scholarly journals Commemorating the Nameless Wives of the Bible: Midrashic Poems by Contemporary American-Jewish Women

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 365
Author(s):  
Anat Koplowitz-Breier
Keyword(s):  
Significant Role ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Jewish American ◽  
Jewish Women ◽  
Women's Poetry ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Women ◽  
Proper Name ◽  
American Jewish ◽  
American Poets

A proper name individualizes a person, the lack of it making him or her less noticeable. This insight is apt in regard to the nameless women in the Hebrew Bible, a resolutely androcentric work. As Judaism traditionally barred women from studying, many Jewish feminists have sought access to the Jewish canon. Much of American-Jewish women’s poetry can thus be viewed as belonging to the midrashic-poetry tradition, attempting to vivify the biblical women by “revisioning” the Bible. This article examines two nameless wives who, although barely noted in the biblical text, play a significant role in their husbands’ stories—Mrs. Noah and Mrs. Job. Although numerous exegetes have noted them across history, few have delved into their emotions and characters. Exploration of the way in which contemporary Jewish-American poets treat these women and connect them to their own world(s) is thus of great interest to both modern and biblical scholars. Herein I focus on five poets: Elaine Rose Glickman (“Parashat Noach”), Barbara D. Holender (“Noah’s Wife,” and “Job’s Wife”), Oriana Ivy (“Mrs. Noah,” and “Job’s Wife”), Shirley Kaufman (“Job’s Wife”), and Sherri Waas Shunfenthal (“Noah’s Wife Speaks,” “The Animals are our Friends,” “Time,” and “Arc of Peace”).

‘Turn it Over and Over’ (Avot 5:22): American Jewish Women’s Poetry on Lot’s Wife

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-227
Author(s):  
Anat Koplowitz-Breier
Keyword(s):  
Women Poets ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Jewish American ◽  
Women's Poetry ◽  
American Women ◽  
Biblical Story ◽  
The Future ◽  
American Jewish ◽  
The Way

Abstract Although mentioned only twice in Genesis (19:17, 26), Lot’s wife has been a topic of much discussion amongst both traditional and modern commentators and exegetes. However, as opposed to the androcentric traditional midrash, the Jewish American women poets, who write midrashic-poetry, re-read the biblical story with a feminine/feminist lens, making what Alicia Ostriker calls ‘revisionist mythmaking.’ In this article, I shall focus on seven poems written from the 1980s through to 2014. I shall endeavor to evince the way(s) in which they make use of the biblical text, dealing with themes raised in the traditional midrash or re-reading the latter. I will show how by adducing to her emotions, longings and memories and even fear of the future, the poets portray Lot’s wife first and foremost as a woman.

Reading from Worlds under the Text: Oceanic Women in the missio Dei

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-51
Author(s):  
Rosemary Dewerse ◽  
Cathy Hine
Keyword(s):  
Global South ◽  
Missio Dei ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Biblical Hermeneutics ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Women

Abstract Missional hermeneutics is a relatively recent development in the field of biblical hermeneutics, emerging from several decades of scholarly engagement with the concept and frame of missio Dei. In a key recent publication in the field, Reading the Bible Missionally, edited by Michael Goheen, the voices of the Global South and of women – and certainly of women from Oceania – do not feature. In this article the authors, both Oceanic women, interrupt the discourse to read biblical text from their twice-under perspective. The Beatitudes provide the frame and the lens for a spiralling discussion of the missio Dei as, to borrow from Letty M. Russell, “calculated inefficiency.” Stories of faithful Oceanic women interweave with those of God and of biblical women, offering their complexities to challenge assumptions and simplicities.

scholarly journals Déjà Vu: Shirley Kaufman’s Poetry on Biblical Women

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 493
Author(s):  
Anat Koplowitz-Breier
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Jewish American ◽  
Adrienne Rich ◽  
Women's Bodies ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Women ◽  
Deja Vu ◽  
Contemporary Reality ◽  
Déjà Vu

