Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of Their Stories [Paperback]

Reading the Women of the Bibletakes up two of the most significant intellectual and religious issues of our day: the experiences of women in a patriarchal society and the relevance of the Bible to modern life.Acknowledgments

Introduction 

Part I. Victors
The Hand That Rocks the Cradle: The Rivka Stories
Saviors of the Exodus
The Guardian at the Door: Rahab
Warriors by Weapon and Word: Deborah and Yael
A Wise Woman of Power
The Shunammite
Villains: Potiphar’s Wife, Delilah, and Athaliah

Part II. Victims
The Disposable Wife
Daddy’s Daughters
Father-right Awry: Jephthah and His Daughter
The Bad Old Days: Concubine and Chaos
Kings to the Rescue?
“Off with His Head”: David, Uriah, and Bathsheba
Trauma and Tragedy: The Betrayals of Tamar
Power and Person: A Problem of Political Life

Part III. Virgins
The Dinah Affair
To the Barricades: Views Against the Other
Queen Jezebel, or Deuteronomy’s Worst Nightmare
Cozbi
Hagar, My Other, My Self
Royal Origins: Ruth on the Royal Way
Royal Origins: The Moabite
Royal Origins: Tamar
The Royal Way
Outsider Women: Exile and Ezra

Part IV. Voice
Oracles of the Conquest of Canaan: Rahab and Deborah
Oracles of Saul: Hannah and the Witch of Endor
The Necromancer at Endor
Abigail
Huldah
Woman as Voice

Part V. Reading the Women of the Bible
Women of Metaphor, Metaphors of Women
The Later Adventures of Biblical Women
Mirrors and Voices: Reading These Stories Today

Notes

Index 

“This book has much to say about and to women of every era and age, but its spirit, scope, and breadth go beyond any generic limits. Men—perhaps even more than women—can and should learn much from it, both about the Bible and the women in it.”
—David Noel Freedman, editor in chief,lĂ!