Synopses & Reviews
In this eye-opening book, llana Pardes explores the tense dialogue between dominant patriarchal discourses of the Bible and counter female voices. Pardes studies women's plots and subplots, dreams and pursuits, uncovering the diverse and at times conflicting figurations of femininity in biblical texts. She also sketches the ways in which antipatriarchal elements intermingle with other repressed elements in the Bible: polytheistic traditions, skeptical voices, and erotic longings.
Review
This book marks the much needed next step in feminist biblical criticism. Mieke Bal
Review
Distinguishing herself from feminists Biblical scholars who regard the Bible as a wholly patriarchal work, Parders sees the text itself as challenging gender distinctions…Her arguments are buttressed with an impressive command of Biblical scholarship and an awareness of the sensitive, nuanced readings to be found in Rabbinic literature. Yehudah Mirsky
Review
Ilana Pardes planes the Bible's surface to expose the lineaments that run against the grain, challenging the pat assumptions of our predecessors. Pardes focuses on the unconventional, the irregular, in Biblical literature and points up instances in which a female voice in permitted its say--until the masculine voice resumes. Forward
Review
This lively and stimulating book probes the words and the silences of such figures as Eve, Rachel, and Zipporah, using their stories in turn to test a variety of contemporary feminist approaches to the Bible…[An] original blend of text history, feminist theory, and literary analysis. David Damrosch
About the Author
ILana Pardes is Lecturer in Comparative Literature and English at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
Table of Contents
1. Preliminary Excavations Miriam and Her Brothers
2. Creation according to Eve Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Simone de Beauvoir and Kate Millett
Phyllis Trible
Esther Fuchs
Mieke Bal
The Book of J
Conclusion
3. Beyond Genesis 3: The Politics of Maternal Naming Maternal Naming-Speeches
Uprising
Reversal: Dialogic Naming
Falling Again
Creative Hierarchies
When P Expands on Genesis I
P versus J
Mixed Languages
4. Rachel's Dream: The Female Subplot The Young Barren One versus The Elder Cowife
Exchanging Plots
Joining Forces
Rachel's Death
Difference in Development
Dreams and Reality
5. Zipporah and the Struggle for Deliverance Female Saviors
Back to the Ark
The Bridgeroom of Blood
Textual Traces
The Egyptian Connection
The Politics of Transition
Longings
Eruption
6. The Book of Ruth: Idyllic Revisionism The Plot of Female Bonding
The Doubling of the Female Subject
Estrangement
A Midrashic Parallel
7. " I Am a Wall, and my Breast like Towers": The Song of Songs and the Question of Canonization The (Im)purity of the Songs
Eros
Constructions of Gender
Refraction Revisited
Dreams and Walls
The Changing of the Guard
The Keepers of the Torah
8. Conclusion Job's Wife
Beyond Piety
Fragment Names
Open House
Notes
Bibliography
Index