Synopses & Reviews
This superb collection written by scholars for non-specialists should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the most important issues in the contemporary study of the Bible. -S. David Sperling, author of The Original Torah An excellent supplementary textbook for survey courses on the Hebrew Bible or on biblical scholarship. -John J. Collins, Yale University In April of 2001, the headline in the Los Angeles Times read, Doubting the Story of the Exodus. It covered a sermon that had been delivered by the rabbi of a prominent local congregation over the holiday of Passover. In it, he said, The truth is that virtually every modern archeologist who has investigated the story of the exodus, with very few exceptions, agrees that the way the Bible describes the exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all. This seeming challenge to the biblical story captivated the local public. Yet as the rabbi himself acknowledged, his sermon contained nothing new. The theories that he described had been common knowledge among biblical scholars for over thirty years, though few people outside of the profession know their relevance. New understandings concerning the Bible have not filtered down beyond specialists in university settings. There is a need to communicate this research to a wider public of students and educated readers outside of the academy. This volume seeks to meet this need, with accessible and engaging chapters describing how archeology, theology, ancient studies, literary studies, feminist studies, and other disciplines now understand the Bible. Frederick E. Greenspahn is Gimelstob Eminent Scholar in Judaic Studies, Florida Atlantic University. He is the editor of Essential Papers on Israel and the Ancient Near East as well as author/editor of numerous other titles including When Brothers Dwell Together: The Preeminence of Younger Siblings in the Hebrew Bible, An Introduction to Aramaic, Uncivil Religion: Interreligious Hostility in America (edited with Robert Bellah); and Pushing the Faith: Proselytism and Civility in a Pluralistic World (edited with Martin Marty).
Review
“An excellent supplementary textbook for survey courses on the Hebrew Bible or on biblical scholarship.” - John J. Collins, Yale University
Review
“An excellent supplementary textbook for survey courses on the Hebrew Bible or on biblical scholarship.” - John J. Collins, Yale University
Review
“The goal of the present book is to try to introduce lay Jewish audiences to some of the results of modern biblical research.”
-Journal of Jewish Studies,
Review
“This superb collection written by scholars for non-specialists should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the most important issues in the contemporary study of the Bible.”
“An excellent supplementary textbook for survey courses on the Hebrew Bible or on biblical scholarship.”
“This collection admirably bridges the gap between biblical scholarship and lay readership, allowing laypeople to engage in the 'conversations' that have been ongoing for decades in academic circles and to 'reach their own conclusions.”
“The goal of the present book is to try to introduce lay Jewish audiences to some of the results of modern biblical research.”
Review
“Illuminating cultural study of single motherhood. . . . [Juffer] explores the experiences of single mothers across various social and economic conditions, taking a critical look at current social policy.”
-Library Journal,
Review
“Juffer points to a new formation—the domestic intellectual—and in that gesture opens up the concept of the intellectual to a more complicated theoretical engagement. With it, she re-imagines marriage, mothering, and the spatial dynamics of private life, and returns them to a possibly radical and liberatory space. This powerful and transformative work adds to our understanding of the value of learning from ordinary life.”
-Wahneema Lubiano,Duke University
Review
“This collection admirably bridges the gap between biblical scholarship and lay readership, allowing laypeople to engage in the 'conversations' that have been ongoing for decades in academic circles and to 'reach their own conclusions.”
-Choice,
Synopsis
In April of 2001, the headline in the
Los Angeles Times read, “Doubting the Story of the Exodus.” It covered a sermon that had been delivered by the rabbi of a prominent local congregation over the holiday of Passover. In it, he said, “The truth is that virtually every modern archeologist who has investigated the story of the exodus, with very few exceptions, agrees that the way the Bible describes the exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all.” This seeming challenge to the biblical story captivated the local public. Yet as the rabbi himself acknowledged, his sermon contained nothing new. The theories that he described had been common knowledge among biblical scholars for over thirty years, though few people outside of the profession know their relevance.
New understandings concerning the Bible have not filtered down beyond specialists in university settings. There is a need to communicate this research to a wider public of students and educated readers outside of the academy. This volume seeks to meet this need, with accessible and engaging chapters describing how archeology, theology, ancient studies, literary studies, feminist studies, and other disciplines now understand the Bible.
Synopsis
Long perceived as the ultimate symbol of social breakdown and sexual irresponsibility, the single mother is now, in the context of welfare-to-work policies, often hailed as the new spokesperson for hard work and self-sufficiency. A dozen years after Dan Quayle denounced the television character Murphy Brown for making the decision to become a single mother “just another lifestyle choice,” President George W. Bush applauded single mothers for “heroic work,” and positive on-screen representations of single mothers abound, from
The Gilmore Girls to
Sex and the City to
American Idol.
Single Mother describes the recent cultural valorization of this figure that—in the midst of demographic changes in the U.S.—has emerged as the unlikely heroic and seductive voice of the new American family. Drawing on her own life as a single mother, interviews with dozens of other single mothers, cultural representations, and policies on welfare, immigration, childcare, and child custody, Juffer analyzes this contingent acceptance of single mothers. Finally, critiquing the relentless emphasis on self-sufficiency to the exclusion of community, Juffer shows the remarkable organizing skills of these new mothers of invention. At a moment when one-third of all babies are born to single moms, Single Mother is a fascinating and necessary examination of these new “domestic intellectuals.”
About the Author
Frederick E. Greenspahn is Gimelstob Eminent Scholar in Judaic Studies, Florida Atlantic University. He is the editor of The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship, Essential Papers on Israel and the Ancient Near East, as well as author/editor of numerous other titles including When Brothers Dwell Together: The Preeminence of Younger Siblings in the Hebrew Bible and An Introduction to Aramaic.