Close attention to the
biblical text and its early translations is required, when identifying the consequence of each
divine curse and punishment.

Baskin, J.R. “Eve’s Curses: Female Disadvantages and Their Justifications,” in Midrashic
Women: Formations of the Feminine in Rabbinic Literature (Hanover: Brandeis University Press,
2002), 65-87.

Kennedy, H. Eve Was Framed: Women and British Justice (rev. ed.; London: Vintage, 2005).
Kimelman, R. “The Seduction of Eve and Feminist Readings of the Garden of Eden,” in
Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary Journal 1 (1998): Available online at:
http://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/wjudaism/issue/view/32.
Knohl, I. (2003) “Knowing Good and Evil: God and Humanity in J’s Story of Beginnings,” in
The Divine Symphony: The Bible’s Many Voices (Philadelphia: JPS, 2003), 37-49.
NB: Helena Kennedy’s account of the inequalities facing women in British courts does not
include a critical analysis of the biblical text.

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 2. The Sacrifice of Sarah?

“From exclusion to elimination, denial to death, the attachment of Genesis 22 to patriarchy

has given us not the sacrifice of Isaac (for that we are grateful) but the sacrifice of Sarah (for
that we mourn). By her absence from the narrative and her subsequent death, Sarah has
been sacrificed by patriarchy to patriarchy.” Evaluate this interpretation of the binding of
Isaac, with particular reference to ancient sources.

Trible, P. “Genesis 22: The Sacrifice of Sarah,” in Women in the Hebrew Bible: A Reader (ed. A.
Bach; London: Routledge, 1999), 287.

Zornberg, A. “Ḥayyei Sarah: Vertigo – the Residue of the Aqedah,” in Genesis and The
Beginings of Desire (Jerusalem JPS, 1995), 123-136.

3. A Cushite Heroine?

Examine the difficulties in interpreting Exodus 4:24-26, with a view to understanding how
the all-male biblical scribes allowed a foreign woman (Tzipporah) to activate divine salvation.

Hays, C. B. “ ‘Lest Ye Perish in the Way’: Ritual and Kinship in Exodus 4:24-26,” Hebrew
Studies 48 (2007): 39-54.

For each of the above titles, students must provide at least one interpretation from each of these
following areas in this assessment:

 An example of inner-biblical exegesis

 Exegesis from an ancient source: i.e. Dead Sea Scrolls, apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, LXX,
Vulgate, Targums, Midrash, etc.
 Any medieval to early modern interpretation (i.e. from c950 and no later than c1750)
 Any modern or post-modern approach

Marks will be deducted from answers which omit interpretation from any one of the above
categories. Students will be provided with a suggested bibliography (at the first class) that will be
useful for preparing this assignment.

The deadline for this essay is 12:00 noon on Monday 25 February 2013, by which time this must
be submitted via the assessment submission section of the KEATS area for the module.

(iii) END OF SESSION ASSESSED ESSAY

A final 3500-word essay must be submitted online by 12:00 noon on 29 April 2013:

1. Questions of Paternity

“Anxiety about paternity is such an overriding concern of biblical patriarchy that additional
precautions in the case of priests seem superfluous, beyond emphasizing that concern even
further.” Why was paternity such “an overriding concern” in biblical memory? Identify
manifestations of such anxieties in either the birth account of Isaac, or of Solomon, clarifying
also their relationship to any “additional precautions” in Priestly law.

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Brenner, A. “Gender in Prophecy, Magic and Priesthood: From Sumer to Ancient Israel”, in
Embroidered Garments: Priests and Gender in Biblical Israel (ed. D. W. Rooke; Sheffield: Phoenix
Press, 2010), 9.

2. Habitual Disempowerment?

Tikva Frymer-Kensky has argued that the heroines of Exodus “were proactive and assertive even
while the men were passive, reactive or absent. They continued to function strongly and
decisively even in conditions of dire oppression. And they stood up to overwhelming power.
Political power, paternal power, even divine power failed to deter these women. What enabled
them to act in the face of overwhelming odds? Ironically, the empowering element may be their
habitual disempowerment.”

Is this evaluation of the “habitual disempowerment” of biblical women convincing? Suggest

your own reasons why explicitly positive depictions of women were preserved by (all-male)
biblical scribes. Answers need not be restricted to women in the book of Exodus, but must
exclude reference to Eve, Sarah and Tzipporah in your answer.

