Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
- LAST MODIFIED: 25 October 2017
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195393361-0246
- LAST MODIFIED: 25 October 2017
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195393361-0246
Introduction
There was relatively little scholarship focusing on women, gender, and sexuality in the Hebrew Bible until the 1970s, when modern feminist biblical scholarship first started to emerge as an outgrowth of second-wave feminism. In the 1980s, feminist biblical criticism fully blossomed as a discipline, inspiring a large body of work focusing on issues such as the depiction, treatment, and roles of women, the interrelationship between gender and power, and views toward women’s sexuality in biblical texts, and what can be discerned about various aspects of the lives of women in ancient Israel based on biblical and other evidence. In the past few decades, as the body of scholarship on women in the Bible has continued to grow, it has also broadened its scope as new methodologies and hermeneutical approaches have been introduced. Inspired in part by the rise of third wave feminism in the 1990s, there has also been an increasing amount of scholarship focusing on the intersection of race, class, and ethnicity with gender and sexuality in biblical texts, and an increasing awareness of the need to include more voices from the “two-thirds” world in the scholarly dialogue. In addition to being subjects covered by those engaging in feminist criticism, gender and sexuality studies both emerged as discrete fields in the 1980s, as biblical scholars, building upon the methodological foundation established by theorists such as Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault, began to examine the social, cultural, and historical construction of gender and sexuality in biblical texts. The last few decades have seen a flourishing of scholarship on gender and sexuality in the Bible that continues to both build on these foundations and go beyond them, as scholars incorporate new approaches and methodologies from the areas of gender theory, queer studies, masculinities studies, and, most recently, intersex studies into their work, offering innovative and incisive readings that shed a vivid new light on seemingly familiar biblical texts.
General Overviews
Given the wealth of knowledge that has been gained through scholarship that has considered biblical attitudes toward women, gender, and sexuality within the larger sociocultural milieu of the ancient Near East, this article will often bring in works that look at ancient Israel within its larger geographic and cultural context. Additionally, there is a large body of scholarship that has focused on Israel’s ancient Near Eastern neighbors. The sources on women, gender, sex, and sexuality in the ancient Near East included in this section consist of a mix of general overviews, anthologies of primary sources in translation, and works that focus on specific topics. There are also several works that provide excellent overviews on women, gender, sex, and sexuality in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, any of which could serve as a fine introduction for those new to these subject areas.
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Article
- 2 Baruch
- 1 Clement
- Aaron
- Acts of the Apostles
- Adam and Eve
- Aelia Capitolina
- Afterlife and Immortality
- Agriculture
- Alexander the Great
- Alexandria
- Altered States of Consciousness in the Bible
- Ancient Christianity, Churches in
- Ancient Israel, Schools in
- Ancient Medicine
- Ancient Mesopotamia, Schools in
- Angels
- Anti-Semitism and the New Testament
- Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
- Apocryphal Acts
- Apostolic Fathers
- Aram
- Archaeology and Material Culture of Ammon and the Ammonite...
- Archaeology and Material Culture of Judah and the Judeans ...
- Archaeology and Material Culture of Moab and the Moabites
- Archaeology and Material Culture of Phoenicia and the Phoe...
