Was Mary Magdalene a prostitute? Photo: Private Collection/Bridgeman Art Library/Courtesy of IAP Fine Art.

Was Mary Magdalene a Prostitute?

Was Mary Magdalene a prostitute who repented or simply an influential female follower of Jesus? Mary from Magdala has popularly been saddled with an unfavorable reputation, but how did this notion come about? In From Saint to Sinner, Birger A. Pearson examines how Mary Magdalene’s notoriety emerged in the early Christian tradition. Pearson writes that later interpreters of the Gospels attempted to diminish her “by identifying her with other women mentioned in the Gospels, most notably the unnamed sinful woman who anoints Jesus’ feet with ointment and whose sins he forgives (Luke 7:36–50) and the unnamed woman taken in adultery (John 7:53–8:11).”

Read From Saint to Sinner by Birger A. Pearson as it originally appeared in Bible Review.

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Who was Jezebel? Image: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, UK/Bridgeman Art Library.

Who Was Jezebel? How Bad Was She?

Who was Jezebel? For over 2,000 years, Jezebel, Israel’s most accursed queen, has been condemned as a murderer, a temptress and an enemy of God. Who was Jezebel, really? Was she really that bad? In How Bad Was Jezebel? Janet Howe Gaines rereads the Biblical narrative from the vantage point of the Phoenician wife of King Ahab. As Gaines writes, “To attain a more positive assessment of Jezebel’s troubled reign and a deeper understanding of her role, we must evaluate the motives of the Biblical authors who condemn the queen.”

Read Janet Howe Gaines’s article How Bad Was Jezebel? as it originally appeared in Bible Review.

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Rahab the Harlot or just the inkeeper? Image: CCI/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY.

Rahab the Harlot?

As described in the Book of Joshua, Rahab (a heroine nonetheless known as “Rahab the Harlot”) assisted two Israelite spies in escaping down the city wall of Jericho. Was Rahab a Biblical prostitute? While the Biblical text identifies her as a zônāh, a prostitute (Joshua 2:1), Josephus reports that she kept an inn. Anthony J. Frendo critically examines the textual evidence.

Read about Anthony J. Frendo’s conclusions on Rahab the Harlot.

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Who is Lilith? Courtesy of Richard Callner, Latham, NY.

Who Is Lilith?

Fertile mother, wilderness demon, sly seductress—the resilient character Lilith has been recast in many roles. Who is Lilith? As Janet Howe Gaines writes, “In most manifestations of her myth, Lilith represents chaos, seduction and ungodliness. Yet, in her every guise, Lilith has cast a spell on humankind.” Follow Lilith’s journey from Babylonian mythology, through the Bible, to medieval lore and modern literature in Lilith by Janet Howe Gaines.

Read Lilith by Janet Howe Gaines as the article originally appeared in Bible Review.

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Tabitha in the Bible

Deborah in the Bible

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The post Scandalous Women in the Bible appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Samson and Delilah, by Lucas Cranach the Elder, c. 1528–1530. Image in public domain.

Feminist biblical scholars have spent years reframing the women of the Bible through new lenses. As the field of biblical studies expands, so do the perspectives and voices of those who participate, lending new insights and perspectives on characters that have traditionally been marginalized in the text. While most agree that the Bible was largely written by and for men, that does not mean it must continue to be read in that tradition. Reexamining it can create new understandings and attitudes towards both lauded and maligned characters, and the feminist lens affords more empathy to biblical figures who have been poorly treated, especially women.

One of the most well-known biblical women is Delilah, who led the mighty Samson to his downfall (Judges 16). It is often assumed that Delilah, who was from the Valley of Sorek, in Philistine territory near the border with Judah, was a Philistine, though her name is Hebrew.^[1] As the story goes, when Samson fell in love with Delilah, the Philistine leaders asked her to find out the secret to his divine strength. In exchange, she would receive 1,100 silver pieces (16:5). She said to Samson, “Please tell me what makes your strength so great and how you could be bound, so that one could subdue you” (16:6), and he falsely tells her he could be bound with seven bowstrings. That night, Delilah bound him with bowstrings and the Philistines attacked, but he was able to break free. This pattern occurred two more times before Delilah finally begged Samson, asking: “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me three times now and have not told me what makes your strength so great” (16:15). Samson finally relents, and reveals that if she were to cut his hair, he would break his Nazarite vows and lose his strength. She cut his hair while he slept, and the Philistines were able to successfully bind and enslave him, leading a blinded Samson to famously topple a Philistine temple, killing the Philistines as well as himself (16:30).