Frymer-Kensky, T. “Saviors of the Exodus,” in Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation
of their Stories (Schoken: New York, 2002), 32.

3. Equality and Subordination

Does the presence of women in biblical ceremonials demonstrate their equality? Answers should
refer to the exclusion of women from positions of authority in judicial and cultic processes in
ancient Israelite and Judean records and also discuss the significance of women’s exclusion from
the covenant of circumcision.

Amnon Shapira’s “Participation of Women Along With Men in National Ceremonies of

Entering or Renewing Covenants”, will be provided on Keats.

4. Female and Male Slaves

Evaluate Bernard Jackson’s suggestion that tripartite breeding arrangements for female and male
slaves developed largely due to the fact that marriage was only weakly institutionalized in biblical
law. What other factors might have contributed to encouraging such arrangements?

Brenner, A. “Sex, Procreation and Contraception: Ideologies and Praxis,” in The Intercourse of
Knowledge: On Gendering Desire and Sexuality in the Hebrew Bible (Biblical Interpretation Series 26;
Leiden: Brill, 1996), 52-89.

Jackson, B. S. “Gender-Critical Observations on Tripartite Breeding Relationships in the Hebrew

Bible,” in A Question of Sex? Gender and Difference in the Hebrew Biblical and Beyond (ed. D. W. Rooke;
Sheffield: Phoenix Press, 2007), 39-53.

Westbrook, R. “The Female Slave,” in Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East
(ed. T. Frymer-Kensky, B. Levinson and V. Mathews; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998),
214-238.

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5. Fear of Females?

Examine the prohibition: “You shall not let a female sorceress live” and suggest reasons why
only a female, rather than male, witch posed such a severe danger in Priestly law.

Lerner, G. The Creation of Patriarchy (New York: OUP, 1988).

Nihan, C. L. “1 Samuel 28 and the Condemnation of Necromancy in Persian Yehud,” in Magic

in the Biblical World: From the Rod of Aaron to the Ring of Solomon (ed. T. Klutz. London: T&T Clark,
2003), 23-54.

Stratton, K. B. Naming the Witch: Magic, Ideology, and Stereotype in the Ancient World (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2007).

Essay Guidelines and Submission Procedure

Each essay is the equivalent of an exam and is to be treated with the same seriousness. No
extension to the deadline can be given except for medical or other serious reasons, and then only
by permission of the Chair of the Examination Board, Dr David Crankshaw, if appropriate
documentation is provided. Please also check the guidelines on plagiarism, which are in the
Departmental handbook follow these additional guidelines:

a) Your essay should not exceed the word limit. This limit includes all footnotes/endnotes,
though excludes the bibliography, which you are expected to provide. There is a 5%
tolerance: no penalty will be incurred for submissions that are up to 5% over the word
limit. But, beyond that tolerance band, two marks will be deducted for every 5% of
excess words until 50% is reached. After 50%, three marks will normally be deducted for
each further 5% of excess words.
b) It must contain, on the cover-sheet, an accurate declaration concerning the word count.
c) It must be type-written. Hand-written manuscripts will not be marked.
d) Accurate citation of sources, in such a manner as to enable a reader easily to identify and
locate them, is very important in academic writing. Your essay must consistently be set
out in accordance with a recognized citation system and you are encouraged to follow the
College’s ISS Citing References guide, which can be accessed via the website. Please
note that the presentation of your work, including the standard of English and the
quality of source referencing and bibliographical provision, has a strong bearing
on the mark given for it.

1. For Hard-Copy Submission:

 Each essay must have, securely attached to it, the appropriate departmental cover-sheet,
with the requisite information inserted completely, accurately and legibly. Pay careful
attention when giving your candidate number, which changes for each academic year, as
your work cannot successfully be attributed to you on the College systems if this
information is incomplete, wrong or illegible. If necessary, ask a friend to check the
number that you have written. Cover-sheets for download are available online in student
hand-book and may also be obtained from outside 8E Chesham Building.
 Your essay and coversheet must be submitted via the box found outside 8E Chesham
Building. Submissions will be date-stamped on receipt. Late submissions will not be
accepted for marking, unless an extension has been granted by the Chair of the BA

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 Programme Board of Examiners on the basis of an Extension Request Form (ERF),
supplied with supporting evidence, or comes to be granted retrospectively on grounds of
a Mitigating Circumstance Form (MCF), also furnished with corroborative evidence.
Please note that extensions cannot be granted by individual module teachers. ERFs and
MCFs can be downloaded from the Policy Zone of the College website. Only hard
copies are accepted.