- Art, Early Christian
- Asceticism
- Astrology and Astronomy
- Athaliah
- Atonement
- Augustus
- Baptism
- Barnabas, The Epistle of
- Benefaction/Patronage
- Biblical Criticism
- Biblical Studies, Cognitive Science Approaches in
- Caesarea Maritima
- Canaanites
- Canon, Biblical
- Ceramics
- Cherubim
- Children in the Hebrew Bible
- Christian Apocrypha
- Christology
- Chronicles, 1 and 2
- Cities of Refuge
- Clement, 2
- Clement of Alexandria
- Clothing
- Colossians
- Conversion
- Corinthians, 2
- Cosmology, Near East
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- Covenant, Ark of the
- Crucifixion
- Daniel
- Daniel, Additions to
- David
- Death and Burial
- Demons
- Deuteronomistic History
- Deuteronomy
- Didache
- Domestic Architecture, Ancient Israel
- Early Christianity
- Ecclesiastes/Qohelet
- Economics and Biblical Studies
- Edom
- Education in the Hebrew Bible
- Election in the Bible
- Elijah
- Elisha
- Enoch
- Ephesians
- Epistles, Catholic
- Epistolography (Ancient Letters)
- Esther and Additions to Esther
- Ethics
- Evil Eye
- Exodus, Book of
- Exorcism
- Ezekiel
- Ezra-Nehemiah
- Feminist Scholarship on the Old Testament
- Flora and Fauna of the Hebrew Bible
- Food and Food Production
- Friendship, Kinship and Enmity
- Funerary Rites and Practices, Greco-Roman
- Galatians
- Galilee
- Genesis, Book of
- Gentiles
- Gnosticism
- God, Ancient Israel
- God, Greco-Roman
- God, Son of
- Gospels
- Gospels, Apocryphal
- Great, Herod the
- Greco-Roman World, Associations in the
- Greek Language
- Hagar
- Heaven
- Hebrew Bible, Biblical Law in the
- Hebrew Language
- Hebrews
- Hell
- Hellenistic and Roman Egypt
- Hermas, Shepherd of
- Historiography, Greco-Roman
- Hittites
- Holy Spirit
- Honor and Shame
- Hosea, Book of
- Idol/Idolatry (HB/OT)
- Imperial Cult and Early Christianity
- Infancy Gospel of Thomas
- Interpretation and Hermeneutics
- Isaiah
- Israel, History of
- James
- Jeremiah
- Jerusalem
- Jesus of Nazareth
- Jewish Christianity
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- Job
- John, Gospel of
- John the Baptist
- Joshua
- Jubilees, Book of
- Judaism, Hellenistic
- Judaism, Rabbinic
- Judaism, Second Temple
- Judas, Gospel of
- Jude, Epistle of
- Judges, Book of
- Judith, Book of
- Kings, 1 and 2
- Kingship
- Lamentations
- Letters, Johannine
- Letters, Pauline
- Levi/Levittes
- Levitical Cities
- Leviticus
- Literacy, New Testament
- Literature, Apocalyptic
- Lord’s Prayer
- Luke, Gospel of
- Maccabean Revolt
- Maccabees, 1–4
- Man, Son of
- Manasseh, King of Judah
- Manasseh, Tribe/Territory
- Mark, Gospel of
- Martyrdom
- Mary
- Matthew, Gospel of
- Medieval Biblical Interpretation (Jewish)
- Messianism
- Midian
- Midrash and Aggadah
- Minoritized Criticism of the New Testament
- Miracle Stories
- Modern Bible Translations
- Moses
- Music
- Myth in the Hebrew Bible
- Nahum, Book of
- New Testament and Early Christianity, Women, Gender, and S...
- New Testament, Feminist Scholarship on the
- New Testament, Men and Masculinity in the
- New Testament, Rhetoric of the
- New Testament, Social Sciences and the
- New Testament Studies, Emerging Approaches in
- New Testament, Textual Criticism of the
- New Testament Views of Torah
- Numbers, Book of
- Nuzi (Nuzi Tablets)
- Old Testament, Biblical Theology in the
- Old Testament, Social Sciences and the
- Orality and Literacy
- Parables
- Paraenesis
- Passion Narratives
- Pastorals
- Paul
- Pauline Chronology
- Paul's Opponents
- Pentateuch
- "Persian" Period, The
- Peter
- Philippians
- Philistines
- Philo of Alexandria
- Poetry, Hebrew
- Priestly/Holiness Codes
- Priest/Priesthood
- Prophets
- Proverbs
- Psalms
- Pseudepigraphy, Early Christian
- Q
- Qumran/Dead Sea Scrolls
- Revelation (Apocalypse)
- Romans
- Sacrifice
- Samaria/Samaritans
- Samuel, 1 and 2
- Satan
- Scriptures
- Sects, Jewish
- Septuagint
- Sermon on the Mount
- Sin (Hebrew Bible/Old Testament)
- Sirach
- Slavery
- Sojourner
- Solomon
- Solomon, Wisdom of
- Song of Songs
- Succession Narrative
- Synagogue
- Synoptic Problem
- Tales, Court
- Talmud
- Targum
- Temples and Sanctuaries
- Temples, Near Eastern
- Ten Commandments
- the Dead, Egyptian Book of
- the Hebrew Bible, Ancient Egypt and
- Thessalonians
- Thomas, Gospel of
- Tobit
- Twelve Prophets, Book of the
- Ugarit
- Virtues and Vices: New Testament Ethical Exhortation in I...
- War, New Testament
- Wisdom
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- Worship in the New Testament and Earliest Christianity
- Worship, Old Testament
- Zadok
- Zechariah