This article explores Shirley Kaufman’s reading of the Bible as an elaboration on/of its feminine characters via three devices: (a) Dramatic monologues, in which the woman speaks for herself (“Rebecca” and “Leah”); (b) description of specific scenes that gives us a glimpse into the character’s point of view (“His Wife”, “Michal”, “Abishag”, “The Wife of Moses”, “Yael”, and “Job’s Wife”); and (c) interweaving of the biblical context into contemporary reality (“Déjà Vu” and “The Death of Rachel”). Fleshing these figures out, Kaufman portrays the biblical women through contemporary lenses as a way of “coming to terms with the past” and the historical exclusion of “women’s bodies” from Jewish tradition, thereby giving them a voice and “afterlife”. Her treatment of the biblical texts can thus be viewed as belonging to the new midrashic-poetry tradition by Jewish-American women that has emerged as part of the Jewish feminist wave. Herein, Kaufman follows Adrienne Rich and Alicia Ostriker’s “re-visioning” of the Bible and in particularly its women, empowering them by making use of her/their own words.

scholarly journals A Nameless Bride of Death: Jephthah’s Daughter in American Jewish Women’s Poetry

Open Theology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anat Koplowitz-Breier
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Active Participation ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Jewish Women ◽  
Women's Poetry ◽  
Artistic Works ◽  
American Jewish

AbstractIn the Hebrew Bible, Jephthah’s daughter has neither name nor heir. The biblical account (Judg. 11:30–40) is somber—a daughter due to be sacrificed because of her father’s rash vow. The theme has inspired numerous midrashim and over five hundred artistic works since the Renaissance. Traditionally barred from studying the Jewish canon as women, many Jewish feminists are now adopting the midrashicpoetry tradition as a way of vivifying the female characters in the Hebrew Bible. The five on which this article centers focus on Jephthah’s daughter, letting her tell her (side of the) story and imputing feelings and emotions to her. Although not giving her a name, they hereby commemorate her existence—and stake a claim for their own presence, autonomy, and active participation in tradition and society as Jewish women.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk van Miert
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
The Bible ◽  
External Pressures ◽  
History Of

In the conclusion, the intrinsic deconstructive power of philology is contrasted with external pressures moving philology in different political and religious directions. The positions of the main protagonists differed widely, but they show that the less they were institutionalized, the more freedom they had to present unorthodox theories. As in the case of natural science, biblical philology was a handmaiden of theology, but it could also be used against certain theologies. In the end, the accumulation of evidence regarding the history of the Bible and the transmission of its texts, could not fail to impinge on the authority of Scripture. The problems in the transmission of the biblical text were widely discussed in the decade leading up to the publication of the Theological-political Treatise. Readers of Spinoza were already familiar with the type of reasoning which Spinoza employed in the central chapters of his notorious work.

scholarly journals A silent unheard voice in the Old Testament: The Cushite woman whom Moses married in Numbers 12:1–10

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David T. Adamo
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
African Women ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Women In The Bible ◽  
The Bible

Most of the time, women’s names are not mentioned, words are not put in their mouths or they are not allowed to say a word, and their achievements are behind the scene in the narratives. Passages that mention the presence and contribution of African women in the Bible are especially neglected, perhaps because there are few African women biblical scholars and also deep prejudices against women. References to the African wife of Moses (Numbers 12) are so scanty in the Bible that very few critical biblical scholars noticed them. The purpose of this article is to discuss critically the narrative of the Cushite woman whom Moses married and her marginalisation by the author of the story in Numbers 12:1-10. The narrator of the text did not only refuse to give her a name, there is no single word put in her mouth despite the dominant and significant role her presence played in the narrative. Why is she silent and what does her silence mean? The answers to these questions are discussed in this article.

American Jewish Women and the Zionist Enterprise (review)

2006 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 204-210
Author(s):  
Donna Robinson Divine
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Women ◽  
American Jewish

The Binding of Isaac in J.R.R. Tolkien and Stephen King

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-174
Author(s):  
Sebastian Selvén
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Text ◽  
Stephen King ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Genesis 22 ◽  
Intertextual Dialogue

Abstract This article investigates biblical reception in the works of two popular modern fantasy authors. It stages an intertextual dialogue between Genesis 22:1-19, “the binding of Isaac”, and two episodes, in Stephen King’s The Gunslinger and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Return of the King. After presenting the dynamics of what happens to the biblical text in these two authors and the perspectives that come out, a hermeneutical reversal is then suggested, in which the modern stories are used to probe the biblical text. One can return to the Bible with questions culled from its later reception, in this case King and Tolkien. This article argues that the themes touched upon by the two authors are important and hermeneutically relevant ones, sometimes novel and sometimes contributions to exegetical debates that have been going on for centuries.

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