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Biblical names hold power, especially for women. In the Bible, so few women are given names that scholars closely parse the meaning of the names of women we do know. Delilah’s name sounds like the Hebrew word for night, laylah, signaling to some that she was a “lady of the night,” although it also has the less loaded meaning “flirtatious” or simply “affectionate.”^[2] There are many women in the story of Samson, but she is the only one who is named. Thus, her importance doesn’t fall on the meaning of her name, but on what it represents.

Judges does not give much information about Delilah’s identity; we are led to assume she is a Philistine based on where she is from and the fact that she betrays an Israelite judge and Israel’s God. It is often assumed she is a prostitute because she uses her body for money, but the text never specifically identifies her as such. Indeed, one of Samson’s earlier lovers is mentioned only in passing as an unnamed prostitute (Judges 16:1), and the authors were careful not to label Delilah this way. Instead, Delilah is simply offered the chance to have an income of her own (a rarity in the ancient Levant), in exchange for betraying Samson, someone she seems to have had no particular allegiance to. From the perspective of the biblical authors, this was an act against Israel and Israel’s God. If she had been an Israelite woman tricking a Philistine, she might have been accorded more respect in the text. For example, elsewhere in Judges (4, 5), the Kenite woman Yael aids Deborah in her war against the Canaanite king of Hazor by tricking his general, Sisera, and driving a tent peg through his head. Yael and Delilah both use their sexuality to lure men into comfort and then kill them, but because Yael does it for the Israelites, it is acceptable.^[3]

Perhaps it is the fact that Samson loved Delilah that makes her betrayal so uncomfortable for many readers. He arrives in the Valley of Sorek (after having been with the unnamed prostitute and evading capture in Gaza) and is said to have “[fallen] in love with a woman … whose name was Delilah” (Judges 16:4). Interestingly, there is no mention of Delilah’s feelings toward him. She may not have returned his love and, instead, used his affections to advance her own interests. The biblical writers expected women to be subservient and loyal toward their male counterparts, and Delilah’s rejection of those norms makes her a villain. Using Samson’s love against him shattered those rules, and in the process emasculated him. Throughout the story, Delilah never hides her mission; she repeatedly asks Samson to tell her the secret of his strength, and each time he is attacked in the very same way. Possibly the scariest part of the story for biblical men was not the betrayal itself, but how easily Samson folded. He is incredibly strong, but rather weak willed when it comes to matters of the heart. That the love of a woman could hold so much power over a man gifted with divine strength was not a comfortable thought in the patriarchal society of ancient Israel.^[4]

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Biblical women are complex but often pushed aside in favor of the Bible’s male-oriented narrative. The character of Delilah, however, is a product of her environment. She prioritized herself and her chance to have financial security over the feelings of a man that she barely knew and did not love—even if the story wants us to believe that Samson loved her. She functioned as an agent of social change—it just wasn’t social change that favored the Israelites. Reexamining characters like Delilah using feminist scholarship can provide fresh perspectives on their actions and how they managed and coped in the patriarchal society that surrounded them.

Lila Wolk, a student in classics and ancient Near Eastern studies at George Washington University, is an editorial intern with the Biblical Archaeology Society.

[1] Royce M. Victor, “Delilah—A Forgotten Hero (Judges 16:4–21): A Cross-Cultural Narrative Reading,” in Athalya Brenner and Gale A. Yee, eds., Joshua and Judges, Texts@Contexts series (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), p. 239.

[2] Wil Gafney, “A Womanist Midrash of Delilah: Don’t Hate the Playa Hate the Game,” in Gay L. Byron and Vanessa Lovelace, eds., Womanist Interpretations of the Bible: Expanding the Discourse (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016), p. 62; see also Victor, p. 238.

[3] Elizabeth H.P. Backfish, “Nameless in the Nevi’im: Intertextuality between Female Characters in the Book of Judges,” in Shelley L. Birdsong, J. Cornelis de Vos, and Hyun Chul Paul Kim, eds., Reading Gender in Judges: An Intertextual Approach (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2023), p. 85.

[4] See Victor, p. 243.

[5] Susan Niditch, “Samson as Culture Hero, Trickster, and Bandit: The Empowerment of the Weak,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 52.4 (1990), p. 617.

This article was first published in Bible History Daily on November 22, 2024.

