Multifaceted insights into female life in prophetic contexts Both prophets and prophetesses shared God’s divine will with the people of Israel, yet the voices of these women were often forgotten due to later prohibitions against women teaching in public. This latest volume of the Bible and Women series focuses on the intersection of gender and prophecy in the Former Prophets (Joshua to 2 Kings) as well as in the Latter Prophets of the Hebrew Bible. Essays examine how women appear in the iconography of the ancient world, the historical background of the phenomenon of prophecy, political and religious resistance by women in the biblical text, and gender symbolism and constructions in prophetic material as well as the metaphorical discourse of God. Contributors Michaela Bauks, Athalya Brenner-Idan, Ora Brison, L. Juliana Claassens, Marta García Fernández, Irmtraud Fischer, Maria Häusl, Rainer Kessler, Nancy C. Lee, Hanne Løland Levinson, Christl M. Maier, Ilse Müllner, Martti Nissinen, Ombretta Pettigiani, Ruth Poser, Benedetta Rossi, Silvia Schroer, and Omer Sergi draw insight into the texts from a range of innovative gender-oriented approaches.

Because gender is an essential component of societies of all times and places, it is no surprise that every prophetic expression in the ancient social world was a gendered one. In this volume scholars of the biblical literature and of the ancient Mediterranean consider a wide array of prophetic phenomena. In addition to prophetic texts of the Hebrew Bible, the essays also look at prophecy in ancient Mesopotamia and early Christianity. Using the most current theoretical categories, the volume demonstrates how essential a broad definition of gender is for understanding its connection to both the delivery and the content of ancient prophecy. Attention to gender dynamics will continue to reveal the fluidity of prophetic gender performance and to open up the ancient contexts of prophetic texts. The contributors are Roland Boer, Corrine Carvalho, Lester L. Grabbe, Anselm C. Hagedorn, Esther J. Hamori, Dale Launderville, Antti Marjanen, Martti Nissinen, Jonathan Stökl, Hanna Tervanotko, and Ilona Zsolnay.

This volume provides an introduction and essays on the four key sections of the Hebrew Scriptures from the perspective of top female biblical scholars: Part One: Torah/Pentateuch Part Two: Deuteronomistic History (Joshua–2 Kings) Part Three: Prophets and Prophecy Part Four: Writings and the Book of Daniel This volume highlights key issues in the Hebrew Scriptures from the perspective of top female biblical scholars. This includes historical critical and literary textual analysis and exegesis, particularly as viewed through feminist and intersectional interpretive lenses. Intersectional lenses include the racial/ethnic, class, Global South, postcolonial, and so forth, and their interconnections with gender. The introduction to the volume by the editor introduces feminist intersectional biblical scholarship, making the case that this scholarship addresses perspectives that are often missing from even very thorough survey texts: feminist and intersectional issues regarding the women characters, sexual assumptions, sexual and domestic violence, symbolization of women, class and race relations, and so forth. The essays have been created for students who may be encountering feminist biblical and intersectional scholarship for the first time. Other contributors to this volume include Carolyn J. Sharp, Vanessa Lynn Lovelace, Corrine L. Carvalho, Melody Knowles, and Judy Fentriss-Williams.

'Are We Not Men?' offers an innovative approach to gender and embodiment in the Hebrew Bible. Graybill argues that the male body is a source of difficulty for the Hebrew prophets. This very instability of prophetic masculinity makes possible new understandings of biblical masculinity, as the prophetic body is revealed as a queer body.

Are We Not Men? offers an innovative approach to gender and embodiment in the Hebrew Bible, revealing the male body as a source of persistent difficulty for the Hebrew prophets. Drawing together key moments in prophetic embodiment, Graybill demonstrates that the prophetic body is a queer body, and its very instability makes possible new understandings of biblical masculinity. Prophecy disrupts the performance of masculinity and demands new ways of inhabiting the body and negotiating gender. Graybill explores prophetic masculinity through critical readings of a number of prophetic bodies, including Isaiah, Moses, Hosea, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. In addition to close readings of the biblical texts, this account engages with modern intertexts drawn from philosophy, psychoanalysis, and horror films: Isaiah meets the poetry of Anne Carson; Hosea is seen through the lens of possession films and feminist film theory; Jeremiah intersects with psychoanalytic discourses of hysteria; and Ezekiel encounters Daniel Paul Schreber's Memoirs of My Nervous Illness. Graybill also offers a careful analysis of the body of Moses. Her methods highlight unexpected features of the biblical texts, and illuminate the peculiar intersections of masculinity, prophecy, and the body in and beyond the Hebrew Bible. This assembly of prophets, bodies, and readings makes clear that attending to prophecy and to prophetic masculinity is an important task for queer reading. Biblical prophecy engenders new forms of masculinity and embodiment; Are We Not Men?offers a valuable map of this still-uncharted terrain.

"Women prophets proclaimed and performed the word of God at formative moments in ancient Israel's history, and were expected in biblical visions of the future. Now they come to the foreground as Wilda C. Gafney explores women's involvement in prophetic activities and sacred roles in ancient Israel, its near eastern environment, and early Christianity and rabbinic Judaism as well."--BOOK JACKET.

Annotation A study of the phenomenon of prophecy as documented in ancient Near Eastern texts and the Hebrew Bible as well as Greek sources, from the twenty-first century BCE to the second century CE.