The Womb and the Simile of the Woman in Labor in the Hebrew Bible

Embodying Relationship with YHWH
1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-032-83447-4
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 178 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 438 g

Reihe: Routledge Studies in the Biblical World

This book explores figurative images of the womb and the simile of a woman in labor from the Hebrew Bible, problematizing previous interpretations that present these as disparate images and showing how their interconnectivity embodies relationship with YHWH.

In the Hebrew Bible, images of the womb and the pregnant body in labor do not co-occur despite being grounded in an image of a whole pregnant female body; the pregnant body is instead fragmented into these two constituent parts, and scholars have continued to interpret these images separately with no discussion of their interconnectivity. In this book, Langton explores the relationship between these images, inviting readers into a wider conversation on how the pregnant body functions as a means to an end, a place to access and seek a relationship with YHWH. Readers are challenged and asked to rethink how these images have been interpreted within feminist scholarship, with womb imagery depicting YHWH’s care for creation or performing the acts of a midwife, and the pregnant body in labor as a depiction of crisis. Langton explores select texts depicting these images, focusing on the corporeal experience and discussing direct references and allusions to the physicality of a pregnant body within these texts. This approach uncovers ancient and current androcentric ideology which dictates that conception, gestation, and birth must be controlled not by the female body, but by YHWH.

The Womb and the Simile of the Woman in Labor in the Hebrew Bible is of interest to students and scholars working on the Hebrew Bible, gender in the Bible and the Near East more broadly, and feminist biblical criticism.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Langton, Karen

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Bibelwissenschaften Altes Testament: Exegese, Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien: Theologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien Heilige & Traditionstexte: Torah, Talmud, Mischna, Halacha

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction; 1: Methodology; Section I: The Womb; 2: The Womb in Job; 3: Psalm 139; 4: Brought Forth from the Womb in Psalms 22 and 71; Section II: A Woman in Labor; 5: Non-Biblical ANE Texts – A Woman in Labor; 6: Isaiah Like a Woman in Labor; 7: YHWH Like a Woman in Labor; Conclusion: The Interconnectivity.

Über Autor(innen)

Karen Langton is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Fairfield University, Fairfield, Connecticut. Her publications include YHWH as a Woman in Labour: The Controlled Pregnant Female Body in Labour and Bringing to Birth: Relationship with YHWH. Her current research engages material religion explored through textiles.