Women and Exilic Identity in the Hebrew Bible

Notions of women as found in the Bible have had an incalculable impact on western cultures, influencing perspectives on marriage, kinship, legal practice, political status, and general attitudes. Women and Exile is drawn from three separate strands to address and analyse this phenomenon. The first examines how women were conceptualized and represented during the exilic period. The second focuses on methodological possibilities and drawbacks connected to investigating women and exile. The third reviews current prominent literature on the topic, with responses from authors.

With chapters from a range of contributors, topics move from an analysis of Ruth as a woman returning to her homeland, and issues concerning the foreign presence who brings foreign family members into the midst of a community, and how this is dealt with, through the intermarriage crisis portrayed in Ezra 9-10, to an analysis of Judean constructions of gender in the exilic and early post-exilic periods. The contributions show an exciting range of the best scholarship on women and foreign identities, with important consequences for how the foreign/known is perceived, and what that has meant for women through the centuries.

• Table of contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. The Ones Returning: Ruth, Naomi, and Social Negotiation in the Post-Exilic Period - Danna Nolan Fewell, Drew University, USA
• 2. Challenged Boundaries: Gender and the Other in Periods of Crisis - Lawrence M. Wills, Episcopal Divinity School, USA
• 3. Intermarriage and Exile: The Threat of Foreign Influences - Lisbeth Fried, University of Michigan, USA
• 4. Women, Exile, and the Pentateuchal Text - Sarah Shectman, Independent Researcher
• 5. Gender and Subjectivity in Jeremiah 44 - Carolyn J. Sharp, Yale Divinity School, USA
• 6. Sarah in Exile: The Conceptualization of a Deported Woman in the Book of Tobit - Manfred Oeming, University of Heidelberg, Germany
• 7. Jerusalem and Zion in Exile: Dual Identity in Diasporic Perspective - Mark J. Boda, McMaster Divinity College, USA
• 8. Sleeping with the Enemy? Esther, Judith, and Comfort Women - Daniel Smith-Christopher, Loyola Marymount University, USA
• 9. 'You Will Forget Your Ancient Shame': The Innocence of Susanna and the Vindication of Israel - Jennie Grillo, Duke Divinity School, USA
• 10. 'Pray God and Keep Walking': Exile and the Gendering of Religion - Madhavi Nevader, University of St Andrews, UK
• Bibliography
• Index