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The post Deconstructing Delilah appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Israel’s most accursed queen carefully fixes a pink rose in her red locks in John Byam Liston Shaw’s “Jezebel” from 1896. Jezebel’s reputation as the most dangerous seductress in the Bible stems from her final appearance: her husband King Ahab is dead; her son has been murdered by Jehu. As Jehu’s chariot races toward the palace to kill Jezebel, she “painted her eyes with kohl and dressed her hair, and she looked out of the window” (2 Kings 9:30). Image: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, UK/Bridgeman Art Library.

For more than two thousand years, Jezebel has been saddled with a reputation as the bad girl of the Bible, the wickedest of women. This ancient queen has been denounced as a murderer, prostitute and enemy of God, and her name has been adopted for lingerie lines and World War II missiles alike. But just how depraved was Jezebel?

In recent years, scholars have tried to reclaim the shadowy female figures whose tales are often only partially told in the Bible. Rehabilitating Jezebel’s stained reputation is an arduous task, however, for she is a difficult woman to like. She is not a heroic fighter like Deborah, a devoted sister like Miriam or a cherished wife like Ruth. Jezebel cannot even be compared with the Bible’s other bad girls—Potiphar’s wife and Delilah—for no good comes from Jezebel’s deeds. These other women may be bad, but Jezebel is the worst.¹

Yet there is more to this complex ruler than the standard interpretation would allow. To attain a more positive assessment of Jezebel’s troubled reign and a deeper understanding of her role, we must evaluate the motives of the Biblical authors who condemn the queen. Furthermore, we must reread the narrative from the queen’s vantage point. As we piece together the world in which Jezebel lived, a fuller picture of this fascinating woman begins to emerge. The story is not a pretty one, and some—perhaps most—readers will remain disturbed by Jezebel’s actions. But her character might not be as dark as we are accustomed to thinking. Her evilness is not always as obvious, undisputed and unrivaled as the Biblical writer wants it to appear.

Ahab and Jezebel in the Bible

The story of Jezebel, the Phoenician wife of King Ahab of Israel, is recounted in several brief passages scattered throughout the Books of Kings. Scholars generally identify 1 and 2 Kings as part of the Deuteronomistic History, attributed either to a single author or to a group of authors and editors collectively known as the Deuteronomist. One of the main purposes of the entire Deuteronomistic History, which includes the seven books from Deuteronomy through 2 Kings, is to explain Israel’s fate in terms of its apostasy. As the Israelites settle into the Promised Land, establish a monarchy and separate into a northern and a southern kingdom after the reign of Solomon, God’s chosen people continually go astray. They sin against Yahweh in many ways, the worst of which is by worshiping alien deities. The first commandments from Sinai demand monotheism, but the people are attracted to foreign gods and goddesses. When Jezebel enters the scene in the ninth century B.C.E., she provides a perfect opportunity for the Bible writer to teach a moral lesson about the evil outcomes of idolatry, for she is a foreign idol worshiper who seems to be the power behind her husband. From the Deuteronomist’s viewpoint, Jezebel embodies everything that must be eliminated from Israel so that the purity of the cult of Yahweh will not be further contaminated.

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The legacy of Jezebel. “In the last days, the daughters of Jezebel shall rule over nations,” warns the scrawling inscription that surrounds the face of Jezebel in this 1993 painting by American folk artist Robert Roberg. The apocalyptic message seems to associate the Biblical queen with the “mother of whores and of abominations” who “rules over the kings of the earth” and who has committed fornication with them (Revelation 17:2, 5, 18).
Jezebel’s name appears once in the New Testament Book of Revelation, where it is attached to an unrepentant prophetess who has beguiled the people “to practice fornication and to eat food sacrificed to idols” (Revelation 2:20).
Yet the Book of Kings offers no hint of sexual impropriety on Queen Jezebel’s part, argues author Gaines. She is, if anything, a too-devoted wife, willing even to commit murder in order to help her husband maintain his authority as king. Image: Robert Roberg

As the Books of Kings recount, the princess Jezebel is brought to the northern kingdom of Israel to wed the newly crowned King Ahab, son of Omri (1 Kings 16:31). Her father is Ethbaal of Tyre, king of the Phoenicians, a group of Semites whose ancestors were Canaanites. Phoenicia consisted of a loose confederation of city-states, including the sophisticated maritime trade centers of Tyre and Sidon on the Mediterranean coast. The Bible writer’s antagonism stems primarily from Jezebel’s religion. The Phoenicians worshiped a swarm of gods and goddesses, chief among them Baal, the general term for “lord” given to the head fertility and agricultural god of the Canaanites. As king of Phoenicia, it is likely that Ethbaal was also a high priest or had other important religious duties. According to the first-century C.E. historian Josephus, who drew on a Greek translation of the now-lost Annals of Tyre, Ethbaal served as a priest of Astarte, the primary Phoenician goddess. Jezebel, as the king’s daughter, may have served as a priestess as she was growing up. In any case, she was certainly raised to honor the deities of her native land.

