Bible 324 Tentative Schedule:

Introduction: An examination of our presuppositions about the social roles of women and the construction of gender.

Required Reading: Danna Nolan Fewell and Gary A. Philipps, "Ethics, Bible, Reading As If." Semeia 77 (1997) pp 1-10 (of pp. 1-21) (ATLAS)

David J. A. Clines,"Reading Esther from Left to Right Contemporary Strategies for Reading a Biblical Text," in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967-1998, Volume 1 (JSOTSup, 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 3-22. Recommended Reading: Peggy Day, Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989).

 

Creation: The contrast between traditional interpretations and scholarly discourse of the past twenty years.

Required Reading: Gen 1-3; An article or commentary on Genesis 1-3 written before 1960.

Supplemental Web Notes: Genesis 1-3 and Semiotics

Recommended Reading:

Lori Hope Lefkovitz, "Eve in the Semiotic Garden," The Reconstructionist: A Journal of Contemporary Jewish Thought and Practice 61 (2002).

Ellen von Wolde, A Semiotic Analysis of Genesis 2-3: A Semiotic Theory and method of Analysis Applied to the Story of the Garden of Eden (Van Gorcum, 1989) and Lyn M. Bechtel "Rethinking the interpretation of Genesis 2.4b-3.24"," A Feminist Companion to Genesis, Athalya Brenner editor (Sheffield Academic Press, 1992) pp. 77-117.

Carol L. Meyers, Gender Roles and Genesis 3.16 Revisited," A Feminist Companion to Genesis, Athalya Brenner editor (Sheffield Academic Press, 1992) pp. 118-141.

David Jobling, "Myth and its Limits in Genesis 2.4b-3.24', in The Sense of Biblical Narrative II. Structural Analyses in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1986): 17-43.

 

 

Sarah Revisited: What does a close reading of the "Abraham story" with attention to the chronology of episodes reveal about the story as we have received it.

Required Reading: Gen 11:27- 25:18

Reommended Readging:

Robert Polzin, "The ancestress of Israel in danger" Semeia, no 3 1975, p 81-98 (ATLA).

Jewish Encyclopedia Article on Sarah

Genesis Apocryphon

Genealogy of the Hebrew Patriachs and Matriarchs

 

 

 

 

Women in a Culture of Shame:

Required Reading: Susan A. Brayford, "To Shame or Not to Shame: Sexuality in the Mediterranean Diaspora" (ATLAS)
Proverbs 31 My web notes on Honor and Shame for Biblical Themes of Peace

 

  Recommended Readings: Jerome Neyrey, "What's Wrong With This Picture? John 4, Cultural Stereotypes of Women, and Public and Private Space." Biblical Theology Bulletin 24 (1994):77-91.

David A. deSilva, "Honor and Shame: Connecting Personhood to Group Values," Chapter One in Honor, Patronage, Kinship and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture.

 

 

 

Women in the Law: By dramatizing the scenarios represented in the legal material about women, we will examine suspicion about women and whether the law promotes or undermines it.

Required Reading: Leviticus 12-15
Numbers 5, 25; 27; 30; 36
Deut 21-25

Recommended Reading: Louis Stulman, "Sex and familial crimes in the D code : a witness to mores in transition," Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 53 (1992) 47-63. ATLA

Definition of Pater Familias from Wikipedia.

Women in Biblical Law: a list of relevant passages and categories

 

 

 

Designing Women: Women as Tricksters:

Required Reading: Gen 25:19-39:23
Blackboard Document on the "Trickster Trope"
Joshua 1-3
Exodus 1-2; 4:18-26

Recommended: Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, A Call to Subversion

Carissa Bohne, Characterisitics of a Slave Trickster (a student produced page; follow links to related readings)

Helen Lock, Transformation of the Trickster in the Southern Cross Review, Number 30, 2003.

Alice A. Keefe, "Stepping In / Stepping Out: A Conversation between Ideological and Social Scientific Feminist Approaches to the Bible," Journal of Religion and Society, vol 1 1999.

 

 

 

Female Leaders Miriam and Deborah: an examination of how these women's stories are interpreted and appropriated in the current debate about women in leadership.

Required Reading: Numbers 12; Judges 1-5

Recommended Reading: Gale A. Yee, "By the Hand of a Woman : The Metaphor of the Woman Warrior in Judges 4," Semeia 61 (1993) 99-132. (ATLA)

Danna Nolan Fewell and David N. Gunn, "Controlling perspectives : women, men, and the authority of violence in Judges 4-5," Journal of the American Academy of Religion 58 (Fall 1990) 389-411.

Anna T, Hoglund, "Gender Construction in and through War," Whydah: Information and Policy Magazine 11 (2002).

 

 

 

Dangerous Women

Required Reading: Judges 13-16; Hosea 1-4; Judges 1-5

 

 

 

Endangered Women: an application of Rene Girard's theory of mimetic desire, violence and scapegoating.

Required Reading: Judges 11; 19-2; Leo D. Lefebure, “Victims, Violence and the Sacred: The Thought of René Girard,” Christian Century 112 (1996): 1226-1229. (ATLAS)
Walter Wink, “The Myth of Redemptive Violence,” Bible Society .

Recommended Reading: Gerald J. Biesecker mended Reading: Gerald J. Biesecker-Mast, Reading Rene Girard's and Walter Wink's Religious Critiques of Violence as Radical Communication Ethics; Andrew Marr, "Violence and the Kingdom of God : Introducing the Anthropology of René Girard,"Anglican Theological Review 80 (1998): 590-603. ATLAS; Jeramy Townsley, Rene Girard's Theory of Violence, Religion and the Scapegoat (Dec 2003). Amy-Jill Levine, "Threatened Bodies: Women, Apocrypha, Colonialism ". Jo Ann Hackett, "Violence and Women's Lives in the Book of Judges," Interpretation 58 (2004): 356-364; ATLA database. Phylis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984).

 

 

 

All the King's Women: What Women Really Want

Required Reading: 1 Sam 18 - 1 Kings 3.

Recommended Reading: A Website with information on the Ottoman Harem's entitled "Ottoman Women and the Visual Arts"