Olyan Social Inequality in the World of the Text

The Significance of Ritual and Social Distinctions in the Hebrew Bible
1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-3-647-55024-4
Verlag: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 240 Seiten

Reihe: Journal of Ancient Judaism. Supplements

This volume consists of fifteen of the author's essays, including two that have never been published before. The essays date to the last decade and a half, and all reflect in some manner the author's ongoing interest in literary operations of classification and their social implications, particularly the production of distinctions which create social inequality in the world of the text, and have the potential to generate hierarchical social relationships in contexts where biblical texts might have had an impact on real people. In these essays, the author explores themes such as gender, sexuality, purity and pollution, sanctification, death and afterlife, foreignness, and disability with particular attention to the roles distinctions such as honored/shamed, feminine/masculine, mourning/rejoicing, unclean/clean, alien/native play in creating and perpetuating social differences in texts. Rites of status change such as circumcision, shaving, purification, burial or disinterment, sanctification and profanation of holiness are a focus of interest in a number of these essays, reflecting the author's on going interest in the textual representation of ritual. Most of the essays examine texts in their historical setting, but several also engage the early history of the interpretation of biblical texts, including the phenomenon of inner biblical exegesis. The essays are divided into five sections: Rites and Social Status; Gender and Sexuality; Disability; Holiness, Purity, the Alien; Death, Burial, Afterlife and their Metaphorical Uses. The author introduces each of the sections, contextualizing each essay in his larger scholarly project, reflecting on its development and reception and, in some cases, responding to his critics.

Saul M. Olyan ist Samuel Ungerleider Jr. Professor für Judaistik und Professor für Religionswissenschaft an der Brown University, Providence, RI, USA.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Olyan, Saul M.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Biblische Geschichte & Archäologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Bibelwissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1;Table of Contents;6
2;Introduction;8
3;Section 1: Rites and Social Status ;14
3.1;Introduction;16
3.2;Honor, Shame and Covenant Relations in Ancient Israel and Its Environment;18
3.3;What Do Shaving Rites Accomplish and What Do They Signal in Biblical Ritual Contexts?;38
4;Section 2: Gender and Sexuality ;52
4.1;Introduction;54
4.2;“And with a Male You Shall Not Lie the Lying Down of a Woman”: On the Meaning and Significance of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13;58
4.3;“Surpassing the Love of Women”: Another Look at 2 Sam 1: and the Relationship of David and Jonathan;86
4.4;Occasionally Beyond Gender: The Rhetoric of Familial Nurture in Discourses of West Asian Kings and their Agents;102
5;Section 3: Disability ;116
5.1;Introduction;118
5.2;“Anyone Blind or Lame Shall Not Enter the House”: On the Interpretation of 2 Samuel 5:8b;120
5.3;The Exegetical Dimensions of Restrictions on the Blind and the Lame in Texts from Qumran;130
5.4; The Ascription of Physical Disability as a Stigmatizing Strategy in Biblical Iconic Polemics ;142
6;Section 4: Holiness, Purity, and the Alien ;156
6.1;Introduction;158
6.2;Purity Ideology in Ezra-Nehemiah as a Tool to Reconstitute the Community;160
6.3;“Sie sollen nicht in die Gemeinde des Herrn kommen”: Aspekte gesellschaftlicher Inklusion und Exklusion in Dtn 23,4–9 und seine frühen Auslegungen;174
6.4;Mary Douglas’s Holiness/Wholeness Paradigm: Its Potential for Insight and its Limitations;188
7;Section 5: Death, Burial, Afterlife, and their Metaphorical Uses ;198
7.1;Introduction;200
7.2;“We are Utterly Cut Off”: Some Possible Nuances of nigzarnû lanû in Ezek 37:11;202
7.3;Unnoticed Resonances of Tomb Opening and Transportation of the Remains of the Dead in Ezekiel 37:12–14;212
7.4;Was the “King of Babylon” Buried Before His Corpse Was Exposed? Some Thoughts on Isa 14:19;222
7.5;Some Neglected Aspects of Israelite Interment Ideology ;226

Über Autor(innen)

Olyan, Saul M.
Saul M. Olyan ist Samuel Ungerleider Jr. Professor für Judaistik und Professor für Religionswissenschaft an der Brown University, Providence, RI, USA.