When Jezebel comes to Israel, she brings her foreign gods and goddesses—especially Baal and his consort Asherah (Canaanite Astarte, often translated in the Bible as “sacred post”)—with her. This seems to have an immediate effect on her new husband, for just as soon as the queen is introduced, we are told that Ahab builds a sanctuary for Baal in the very heart of Israel, within his capital city of Samaria: “He took as wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Phoenicians, and he went and served Baal and worshiped him. He erected an altar to Baal in the temple of Baal which he built in Samaria. Ahab also made a ‘sacred post’”^a (1 Kings 16:31–33).²

Jezebel does not accept Ahab’s God, Yahweh. Rather, she leads Ahab to tolerate Baal. This is why she is vilified by the Deuteronomist, whose goal is to stamp out polytheism. She represents a view of womanhood that is the opposite of the one extolled in characters such as Ruth the Moabite, who is also a foreigner. Ruth surrenders her identity and submerges herself in Israelite ways; she adopts the religious and social norms of the Israelites and is universally praised for her conversion to God. Jezebel steadfastly remains true to her own beliefs.

Jezebel’s marriage to Ahab was a political alliance. The union provided both peoples with military protection from powerful enemies as well as valuable trade routes: Israel gained access to the Phoenician ports; Phoenicia gained passage through Israel’s central hill country to Transjordan and especially to the King’s Highway, the heavily traveled inland route connecting the Gulf of Aqaba in the south with Damascus in the north. But although the marriage is sound foreign policy, it is intolerable to the Deuteronomist because of Jezebel’s idol worship.

The Bible does not comment on what the young Jezebel thinks about marrying Ahab and moving to Israel. Her feelings are of no interest to the Deuteronomist, nor are they germane to the story’s didactic purpose.

To learn more about Biblical women with slighted traditions, take a look at the Bible History Daily feature Scandalous Women in the Bible, which includes articles on Mary Magdalene and Lilith.

We are not told whether Ethbaal consults his daughter, if she departs Phoenicia with trepidation or enthusiasm, or what she expects from her role as ruler. Like other highborn daughters of her time, Jezebel is probably a pawn, packed off to the highest bidder.

Israel’s topography, customs and religion would certainly be very different from those of Jezebel’s native land. Instead of the lushness of the moist seacoast, she would find Israel to be an arid, desert nation.

Furthermore, the Torah shows the Israelites to be an ethnocentric, xenophobic people. In Biblical narratives, foreigners are sometimes unwelcome, and prejudice against intermarriage is seen since the day Abraham sought a woman from his own people to marry his son Isaac (Genesis 24:4). In contrast to the familiar gods and goddesses that Jezebel is accustomed to petitioning, Israel is home to a state religion featuring a lone, masculine deity. Perhaps Jezebel optimistically believes that she can encourage religious tolerance and give legitimacy to the worship habits of those Baalites who already reside in Israel. Perhaps Jezebel sees herself as an ambassador who could help unite the two lands and bring about cultural pluralism, regional peace and economic prosperity.

What spurs Jezebel to action is unknown and unknowable, but the motives of the Deuteronomist come through plainly in the text. Jezebel is a bold and impious interloper who has to be stopped. From her own point of view, however, she is no apostate. She remains loyal to her religious upbringing and is determined to maintain her cultural identity.

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The threat of Jezebel is so great that later in the same chapter, the mythic prophet Elijah summons the acolytes of Jezebel to a tournament on Mt. Carmel to determine which deity is supreme: God or Baal.

Whichever deity is capable of setting a sacrificial bull on fire will be the winner, the one true God. It is only then that we learn just how many followers of Jezebel’s gods and goddesses are near her at court. Elijah challenges them: “Now summon all Israel to join me at Mount Carmel, together with the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel’s table” (1 Kings 18:19). Whether the grand total of 850 is a symbolic or literal number, it is impressive.

Glass jewels and glitter adorn the veiled crown of Jezebel and twisted branches speckled with paint form the queen’s body in this sculpture by Bessie Harvey. Photo by Ron Lee, The Silver Factory/The Arnett Collection, Atlanta, GA

Detail of veiled crown of Jezebel (compare with photo of veiled crown of Jezebel). Photo by Ron Lee, The Silver Factory/The Arnett Collection, Atlanta, GA.

