Description
Book SynopsisAncient literature was generally written by and produced for elite men. That fact creates specific challenges to modern interpreters of gender roles in the ancient world, especially once contemporary understandings of gender as construction and performance are embraced. In Gender and Second-Temple Judaism, world-renowned scholars take on these challenges with regard to ancient Judaism (here including early Christianity and early rabbinic Judaism as well), at once examining the ancient evidence and quite consciously addressing difficult methodological questions regarding gender. Taken together, these chapters further complicate discussions of the construction of identity (e.g., “who is a Jew?”) by inflecting them with questions of gender construction as well. Scholars of ancient Judaism and of gender alike will find much to grapple with in these pages.
Table of ContentsIntroduction:
Gender and Second Temple Judaism: Challenges and Possibilities
Shayna Sheinfeld
Chapter 1
“The Brooten Phenomenon”: Moving Women from the Margins in Second-Temple and New Testament Scholarship
Sara Parks
Chapter 2
Women Itinerants, Jesus of Nazareth, and Historical-Critical Approaches: Reevaluating the Con-sensus
Amy-Jill Levine
Chapter 3
Paul, the Man: Enigmatic Images
Kathy Ehrensperger
Chapter 4
From Pain to Redemption: 1 Timothy 2:15 in its Jewish Context
Sarah E.G. Fein
Chapter 5
Traversing the Boundaries of Gender: Rebekah’s Usurpation of the Patriarchal Role in the Book of Jubilees
Chontel Syfox
Chapter 6
The Reinforcement of Patriarchy and the (De)Construction of Gender Roles in Jubilees’ Recep-tion of the Jacob-Esau-Narrative
Daniel Vorpahl
Chapter 7
Women and Gender in the Gospel of John
Adele Reinhartz
Chapter 8
The Framing of Female Knowledge in the Prologue of the Sibylline Oracles
Francis Borchardt
Chapter 9
Female Authorship in Jewish Antiquity?
Gerbern Oegema
Chapter 10
Pheroras’ Wife: A Pharisee Woman
Tal Ilan
Chapter 11
Cross-dressing Zealots in Josephus’s War Account
Gabriella Gelardini
Chapter 12
Female Officiants in Second Temple Judaism
Angela Standhartinger