2. For Online Submission:

 The first page of the submitted coursework must be a School of Arts & Humanities
cover-sheet (downloadable via the departmental handbook), with the requisite
information inserted completely and accurately. Please pay careful attention when giving
your candidate number, which changes for each academic year, as your work cannot
successfully be attributed to you on the College systems if this information is incomplete
or wrong.
 Your work must be submitted via the assessment submission section of the KEATS area
for the module, by the published deadline. It will not be possible to upload a late
submission, unless an extension has been granted by the Chair of the BA Programme
Board of Examiners on the basis of an Extension Request Form (ERF), supplied with
supporting evidence, or comes to be granted retrospectively on grounds of a Mitigating
Circumstance Form (MCF), also furnished with corroborative evidence. Please note that
extensions cannot be granted by individual module teachers. ERFs and MCFs can be
downloaded from the Policy Zone of the College website. These forms can only be
submitted as hard copies to the TRS office.

LECTURE SCHEDULE
1) 15 January 2013: Course Introduction
(a) Interpretative Strategies: Feminist Exegesis and Gender Criticism, among others
(b) Eve: Crown or Curse?
(c) Discussion of Assessed Presentation Requirements

2) 22 January: The “Disposable Wife”

(a) The “Ancestor in Danger” Narratives: Genesis 12:10-20, 20:1-14 and 26:2-11
(b) Mibtahya: A Jewish Woman in the Elephantine Papyrii
(c) Discussion of First Essay Requirements

3) 29 January: Concubines and Covenants

(a) Hagar, Keturah, Rizpah and Judges 19:1-27
Class Presentations: Marriage Matters

4) 05 February: “Sex and The Single Girl”

(a) Rape in Biblical Law and Narrative
(b) The Female Captive: Deuteronomy 21:10-14, Judges 5:30, Judith 16:4
Class Presentations: Manipulating Women

5) 12 February: “Daddy’s Daughters” and Inheritance Matters

(a) Achsah (Judges 1:11-16) and Numbers 26:33, 27:1-11
(b) The Case of Tamar (Genesis 38): The Interface of Law and Narrative?
Class Presentations: Trophy Wives

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6) 26 February: Punishing Women in Biblical Law
(a) Vicarious Punishment and the Talionic Formulation
(b) “You Shall Cut Off Her Palm:” Corporal Punishment in Deuteronomic Law
Class Presentations: Smashing Women

7) 05 March: Women in Prophetic Memory

(a) “You Cows of Bashan!” (Amos 4:1) and the Marriage Metaphor in Jeremiah 2:9-32
(b) Foreign Wives (Ezra 7-10)
Class Presentations: More Smashing Women (Post-Biblical Literature)

8) 12 March: “In the Wake of the Goddess” and the Reconstruction of Women’s Religion
(a) Worship of the Queen of Heaven: Jeremiah 7:16-20, 44:15-19 and 25
(b) Evidence from Kuntillat ‘Ajrud
Class Presentations: Aspects of Female Imagery

9) 19 March: Women in Second Temple Literature

(a) Susannah: “A Very Beautiful Woman and One Who Feared the Lord”
(b) Controlling Women: In Ben Sira and at Qumran.
Class Presentations: Literary Stereotypes

10) Date TBC: NATIONAL GALLERY CLASS TRIP: “Biblical Women in Renaissance Art”

MAIN BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, C. B. Women, Ideology and Violence: Critical Theory and the Construction of Gender in the Book
of the Covenant and the Deuteronomic Law (London: T & T Clark, 2004).

Bach, A. “Man’s World, Woman’s Place: Sexual Politics in the Hebrew Bible,” in Women in the
Hebrew Bible: A Reader (ed. A. Bach; London: Routledge, 1999), xiii-xxvi.

Bennett, H. Injustice Made Legal: Deuteronomic Law and the Plight of Widows, Strangers and Orphans in
Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002).