Yet their superior numbers can do nothing to ensure victory; nor can petitions to their god. The prophets of Baal “performed a hopping dance about the altar” and “kept raving” (1 Kings 18:26, 29) all day long in a vain attempt to rouse Baal. They even gash themselves with knives and whoop it up in a heightened emotional state, hoping to incite Baal to unleash a great fire. But Baal does not respond to the ecstatic ranting of Jezebel’s prophets. At the end of the day, it is Elijah’s single plea to God that is answered.

Learn about the excavations at Jezreel in “Jezreel Expedition 2016: You Don’t Have to Be an Archaeologist to Dig the Bible“ and “Jezreel Expedition Sheds New Light on Ahab and Jezebel’s City“.

Standing alone before Jezebel’s host of visionaries, Elijah cries out: “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel! Let it be known today that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your bidding. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that You, O Lord, are God; for You have turned their hearts backward” (1 Kings 18:36–37). At once, “fire from the Lord descended and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones and the earth;…When they saw this, all the people flung themselves on their faces and cried out: ‘The Lord alone is God, the Lord alone is God!’” (1 Kings 18:38–39). Elijah’s solitary entreaty to Yahweh serves as a foil to the hours of appeals made by Baal’s followers.

Jezebel herself is absent during this all-male event. Nevertheless, her presence is felt and the Deuteronomist’s message is clear. Jezebel’s deities and the huge number of prophets loyal to her are powerless against the omnipotent Yahweh, who is proven by the tournament to be ruler of all the forces of nature.

Ironically, at the conclusion of the Carmel episode, Elijah proves capable of the same murderous inclinations that have previously characterized Jezebel, though it is only she that the Deuteronomist criticizes. After winning the Carmel contest, Elijah immediately orders the assembly to capture all of Jezebel’s prophets. Elijah emphatically declares: “Seize the prophets of Baal, let not a single one of them get away” (1 Kings 18:40). Elijah leads his 450 prisoners to the Wadi Kishon, where he slaughters them (1 Kings 18:40). Though they will never meet in person, Elijah and Jezebel are engaged in a hard-fought struggle for religious supremacy. Here Elijah reveals that he and Jezebel possess a similar religious fervor, though their loyalties differ greatly. They are also equally determined to eliminate one another’s followers, even if it means murdering them. The difference is that the Deuteronomist decries Jezebel’s killing of God’s servants (at 1 Kings 18:4) but now sanctions Elijah’s decision to massacre hundreds of Jezebel’s prophets. Indeed, once Elijah kills Jezebel’s prophets, God rewards him by sending a much-needed rain, ending a three-year drought in Israel. There is a definite double standard here. Murder seems to be accepted, even venerated, as long as it is done in the name of the right deity.

After Elijah’s triumph on Mt. Carmel, King Ahab returns home to give his queen the news that Baal is defeated, Yahweh is the undisputed master of the universe and Jezebel’s prophets are dead. Jezebel sends Elijah a menacing message, threatening to slaughter him just as he has slaughtered her prophets: “Thus and more may the gods do if by this time tomorrow I have not made you like one of them” (1 Kings 19:2). The Septuagint, a third- to second-century B.C.E. Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, prefaces Jezebel’s threat with an additional insult to the prophet. Here Jezebel establishes herself as Elijah’s equal: “If you are Elijah, so I am Jezebel” (1 Kings 19:2^b).³ In both versions the queen’s meaning is unmistakable: Elijah should fear for his life.

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So frightened is Elijah by Jezebel’s threatening words that he flees to Mt. Horeb (Sinai). Despite what he has witnessed on Carmel, Elijah seems to falter in his faith that the Almighty will protect him. As a literary device, Elijah’s sojourn at Horeb gives the Deuteronomist an opportunity to imply parallels between the careers of Moses and Elijah, thus reinforcing Elijah’s exalted reputation. Nevertheless, the timing of Elijah’s flight south makes him look suspiciously like he is afraid of a mere woman.

Jezebel indeed shows herself as a person to be feared in the next episode. The story of Naboth, an Israelite who owns a plot of land adjacent to the royal palace in Jezreel, provides an excellent occasion for the Deuteronomist to propose that Jezebel is not only the foe of Israel’s God, but an enemy of the government.

