This book provides the fullest examination of father-daughter depictions in the Hebrew Bible to date. While father-son depictions are more prominent, there none the less exists a broad spectrum of metaphors, myths, legal texts and narrative accounts featuring daughters alongside fathers. When this full range is taken into account, instead of - like many preceding approaches, which have looked at more lurid examples (like the narrative of Jephthah's sacrifice ofhis daughter, or Lot's incest with his daughters) in isolation - it emerges that the daughter is depicted also in very affectionate terms. The daughter is not invisible in the Hebrew Bible: she emergesas integral part of the family and, occasionally at least, as the most cherished and the most deserving of her father's protection.

While the expectations and circumstances of women's lives in ancient Israel have received considerable attention in recent scholarship, to date little attention has been focused on the role of daughters in Hebrew narrative‒‒that is, of yet unmarried female members of the household, who are not yet mothers. Kimberly D. Russaw argues that daughters are more than foils for the males (fathers, brothers, etc.) in biblical narratives and that they often use particular tactics to navigate antagonistic systems of power in their worlds. Institutions and power structures favor the patriarch, sons inherit such privileges and benefits, and wives and mothers are ascribed special status because they ensure the patrilineal legacy by birthing sons; but daughters do not receive such social favor or standing. Instead of privileging daughters, systems and institutions control their bodies, restrict their access, and constrict their movement. Combining philological data, social-science models, and cross-cultural comparisons, Russaw examines the systems that constrict biblical daughters in their worlds and the strategies they employ when hostile social forces threaten their well-being.

While the expectations and circumstances of women’s lives in ancient Israel have received considerable attention in recent scholarship, to date little attention has been focused on the role of daughters in Hebrew narrative‒‒that is, of yet unmarried female members of the household, who are not yet mothers. Kimberly D. Russaw argues that daughters are more than foils for the males (fathers, brothers, etc.) in biblical narratives and that they often use particular tactics to navigate antagonistic systems of power in their worlds. Institutions and power structures favor the patriarch, sons inherit such privileges and benefits, and wives and mothers are ascribed special status because they ensure the patrilineal legacy by birthing sons; but daughters do not receive such social favor or standing. Instead of privileging daughters, systems and institutions control their bodies, restrict their access, and constrict their movement. Combining philological data, social-science models, and cross-cultural comparisons, Russaw examines the systems that constrict biblical daughters in their worlds and the strategies they employ when hostile social forces threaten their well-being.

Why does Jephthah’s daughter weep? This new child-oriented reading reveals that a complex mix of emotional, familial, socio-cultural, and sexual consequences of menarche and menstruation lies behind her tears. There’s more blood flowing in this Judges story than you’ve likely imagined!

Remembered primarily as the prostitute who helped the Israelites claim the land of promise, Rahab has been relegated to the crevices of the story and the reader's imagination. Described as foreign woman and branded as a sex-worker, Rahab nevertheless defies the authority of the Jericho king and negotiates with representatives of the Israelite army, thereby saving her family and more. According to author Kimberly Russaw, Rahab, rather than being one-dimensional, is a complex, unwieldy character who upends the patriarchal ecosystem. By reframing Rahab, Russaw offers the biblical character as an exemplar of the inconvenient characters who persist at the margins even today. Russaw argues that the writers of Judges make the point that God is a promise keeper even to those beyond the Israelite camp.

'Incest' refers to illegal sexual relations between family members. Its precise contours, however, are culturally specific. Hence, an illegal incestuous union in one social context may be a legal close-kin union in another. First-degree sexual unions, between a parent and child, or between siblings, are most widely prohibited and abhorred. This book discusses all overt and covert first-degree incest relations in the Hebrew Bible and also probes the significance of gaps and what these imply about projected sexual and social values. As the dominant opinion on the origin of first-degree incest continues to be shaped, new voices such as those of queer and post-feminist criticism have joined the conversation. It navigates not only the incest laws of Leviticus and the narratives of Lot and his daughters and of Amnon and Tamar but pursues subtler intimations of first-degree sexual unions, such as between Adam and his (absent but arguably implied) mother, Haran and Terah's wife, Ham and Noah. In pursuing the psycho-social values that may be drawn from the Hebrew Bible regarding first-degree incest, this book will provide a thorough review of incest studies from the early 20th century onward and explain and assess the contribution of very recent critical approaches from queer and post-feminist perspectives.

This ground-breaking volume examines the presentation and role of children in the ancient world, and specifically in ancient Jewish and Christian texts. With carefully commissioned chapters that follow chronological and canonical progression, a sequential reading of this book enables deeper appreciation of how understandings of children change over time. Divided into four sections, this handbook first offers an overview of key methodological approaches employed in the study of children in the biblical world, and the texts at hand. Three further sections examine crucial texts in which children or discussions of childhood are featured; presented along chronological lines, with sections on the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, the Intertestamental Literature, and the New Testament and Early Christian Apocrypha. Relevant not only to biblical studies but also cross-disciplinary scholars interested in children in antiquity.