Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities: Women and Gender in Ancient Israel

Overtures to Biblical Theology

by Phyllis A. Bird

I. Women in ancient Israel --
1. Images of women in the Old Testament --
2. Women (Old Testament) --
3. Poor man or poor woman?: gendering the poor in prophetic texts --
II. Women in Israelite religion --
4. The place of women in the Israelite cultus --
5. Israelite religion and the faith of Israel's daughters: reflections on gender and religious definition --
III. Genesis 1-3 --
6. "Male and female he created them": Genesis 1:27b in the context of the priestly account of creation --
7. Genesis 1-3 as a source for a contemporary theology of sexuality --
8. Genesis 3 in modern biblical scholarship --
IV. Harlot and heirodule --
9. The harlot as heroine: narrative art and social presupposition in three Old Testament texts --
10. "To play the harlot": an inquiry into an Old Testament metaphor --
V. Hermaneutics and the authority of the Bible --
11. Translating sexist language as a theological and cultural problem --
12. Biblical authority in the light of a feminist critique.

Genres: Theology, Religion, Old Testament, Feminism, Biblical Studies

304 pages, Paperback

First published June 12, 1991