In 1 Kings 21:2, Ahab requests that Naboth give him his vineyard: “Give me your vineyard, so that I may have it as a vegetable garden, since it is right next to my palace.” Ahab promises to pay Naboth for the land or to provide him with an even better vineyard. But at 1 Kings 21:3, Naboth refuses to sell or trade: “The Lord forbid that I should give up to you what I have inherited from my fathers!” The king whines and refuses to eat after Naboth’s rebuff: “Ahab went home dispirited and sullen because of the answer that Naboth the Jezreelite had given him…He lay down on his bed and turned away his face, and he would not eat” (1 Kings 21:4). Apparently perturbed by her husband’s political impotence and sulking demeanor, Jezebel steps in, proudly asserting: “Now is the time to show yourself king over Israel. Rise and eat something, and be cheerful; I will get the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite for you” (1 Kings 21:7).

Naboth is fully within his rights to hold onto his family plot. Israelite law and custom dictate that his family should maintain their land (nachalah) in perpetuity (Numbers 27:5–11). As a Torah-bound king of Israel, Ahab should understand Naboth’s legitimate desire to keep his inheritance. Jezebel, on the other hand, hails from Phoenicia, where a monarch’s whim is often tantamount to law.⁴ Having been raised in a land of absolute autocrats, where few dared to question a ruler’s wish or decree, Jezebel might naturally feel annoyance and frustration at Naboth’s resistance to his sovereign’s proposal. In this context, Jezebel’s reaction becomes more understandable, though perhaps no more admirable, for she behaves according to her upbringing and expectations regarding royal prerogative.

Elijah’s challenge of “the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel’s table” (1 Kings 18:19) is depicted in two scenes on the walls of the third-century C.E. synagogue at Dura-Europos in modern Syria. According to 1 Kings 18, Elijah proposed that both he and the prophets of Baal lay a single bull on an altar and then pray to their respective deities to ignite the sacrificial animal. Whichever deity responded would be deemed the more powerful and the one true God. In the painting shown here, the priests of Baal gather around their altar, crying out, “O, Baal, answer us,” but their sacrifice remains untouched. The small man standing inside the altar in this painting does not appear in the Biblical story, but rather in a later midrash. According to this midrash, when the prophets of Baal realized they would fail, a man named Hiel agreed to hide within the altar to ignite the heifer from below. The Israelite God foiled their plan by sending a snake to bite Hiel, who subsequently died. Image: E. Goodenough, Symbolism in the Dura Synogogue (Princeton Univ. Press)

Without Ahab’s direct knowledge, Jezebel writes letters to her townsmen, enlisting them in an elaborate ruse to frame the innocent Naboth. To ensure their compliance, she signs Ahab’s name and stamps the letters with the king’s seal. Jezebel encourages the townsmen to publicly (and falsely) accuse Naboth of blaspheming God and king. “Then take him out and stone him to death,” she commands (1 Kings 21:10). So Naboth is murdered, and the vineyard automatically escheats to the throne, as is customary when a person is found guilty of a serious crime. If Naboth has relatives, they are now in no position to protest the passing of their family land to Ahab.

Yet the details of Jezebel’s underhanded plot against Naboth do not always ring true. The Bible maintains that “the elders and nobles who lived in [Naboth’s] town…did as Jezebel had instructed them” (1 Kings 21:11). If the trickster queen is able to enlist the support of so many people, none of whom betrays her, to kill a man whom they have probably known all their lives and whom they realize is innocent, then she has astonishing power.

The fantastical tale of Naboth’s death—in which something could go wrong at any moment but somehow does not—stretches the reader’s credulity. If Jezebel were as hateful as the Deuteronomist claims, surely at least one nobleman in Jezreel would have refused to assist in the nefarious scheme. Surely one individual would have had the courage to expose the detestable deed and become the Deuteronomist’s hero by spoiling the plan.⁵

Shown here, Elijah and his followers have easily conjured up a blazing fire, which engulfs their white bull. Seeing the flames, the Israelites call out, “Yahweh alone is God, Yahweh alone is God” (1 Kings 18:39).
Jezebel herself is not present during the event. And yet Elijah’s contest is a direct challenge to the queen who has brought the worship of Baal to the forefront in Israel by inviting the pagan prophets to the palace (compare with painting of the priests of Baal). Image: The Jewish Mesuem, NY/Art Resource, NY.

Perhaps the Biblical compiler is using Jezebel as a scapegoat for his outrage at her influence over the king, meaning that she herself is being framed in the tale. Traditionally thought to be a narrative about how innocent Naboth is falsely accused, the story could instead be an exaggeration of fact, fabricated to demonstrate the Deuteronomist’s continued wrath against Jezebel.

