Murder and Difference: Gender, Genre, and Scholarship on Sisera's Death

"... she points the way into as yet little-explored territory, broadly engaging literary theory as well as ideological criticism... she moves beyond both narrowly historical and exclusively text-centered criticism... " --Theology Today

"... Bal has given us both a coruscating feminist critique of biblical scholarship and a fund of provocative exegetical insights... required reading for anyone who wants to know where serious biblical scholarship is heading." --Shofar

The Object

Introduction

I. DISCIPLINARY CODES

1. The Historical Code

The History of the Texts

The History of the People

Connoted History

2.The Theological Code

THe use of the Theological Code

Religious Codes

3. The Anthropological Code

The Concept of Judge

The Ethnographic Context

The Oral Code

4.The Literary Code

The Polemic Lyric Code

The Nonpolemic Lyric Code

The Narratological Code

The Aesthetic Literary Code

II. TRANSDISCIPLINARY CODES

5. The Thematic Code

Closing and Opening of Thematics

The Theme as Starting Point

The Thematic Code at Work

The Thematic Code as Censor

The Code as Method

6.The Gender Code

The Gendered Subject

The Gender Code and the Narrarive

The Gender Code and the Song

Conclusion

References

Index