Is creation male, as the Bible seems to suggest? Does creativity always belong to the male element? Is there no female genesis? This exciting book argues against fashionable trends in contemporary feminisms that wish to abandon ′woman′ as a flawed and oppressive term, regarding masculinity and femininity as unwanted binaries that attempt to subvert gender as oppression. Instead the author argues for the need to revalue feminine origins, to make room for the feminine element in creation and explore the predicament of the female creator. Nicole Ward Jouve argues for a necessary relation to male and female, inside and outside, in the creative act and the formation of a creative sense of self. She sees both being engendered and engendering, with the attendant figures of the Mother and the Father, as part and parcel of the ways gender is experienced. The book explores these themes by drawing upon the work of writers in French and English, male and female, such as Balzac, Lawrence, de Beauvoir, Woolf, Carter, Roberts and Plath. The book takes stock of both French and Anglo-American- feminisms, and debates with psychoanalysis as well as literature through figures such as Freud, Jung, Lacan, Winnicott and Milner.

The women of Genesis 12-50 function as much more than ancillary characters to men. Through close attention to the literary features of the text, Jeansonne depicts Sarah, the daughters of Lot, Hagar, Rebekah, Rachel and Leah, Dinah, Tamar, and Potiphar's wife as integral persons who shaped Israel's destiny, revealed perspectives on God's involvement in the course of history, and portrayed human failure, freedom, and strength.

A prominent scholar of the Hebrew Bible offers a close reading of the women in Genesis to discover their roles in shaping ancient Israel.

Troyer uses his study of Genesis to prove to the Jewish people and the rest of the world that Jesus is the Anointed One. No other person fulfills the interwoven complexities of the living Word of God. (Christian)

This book presents in as clear a way as possible the New Testament material dealing with women and their roles in the context of the movement Jesus began. Dr Witherington begins by illustrating the roles of women in Judaism, in the Hellenistic world, and in the Roman Empire. She goes on to show how Jesus broke significantly with convention in the way he viewed women and their roles, offering as he did a wholly new conception of the legitimate rights of women in society. An analysis follows of the apostle Paul's attitude toward women, which shows how he agreed with and differed from the ideas of his contemporaries. The concluding chapters discuss the evangelists, whose selection and presentation of material with respect to women casts much light on the early Church's understanding of women and their roles. This comprehensive survey, which avoids slanting its material to serve a modern patriarchal or feminist bias, comes to the exciting conclusion that we can see in the New Testament an attempt to reform the patriarchal orientation of the day.

For all intent, virtually all accepted mainstream Catholic Christian tenets remain untouched for the past two millennia. It follows then that we take for evident truths¿for example, our views on the Creator and creation¿s sexuality, gender issues, and human relationship concerns¿may in fact be nothing but establishment dogmas gleaned from wrong interpretation or translation of the original text and intent of Jesus Christ and the Bible authors. Now, isn¿t the mere chance of that being true too scary? The Sex Texts: Sexuality, Gender, and Relationships in the Bible by L. Robert Arthur raises just that possibility, despite the strong likelihood of facing stiff criticism from many sectors, mostly of the established Catholic persuasion. Yet those inclined to know the true message of Jesus Christ and his closest disciples may well take heed to scrutinize, at the very least, what Robert is trying to point out in his work. The Sex Texts: Sexuality, Gender, and Relationships in the Bible promises to raise a storm, but the public debate it could engender may yet start a new direction for the rest of humanity.

Genesis 1–11: A Narrative Theological Commentary combines critical acumen with concern for the theological message of Scripture. It is a commentary in two stages. First, the text is allowed to speak for itself, using a narrative approach. Then, specific Jewish and Christian traditions flowing from the text are identified, and the underlying hermeneutical moves analyzed.

The women of Genesis - Eve, Sarah, Hagar, Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel - intrigued and informed the lives of nineteenth-century women. These women read the biblical stories for themselves and looked for ways to expand, reinforce, or challenge the traditional understanding of women's lives. They communicated their readings of Genesis using diverse genres ranging from poetry to commentary.

In the first edition of The Israelite Woman Athalya Brenner-Idan provided the first book-length treatment by a feminist biblical scholar of the female characters in the Hebrew Bible. Now, thirty years later, Brenner provides a fresh take on this ground-breaking work, considering how scholarly observation of female biblical characters has changed and how it has not. Brenner-Idan also provides a new and highly personal introduction to the book, which details, perhaps surprisingly to present readers, what was at stake for female biblical scholars looking to engage honestly in the academic debate at the time in which the book was first written. This will make difficult reading for some, particularly those whose own views have not changed. The main part of the book presents Brenner-Idans's now classic examination of the roles of women in the society of ancient Israel, and the roles they play in the biblical narratives. In Part I Brenner-Idan surveys what can be known about the roles of queens, wise women, women poets and authors, prophetesses, magicians, sorcerers and witches and female prostitutes in Israelite society. In Part II the focus is on the typical roles in which Hebrew women appear in biblical stories, as mother of the hero, as temptress, as foreigner, and as ancestress. In these narratives, for which there are standard plots and structures and characterizations readily available, women play a generally domestic role. Not only is the book a highly valuable resource detailing the social role of women in ancient Israel, and showing how the interpretation of women in the bible has been influenced by convention, but it is also a challenging reminder of how outdated attitudes can still prevail.