As a result of this incident, Elijah reappears on the scene. First Yahweh tells Elijah how Ahab will die: “The word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite: ‘Go down and confront King Ahab of Israel who [resides] in Samaria. He is now in Naboth’s vineyard; he has gone down there to take possession of it. Say to him, “Thus said the Lord: Would you murder and take possession? Thus said the Lord: In the very place where the dogs lapped up Naboth’s blood, the dogs will lap up your blood too”’” (1 Kings 21:17–19). But when Elijah confronts Ahab, the prophet predicts instead how the queen will die: “The dogs shall devour Jezebel in the field of Jezreel” (1 Kings 21:23).^c Poetic justice, as the Deuteronomist sees it, demands that Jezebel end up as dog food. Ashamed of what has happened and fearful of the future, Ahab humbles himself by assuming outward signs of mourning, fasting and donning sackcloth. Prayer accompanies fasting, whether the Bible explicitly says so or not, so we may assume that Ahab raises his penitential voice to a forgiving Yahweh. For once, Jezebel does not speak; her lack of repentance is implicit in her silence.

After the Death of Ahab: The Ill Repute of Jezebel in the Bible

When Jezebel’s name is mentioned again, the Bible writer makes his most alarming accusation against her. Ahab has died, as has the couple’s eldest son, who followed his father to the throne. Their second son, Joram, rules. But even though Israel has a sitting monarch, a servant of the prophet Elisha crowns Jehu, Joram’s military commander, king of Israel and commissions Jehu to eradicate the House of Ahab: “I anoint you king over the people of the Lord, over Israel. You shall strike down the House of Ahab your master; thus will I avenge on Jezebel the blood of My servants the prophets, and the blood of the other servants of the Lord” (2 Kings 9:6–7).

Four paleo-Hebrew letters—two just below the winged sun disk at center, two at bottom left and right—spell out the name YZBL, or Jezebel, on this seal. The Phoenician design, the dating of the seal to the ninth or early eighth century B.C.E. and, of course, the name, have led scholars to speculate that the Biblical queen may once have used this gray opal to seal her documents. In the Phoenician language, Jezebel’s name may have meant “Where is the Prince?” which was the cry of Baal’s subjects. But the spelling of the Phoenician name has been altered in the Hebrew Bible, perhaps in order to read as “Where is the excrement (zebel, manure)?”—a reference to Elijah’s prediction that “her carcass shall be like dung on the ground” (2 Kings 9:36). Collection Israel Museum/Photo Zev Radovan.

King Joram and General Jehu meet on the battlefield. Unaware that he is about to be usurped by his military commander, Joram calls out: “Is all well, Jehu?” Jehu responds: “How can all be well as long as your mother Jezebel carries on her countless harlotries and sorceries?” (2 Kings 9:22). Jehu then shoots an arrow through Joram’s heart and, in a moment of stinging irony, orders the body to be dumped on Naboth’s land.

From these words alone—uttered by the man who is about to kill Jezebel’s son—stems Jezebel’s long-standing reputation as a witch and a whore. The Bible occasionally connects harlotry and idol worship, as in Hosea 1:3, where the prophet is told to marry a “wife of whoredom,” who symbolically represents the people who “stray from following the Lord” (Hosea 1:3). Lusting after false “lords” can be seen as either adulterous or idolatrous. Yet throughout the millennia, Jezebel’s harlotry has not been identified as mere dolatry. Rather, she has been considered the slut of Samaria, the lecherous wife of a pouting potentate. The 1938 film Jezebel, starring Bette Davis as the destructive temptress who leads a man to his death, is evidence that this ancient judgment against Jezebel has been transmitted to this century. Nevertheless, the Bible never offers evidence that Jezebel is unfaithful to her husband while he is alive or loose in her morals after his death. In fact, she is always shown to be a loyal and helpful spouse, though her brand of assistance is deplored by the Deuteronomist. Jehu’s charge of harlotry is unsubstantiated, but it has stuck anyway and her reputation has been egregiously damaged by the allegation.

When Jezebel herself finally appears again in the pages of the Bible, it is for her death scene. Jehu, with the blood of Joram still on his hands, races his chariot into Jezreel to continue the insurrection by assassinating Jezebel. Ironically, this is her finest hour, though the Deuteronomist intends the queen to appear haughty and imperious to the end. Realizing that Jehu is on his way to kill her, Jezebel does not disguise herself and flee the city, as a more cowardly person might do. Instead, she calmly prepares for his arrival by performing three acts: “She painted her eyes with kohl and dressed her hair, and she looked out of the window” (2 Kings 9:30). The traditional interpretation is that Jezebel primps and coquettishly looks out the window in an effort to seduce Jehu, that she wishes to win his favor and become part of his harem in order to save her own life, such treachery indicating Jezebel’s dastardly betrayal of deceased family members. According to this reading, Jezebel sheds familial loyalty as easily as a snake sheds its skin in an attempt to ensure her continued pleasure and safety at court.

