Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. Supplement Series. Supplement Series, 262)

257 Pages·1998·13.15 MB·English

by  Victor H. Matthews

JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
SUPPLEMENT SERIES
262
Editors
David J.A. Clines
Philip R. Davies
Executive Editor
John Jarick
Editorial Board
Robert P. Carroll, Richard J. Coggins, Alan Cooper, J. Cheryl Exum,
John Goldingay, Robert P. Gordon, Norman K. Gottwald,
Andrew D.H. Mayes, Carol Meyers, Patrick D. Miller
Sheffield Academic Press
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Gender and Law in the
Hebrew Bible and the
Ancient Near East
edited by
Victor H. Matthews,
Bernard M. Levinson
and Tikva Frymer-Kensky
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
Supplement Series 262
Copyright © 1998 Sheffield Academic Press
Published by
Sheffield Academic Press Ltd
Mansion House
19 Kingfield Road
Sheffield SI 19AS
England
Typeset by Sheffield Academic Press
and
Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain
by Bookcraft Ltd
Midsomer Norton, Bath
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
ISBN 1-85075-886-7
CONTENTS
Preface: From The Woman's Bible to Gender and Law 1
Abbreviations 9
List of Contributors 13
GENDER AND LAW: AN INTRODUCTION
Tikva Frymer-Kensky 17
MARC zvi BRETTLER
Women and Psalms: Toward an Understanding of the Role
of Women's Prayer in the Israelite Cult 25
CAROL J. DEMPSEY
The 'Whore' of Ezekiel 16: The Impact and Ramifications
of Gender-Specific Metaphors in Light of Biblical Law
and Divine Judgment 57
TIKVA FRYMER-KENSKY
Virginity in the Bible 79
VICTOR H. MATTHEWS
Honor and Shame in Gender-Related Legal Situations
in the Hebrew Bible 97
GEOFFREY P. MILLER
A Riposte Form in The Song of Deborah 113
ECKART OTTO
False Weights in the Scales of Biblical Justice?
Different Views of Women from Patriarchal Hierarchy
to Religious Equality in the Book of Deuteronomy 128
6 Gender and Law
CAROLYN PRESSLER
Wives and Daughters, Bond and Free: Views of Women
in the Slave Laws of Exodus 21.2-11 147
MARTHA T. ROTH
Gender and Law: A Case Study from Ancient Mesopotamia 173
HAROLD C. WASHINGTON
'Lest He Die in the Battle and Another Man Take Her':
Violence and the Construction of Gender in the Laws
of Deuteronomy 20-22 185
RAYMOND WESTBROOK
The Female Slave 214
Index of References 239
Index of Ancient Near Eastern Texts 245
Index of Authors 247
PREFACE: FROM THE WOMAN'S BIBLE TO GENDER AND LAW
In November, 1995, the Biblical Law Group of the Society of Biblical
Literature held a special session to commemorate the centennial of the
publication of The Woman's Bible, edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton.1
Four papers were presented: those by Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Carolyn
Pressler, Martha T. Roth, and Harold Washington. That session gener-
ated strong interest and a very lively debate. Consequently, the Biblical
Law Group decided to solicit additional papers, from members and
non-members alike, and to publish a volume on gender and law in the
Bible and the ancient Near East. A substantive introduction by Tikva
Frymer-Kensky follows. This preface, in the spirit of the original ses-
sion, commemorates the neglected accomplishment of the editor of The
Woman's Bible.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who lived 1815-1902, organized a group of
women scholars to comment upon Scripture from a feminist perspec-
tive. These women systematically went through the Bible, marking pas-
sages where women were prominent either for the inferior status
accorded them or for their absence altogether. The feminist editors then
cut these passages out, pasting them onto blank pages, on which they
wrote their own commentary. This new version of Rp, the final redactor
of the Pentateuch, is often full of understandable outrage.2 Moreover,
the women responsible for the project undertook the work at great
personal and professional cost. They were alienated both from the
church of their day, for their feminist claims to equality, and from the
1. The Woman's Bible (ed. Elizabeth Cady Stanton; 2 vols.; New York: Euro-
pean Publishing Company, 1895-98; repr.; New York: Arno Press, 1972). Valuable
information on Stanton's life and work is provided by Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner,
'Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Reformer to Revolutionary: A Theological Trajectory',
JAAR 62 (1994), pp. 673-97.
2. Stanton's project actually includes the whole Old Testament as well as the
New Testament.
8 Gender and Law
Women's Movement of their day, for embracing a liberal, historical-
critical approach to Scripture.3
The 1972 photo-reprint of The Woman's Bible is made from an orig-
inal that contains the handwritten notes of Stanton herself. On the dedi-
cation page of volume II, she wrote, in large and vigorous hand:
A Merry Christmas & Happy New Year
compliments of Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Genesis Chap I says Man & Woman were a simultaneous creation
Chap II says Woman was an afterthought
Which is true?
That question—which is true?—was central to her project and to the
concerns of the contributors to this volume. Stanton's book pulls no
punches. She saw biblical law as enforcing the degradation of women
and inscribing male power. She saw it as denying women a point of
view because of the seemingly overwhelming orientation of biblical
law to a male addressee conceived of as a legal person. She stressed the
near absence of woman as legal subject and insisted: 'We cannot accept
any code or creed that uniformly defrauds woman of all her natural
rights' (p. 127). At the same time, the question has to be raised, are
either man or woman by 'nature' legal persons—or is nature not the
realm of brute power rather than a model of equality? Is it not Scripture
itself, both in the creation story and in the laws, that offers an emanci-
patory vision of man and woman alike conceived as 'person'—inde-
pendent of gender? Were this the case, Scripture would provide its own
critique and itself be the ultimate source of Stanton's trenchant
demands for equality.
These are among the issues that will be addressed, pro and con, by
the contributors to this volume, all of whom probe how biblical and
cuneiform law constructs and represents matters of gender.
Bernard M. Levinson
Chair, Biblical Law Section
Society of Biblical Literature
3. For a valuable exposition of the continuing marginalization of Stanton,
Irene Makarushka, 'Elizabeth Cady Stanton and The Woman's Bible', Biblicon 1
(1997), pp. 43-60.
ABBREVIATIONS
AB
Anchor Bible
ABD
David Noel Freedman (ed.), The Anchor Bible Dictionary
(New York: Doubleday, 1992)
AfO Archivfiir Orientforschung
AfO.B Archiv fur Orientforschung Beiheft
AJS Association for Jewish Studies
ANET James B. Pritchard (ed.), Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating
to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1950)
AOAT Alter Orient und Altes Testament
AOS American Oriental Series
ArOr Archiv orientdlni
ASOR American Schools of Oriental Research
BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research
BBB Bonner biblische Beitrage
BDB Francis Brown, S.R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew
and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1907)
BETL Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium
BFCT Beitrage zur Fb'rderung christlicher Theologie
Bib Biblica
Biblnt Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary
Approaches
BJS Brown Judaic Studies
BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin
BWANT Beitrage zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament
BZ Biblische Zeitschrift
BZAW BeiheftezurZAW
CAD Ignace I. Gelb etal. (eds.), The Assyrian Dictionary of the
Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (Chicago:
Oriental Institute, 1964-)
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CBS Tablets in the collections of the University Museum of the
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
CH Code of Hammurabi (older term for LH)
ConBOT Coniectanea biblica, Old Testament
CT Cuneiform Tablets
EncJud Encyclopaedia Judaica