Branch, R. G. Jeroboam’s Wife: The Enduring Contribution of the Old Testament’s Least-Known Women
(Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 2009).

Brenner, A. ed. A Feminist Companion to the Bible (Leiden and Sheffield: 1993-2000).

Budin, S. L. Images of Woman and Child from the Bronze Age: Reconsidering Fertility, Maternity, and
Gender in the Ancient World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

Chapman, C. The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite-Assyrian Encounter (Harvard Semitic
Monographs 62; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004).

Clines, D. What Does Eve Do To Help? And Other Readerly Questions to the Old Testament (Sheffield:
JSOT Press, 2004).

Cushing Stahlberg, L. “From Biblical Blanket to Post-Biblical Blank Slate: The Lives and Times
of Abishag the Shunammite,” in From the Margins 1: Women of the Hebrew Bible and Their Afterlives
(ed. P. S. Hawkins and L. Cushing Stahlberg; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009), 122-140.

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Exum, J. C. “The Ethics of Biblical Violence Against Women,” in The Bible In Ethics: The Second
Sheffield Colloquim (ed. J. W. Rogerson, M. Davies and M. D. Carroll; Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1995), 248-271.

Frymer-Kensky, T. “The Ideology of Gender in the Bible and the Ancient Near East,” in
DUMU-E2-DUB-BA-A: Studies in Honor of Ake W. Sjoberg (ed. H. Behrens, D. Loding, M. T.
Roth. Philadelphia: Samuel Noah Kramer Fund, University Museum, 1989), 185-191.

Frymer-Kensky, T. Reading the Women of the Bible (Schoken: New York, 2002).

Gafney, W. C. Daughters of Miriam: Women Prophets in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
2008).

Hays, C. “The Silence of the Wives: Bakhtin's Monologism and Ezra 7-10,” JSOT 133/1 (2008):
59-80

Holloway, S., J. Scurlock and R. Beal ed. In the Wake of Tikva Frymer-Kensky (Piscataway, New
Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2009).

Ilan, T. “Women in Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha,” in A Question of Sex: Gender and Difference
in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond, (ed. D. W. Rooke; Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007), 126-144.

Jackson, B. S. “The ‘Institutions’ of Marriage and Divorce in the Hebrew Bible,” JSS LVI/2
(2011): 221-251.

Jacobs, S. “Instrumental Talion in Deuteronomic Law,” Zeitschrift für altorientalische und biblische
Rechtsgeschichte 16 (2010): 263-278.

Jay, N. “Sacrifice as Remedy For Having Been Born a Woman,” in Immaculate and Powerful: The
Female in Social Image and Sacred Reality, (ed. C.W. Atkinson, C.H. Buchanan and M.R. Miles;
Boston: Crucible Press, 1985), 283-309.

Kriger, D. Sex Rewarded, Sex Punished: A Study of the Status ‘Female Slave’ in Early Jewish Law
(Judaism and Jewish Life Series; Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2011).

Kawashima, R. S. “Could A Woman Say ‘No’ In Biblical Israel? On the Genealogy of Legal
Status in Biblical Law and Literature,” AJS Review 35:1 (April 2011): 1-22.

Laffey, A. Wives, Harlots and Concubines (London: SPCK, 1990).

Magdalene, F. R. “Ancient Treaty-Curses and the Ultimate Texts of Terror: A Study of the
Language of Divine Sexual Abuse in the Prophetic Corpus,” in A Feminist Companion to the Later
Prophets, (ed. A. Brenner; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 326-352.

Malul, M. Knowledge, Control and Sex: Studies in Biblical Thought, Culture, and Worldview (Tel Aviv-
Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publication, 2002).

Marsman, H. J. Women in Ugarit and Israel: Their Social and Religious Position in the Context of the
Ancient Near East (Oudtestamentische Studien: Volume XLIX. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003).

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Meyers, C. “Procreation, Production and Protection: Male-Female Balance in Early Israel”,
JAAR LI/4 (1983): 569-593.

Meyers, C. Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Woman in Context (Oxford: OUP, 1988).

Meyers, C., Craven, C. and Kraemer, R. S. eds. Women in Scripture: A Dictionary of Named and
Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal / Deuterocanonical Books and the New Testament
(Grand Rapids: W. B Eerdmans, 2000).

Pardes, I. Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University
Press, 1992).

