Introduction

This volume belongs to the ambitious international project of an encyclopaedia of exegesis and cultural historynamed “The Bible and Women.” The project seeks to provide an ecumenical, gender-sensitive interpretation and reception history of the Bible, with a focus on European theological research and Western religious history. When we undertook the task of editing one volume on the Hebrew Bible in the framework of this encyclopaedia, we embraced the idea as promising and trendsetting. Within the course of the work, however, we gradually became aware of the challenge of collecting texts of authors from four linguistic domains that simultaneously reflect different traditions of exegesis and various scholarly contexts. We are pleased that biblical scholars from five different European countries, Israel, and the United States have contributed to this volume. Each of them is a well-known expert in her or his field of study in their respective linguistic domain. As their essays were originally written in English, German, Italian, or Spanish, they represent diverse social contexts, which differ in terms of gender relations and gender theories, as well as diverse religious affiliations.

Contents

Introduction

• Christl M. Maier – Nuria Calduch-Benages

PART 1: TRACING THE LIVING CONDITIONS OF WOMEN

• Tamara Cohn Eskenazi The Lives of Women in the Postexilic Era
• Sara Japhet Female Names and Gender Perspectives in Chronicles

PART 2: “GOOD” AND “BAD” WOMEN? IMAGES OF WOMEN IN ISRAEL’S WISDOM TRADITION

• Gerlinde Baumann Personified Wisdom: Contexts, Meanings, Theology
• Christl M. Maier Good and Evil Women in Proverbs and Job: The Emergence of Cultural Stereotypes
• Vittoria D'Alario Between Misogyny and Valorization: Perspectives on Women in Qoheleth
• Nuria Calduch-Benages Good and Bad Wives in the Book of Ben Sira: A Harmless Classification?

PART 3: WOMEN’S VOICES AND FEMALE METAPHORS IN POETIC TEXTS

• Silvia Schroer Ancient Near Eastern Pictures as Keys to Biblical Metaphors
• Donatella Scaiola Feminine Symbols and Metaphors in the Psalter
• Ulrike Bail On Gendering Laments: A Gender-Oriented Reading of the Old Testament Psalms of Lament
• nancy C. Lee Lamentations and Gender in Biblical Cultural Context
• Gianni Barbiero Shulammite: The Woman “at Peace” in the Song of Songs

PART 4: AMBIVALENT ROLE MODELS: WOMEN IN NARRATIVE TEXTS

• Miren Junkal Guevara Llaguno Ruth and Naomi Reclaim Their Lives and Memories
• Susan Niditch Interpreting Esther: Categories, Contexts, and Creative Ambiguities
• Isabel Gómez-Acebo Susanna, Example of Virtue and Daniel’s Female Counterpart

Bibliography

Contributors

Index of Ancient Sources

The writings and later wisdom books

• Eds.
  Christl M. Maier
• Nuria Calduch-Benages

Year 2014