A Feminist Companion To Ruth And Esther

The second series of Feminist Companions moves beyond the confines of sex- and gender-specific issues and studies of biblical women. Biblical feminist critics now address contemporary life situations, marginalization and a range of questions once not thought accessible to such critique. Feminist theory has also continued a rapid evolution. Among the topics included in this volume are composition, Torah, Ruth-the-Cat, female networking-together with much else to inform and stimulate female (and male) biblical scholars and non-scholars.

The second series of Feminist Companions moves beyond the confines of sex- and gender-specific issues and studies of biblical women. Biblical feminist critics now address contemporary life situations, marginalization and a range of questions once not thought accessible to such critique. Feminist theory has also continued a rapid evolution. Among the topics included in this volume are composition, Torah, Ruth-the-Cat, female networking-together with much else to inform and stimulate female (and male) biblical scholars and non-scholars.

This volume is part of a series which provides a fundamental resource for feminist biblical scholarship, containing a comprehensive selection of essays, both reprinted and specially written for the series, by leading feminist scholars. 'An enterprising series of collections of important and pioneering studies.... Those teaching feminist courses will find the books invaluable as a resource for students.' C.S. Rodd, Expository Times.

The studies in this collection, reflecting recent developments in feminist exegesis in Europe and the United States, comprise three 'revisits': the first, to Exodus and Moses, includes Susanne Scholz on a literary feminist reading of Exodus, Harold Washington on Exodus and Zora Neale Hurston's 'Moses, Man of the Mountain', Ilona Rashkow on 'Oedipus Wreckes: Moses and God's Rod', and 'Divine Puppeteer: Yahweh of Exodus' by Cheryl Kirk-Duggan. The second revisit, to Miriam, comprises 'Miriam' by Phyllis Silverman Kramer, 'Miriam Re-Imagined, and Imaginary Women of Exodus in Musical Settings' by Helen Leneman, Alice Bach, 'Dreaming of Miriam's Well' and Irmtraud Fischer on 'The Authority of Miriam'. The third revisit is to Daughters, where Tal Ilan writes on the daughters of Zelophehad and Leila Bronner on' Serah and the Exodus'.

Tremper Longman III and Peter E. Enns edit this collection of 148 articles by over 90 contributors on Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Ruth and Esther.

This addition to the Old Testament Guides series studies the only two biblical books to have been named after women, and finds them refreshingly different. A rich field of new writing on Esther is surveyed, showing that this exotic book is emerging from a long period under a cloud to make valuable contributions to a number of current debates: what makes a biblical text theologically valuable or dangerous - and how do our perceptions change? what is the relation beween history and theology? what is the status of variant forms of the biblical tradition? how does the book achieve its literary impact? - and, of course, what contribution does it make to feminist biblical studies? Ruth is more of an established favourite in the biblical canon. The Guide tackles the elusive questions of its dating and the nature of its relationship to Israelite law, as well as the contrivance of its literary beauty and the subtlety of its theology. The needs of students studying Ruth as a set text in Hebrew are taken into account, but the Guide follows the series as a whole in catering primarily for those studying English text.