Pressler, C. “Wives and Daughters, Bond and Free: Views of Women in the Slave Laws of
Exodus 21:2-11,” in Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East, (ed. T. Frymer-
Kensky, B. Levinson and V. Mathews; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 147-172.

Pressler, C. “Sexual Violence and Deuteronomic Law,” in A Feminist Companion to Exodus and
Deuteronomy, (ed. A. Brenner; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 102-112.

Shapira, A. “On Woman’s Equal Standing in the Bible—A Sketch: A Feminist Re-Reading of the
Hebrew Bible: A Typological View,” Hebrew Studies 51(2010): 7-42.

Schiffman, L. H. “Laws Pertaining to Women and Sexuality in the Early Stratum of the
Damascus Document,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls and Contemporary Culture: Proceedings of the International
Conference held at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, July 6-8, 2008 (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of
Judah 93; ed. A.D. Roitman, L.H. Schiffman and S. Tzoref; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 547-569.

Stol, M. “Women in Mesopotamia,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 38(1995):
123-144.

Tetlow. E. M. Women, Crime and Punishment in Ancient Law and Society. Volume I, The Ancient Near
East (London and New York: Continuum International, 2004).

Trible, P. “Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation,” JAAR 41(1973): 30-48.

INTRODUCTORY BIBLICAL STUDIES MATERIALS

For students who are new to this discipline, or wish to refresh their existing knowledge, the
following introductory guides are recommended:

Blenkinsopp, J. The Pentateuch (London: SCM Press, 1992).

Clines, D. The Theme of the Pentateuch (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997).
Kaminsky, J. S. and Lohr J. N. The Torah: A Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: Oneworld Press, 2011).

For those who wish to consult just one concise introductory volume then The Torah: A Beginner’s
Guide is excellent. It has been jointly written jointly by a Christian and a Jew, so that the
implications for the reception of the biblical text in both religions are fully explained.

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ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS IN THE MAUGHAN LIBRARY:

 Collins, J. J. Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (Augsberg: Fortress Press, 2004). John Collins
examines critical issues in each separate book of the Hebrew Bible and provides an
effective introductory chapter describing key features of the discipline. The volume is
accompanied by a CD Rom which contains a searchable version of the 1992 edition of
the Anchor Bible Dictionary.
 Kugel, J. L. The Bible As It Was (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,
1997). This offers a selection of responses in the early reception history of the
Pentateuch, to some of the difficulties inherent in the text. James Kugel has published
several revised editions of this volume. It is recommended that students consult any
edition of this volume when preparing their first course essay.
 Mendenhall, G.E. Ancient Israel's Faith and History: An Introduction to the Bible in Context, (ed.
G. A. Herion. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001). This
textbook provides a superb introduction to the biblical traditions in their comparative
ancient Near Eastern context.
 Rofé, A. An Introduction to the Literature of the Hebrew Bible (Jerusalem: Simor, 2009).
Alexander Rofé provides a comprehensive text-critical analysis of the biblical texts (i.e.
one which focuses upon the dating of sources and the availability of earliest
manuscripts).

TRADITIONAL HISTORICAL-CRITICAL APPROACHES:

Barstad, H. History and the Hebrew Bible: Studies in Ancient Israelite and Ancient Near Eastern
Historiography (Forschungen zum Alten Testament. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck., 2008).

Davies, P. R. Memories of Ancient Israel: An Introduction to Biblical History – Ancient and Modern
(Louisville, Kentucky and London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008).

Grabbe, L. L. A History of Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period. Volume 1: Yehud: A History of
the Persian Province of Judah (London: T & T Clark, 2004).

Liverani, M. Israel’s History and the History of Israel (Translated by C. Peri and P.R. Davies; London:
Equinox Press, 2005).

LITERARY APPROACHES

 Alter, R. The Art of Biblical Narrative (Revised and updated; New York: Basic Books,
2011). Students may also wish to consult Robert Alter’s translation of the Pentateuch,
which is also held at the Maughan Library: The Five Books of Moses (New York: W. W.
Norton, 2004).

Dr Sandra Jacobs
Office hours: 12:15-13:15 Tuesdays (Lent term only) and also by appointment
Temporary Lecturers Office (access restricted by swipe card)
B Floor: Chesham.

[email protected]

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