Women in the Bible, Qumran and Early Rabbinic Literature: Their Status and Roles

435 Pages·2014·2.128 MB·English

by  Paul Heger

Women in the Bible, Qumran and Early Rabbinic Literature
Studies on the Texts of the
Desert of Judah
Edited by
George J. Brooke
Associate Editors
Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar
Jonathan Ben-Dov
Alison Schofield
VOLUME 110
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/stdj
Women in the Bible,
Qumran and Early Rabbinic
Literature
Their Status and Roles
By
Paul Heger
LEIDEN | BOSTON
This is an open access title distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-
Noncommercial 3.0 Unported (CC-BY-NC 3.0) License, which permits any non-commercial
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and
source are credited.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Heger, Paul, 1924–
 Women in the Bible, Qumran, and early Rabbinic literature ; their status and roles / by Peter Heger.
  pages cm. — (Studies on the texts of the desert of Judah, ISSN 0169-9962 ; VOLUME 110 504 Includes
bibliographical references and index.)
 ISBN 978-90-04-27691-8 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-27711-3 (e-book) 1. Women in the Bible.
2. Women in rabbinical literature. I. Title.
 BS575.H44 2014
 296.1082—dc23
2014012751
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering
Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities.
For more information, please see brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 0169-9962
isbn 9�� 90 0� 2�6�1 � (hardback)
isbn 9�� 90 0� 2��11 3 (e-book)
Copyright 2014 by Paul Heger.
This work is published by Koninklijke Brill NV. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill,
Brill Nijhoff, Global Oriental and Hotei Publishing.
Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect the publication against unauthorized use and to authorize
dissemination by means of offprints, legitimate photocopies, microform editions, reprints, translations, and
secondary information sources, such as abstracting and indexing services including databases. Requests for
commercial re-use, use of parts of the publication, and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke
Brill NV.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
To my family and worldwide friends, who encouraged me to take the demanding path
of transition to academic activity at an advanced age, and assisted me in overcoming
the manifold obstacles on that uphill road.
∵

Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements  xiii
Introduction  1
Methodology  5
Plan of the Book  5
Sources  7
part 1
1 The Creation Narrative and the Status of Women  11
1.1 Introduction  11
1.2 The Biblical Text: Problems and Interpretations  11
1.2.1 K ey Textual Differences between the Creation Narratives of
Gen 1 and 2  11
1.2.2 Textual Issues in the Creation Narrative of Gen 2  12
1.2.3 Interpreting the Phrase ודגנכ רזע  14
1.2.4 Implications of Man’s Prior Creation  18
1.2.5 The Creation of Woman from Man (Gen 2:21–24)  22
1.2.6 God’s Presentation of Eve to Adam, and His Reaction  26
1.2.7 Scholarly Opinions and Interpretations  32
1.2.8 M ale-Female Equality or Inequality as a Consequence of the
Creation Narrative  35
1.3 Qumran’s Possible Understanding of the Creation Narrative and Its
Legal Ramifications  39
1.4 Rabbinic Interpretation of the Creation Narrative: Positive and
Negative Attitudes towards Women in Midrashim  42
1.5 Conclusion  45
2 Interpretations of the Fall Narrative  46
2.1 Introduction  46
2.2 The Biblical Text: Problems and Interpretations  47
2.2.1 Close Textual Analysis of Gen 3:1–14  47
2.2.2 Gen 3:14–24: Distinct Retributions for Adam and Eve  52
2.2.3 Jubilees’ Intentional Changes to the Biblical Text  60
2.2.4 Scriptural Attitudes towards Women  64
viii contents
2.2.5 Excursus: Is Jubilees’ Attitude towards Women Negative or
Positive?  72
2.2.6 Intermediate Summary  77
2.3 Qumran Interpretation of the Woman’s Role in the Fall
Narrative  78
2.3.1 Hypotheses of Woman’s Role in the Fall Event  78
2.3.2 No Allegation of Sexual Misbehaviour of Women in Qumran
Writings  80
2.4 The Rabbinic Interpretation of the Fall Narrative  83
2.4.1 Midrashim with Negative Views towards Women  83
2.4.2 Midrashim Attributing Guilt to Adam, Mitigating
Eve’s Guilt  86
2.4.3 Rabbinic Attitudes towards Women: A Brief Overview  89
2.4.4 R abbinic Rules of Behaviour for Contact with Women and
Their Interpretation  90
2.5 Underlying Philosophy and Theology of Rabbinic Midrashim and
Quasi-Halakhot  92
2.5.1 Women’s Character: The Dinah Affair  92
2.5.2 Frymer-Kensky’s Theory  94
2.5.3 Rabbinic Conceptions of Men’s Character  97
2.6 Deducing the Theology and Philosophy Underlying Rabbinic
Literature  100
2.6.1 General Principles, Criteria, and Premises  100
2.6.2 Assessing Contrasting Midrashim and
Pronouncements  101
2.6.3 Summarizing Rabbinic Opinion  103
2.7 Conclusion, Part 1: Interpretations of the Creation and Fall
Narratives  105
part 2
3 The Father’s Authority and Responsibility, and Their Limitations:
A Debate with Scholarly Theories  113
3.1 Introduction  113
3.2 Slavery and Manumission for Israelite Women: Scriptural
Rules  113
3.3 Rabbinic Rules Relating to Male and Female Minors  124
3.4 Plausible Attitude of Qumran towards the Father’s Authority  126
3.5 A General Reflection on the Status of Women in Jewish
Writings  128
contents ix
4 Women’s Obligations to Fulfill Biblical Precepts  131
4.1 Introduction  131
4.2 Scriptural Attitudes towards Women’s Obligations  132
4.2.1 Scriptural Commands That Lack Precision about Gender  132
4.2.2 D id Women Participate in the Revelation at Sinai? An Analysis
of the Scriptural Text  133
4.2.3 The Range of םעה and הדע  139
4.2.4 Ramifications of Women’s Absence from the Revelation
at Sinai  141
4.2.5 T he Husband’s Authority to Decide Which Precepts His Wife
Must Fulfill: The Evidence  143
4.3 Rabbinic Viewpoints on Women’s Obligations to Fulfill Biblical
Precepts  148
4.3.1 Did Women Participate in the Sinai Revelation? Rabbinic
Opinions  148
4.3.2 Rabbinic Attitudes towards Women’s Obligations:
Introduction  152
4.3.3 Rabbinic Theories and Their Textual and Practical
Background  154
4.3.4 How Women’s Obligations Became Institutionalized  162
4.4 Debating Safrai’s Theory on the Sequence of the Developmental
Stages  163
4.4.1 C onsequences from the Rabbinic Midrashim about the Rules
for Teaching Women  163
4.4.2 Additional Evidence against Safrai’s Theory  165
4.5 Qumranic Attitudes on Woman’s Obligations to Fulfill Biblical
Precepts  170
4.5.1 Introduction  170
4.5.2 Implicit Deductions from Qumranic Texts  170
4.6 Conclusion  174
5 Were Women Members of the Eda–Yahad?  176
5.1 Scriptural Commands That Lack Precision about Gender  176
5.2 Qumran’s Principle of Eda, the Yahad Holy Community, and Its Legal
Implications  176
5.3 References to Yahad in Qumran Writings: Differing Scholarly
Proposals  184
5.4 Sharing Wealth of Members in 1QS and in CD: Identical or
Different?  189
5.4.1 1QS Community Rules Texts  190
5.4.2 Harmonization of Apparent Inconsistencies  192