This ivory comes from Arslan Tash, in northern Syria. The most common motif found on Phoenician ivories, the woman at the window may represent the goddess Astarte (Biblical Asherah) looking out a palace window. Perhaps this widespread imagery influenced the Biblical author’s description of Jezebel, a follower of Astarte, looking out the palace window as Jehu approached (2 Kings 9:30). Photo: Erich Lessing

Ivory fragment discovered in Samaria (compare with photo of ivory from Arslan Tash). Photo: Israel Antiquities Authority.

Applying eye makeup (kohl) and brushing one’s hair are often connected to flirting in Hebraic thinking. Isaiah 3:16, Jeremiah 4:30, Ezekiel 23:40 and Proverbs 6:24–26 provide examples of women who bat their painted eyes to lure innocent men into adulterous beds. Black kohl is widely incorporated in Bible passages as a symbol of feminine deception and trickery, and its use to paint the area above and below the eyelids is generally considered part of a woman’s arsenal of artifice. In Jezebel’s case, however, the cosmetic is more than just an attempt to accentuate the eyes. Jezebel is donning the female version of armor as she prepares to do battle. She is a woman warrior, waging war in the only way a woman can. Whatever fear she may have of Jehu is camouflaged by her war paint.

Her grooming continues as she dresses her hair, symbol of a woman’s seductive power. When she dies, she wants to look her queenly best. She is in control here, choosing the manner in which her attacker will last see and remember her.

The third action Jezebel takes before Jehu arrives is to sit at her upper window. The Deuteronomist may be deliberately conjuring up images to associate Jezebel with other disfavored women. For example, contained within Deborah’s victory ode is the story of the unfortunate mother of the enemy general Sisera. Waiting at home, Sisera’s unnamed mother looks out the window for her son to return: “Through the window peered Sisera’s mother, behind the lattice she whined” (Judges 5:28). Her ladies-in-waiting express the hope that Sisera is detained because he is raping Israelite women and collecting booty (Judges 5:29–30). In truth, Sisera is already dead, his skull shattered by Jael and her tent peg (Judges 5:24–27). King David’s wife Michal also looks through her window, watching her husband dance around the Ark of the Covenant as it is triumphantly brought into Jerusalem, “and she despised him for it” (2 Samuel 6:16). Michal does not understand the people’s euphoria over the arrival of the Ark in David’s new capital; she can only feel anger that her husband is dancing about like one of the “riffraff” (2 Samuel 6:20). Generations later, Jezebel also appears at her window, conjuring up images of Sisera’s mother and Michal, two unpopular Biblical women.

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Sitting at her window, Jezebel is seemingly rendered powerless while the active patriarchal world functions beyond her reach.⁷ But a more sympathetic reading of the situation suggests that Jezebel has determined the superior angle from which she will be viewed by Jehu, thus giving the queen mastery of the situation.

Positioned at the balcony window, the queen does not remain silent as the usurper Jehu arrives into town. She taunts him by calling him Zimri, the name of the unscrupulous predecessor of Omri, Jezebel’s father-in-law. Zimri ruled Israel for only seven days after murdering the king (Elah) and usurping the throne. “Is all well, Zimri, murderer of your master?” Jezebel asks Jehu (2 Kings 9:31). Jezebel knows that all is not well, and her sarcastic, sharp-tongued insult of Jehu disproves any interpretation that she has dressed in her finest to seduce him. She has contempt for Jehu. Unlike many Biblical wives, who remain silent, Jezebel has a distinct voice, and she is unafraid to articulate her view of Jehu as a renegade and regicide.

To demonstrate his authority, Jehu orders Jezebel’s eunuchs to throw her out of the window: “They threw her down; and her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses, and they trampled her. Then [Jehu] went inside and ate and drank” (2 Kings 9:33–34). In this highly symbolic political action, the once mighty Jezebel is shoved out of her high station to the ground below. Her ejection from the window represents an eternal demotion from her proper place as one of the Bible’s most influential women.

Jezebel’s body is left in the street as Jehu celebrates his victory. Later, perhaps because the new monarch does not wish to begin his reign with such a disrespectful act against a woman, or perhaps because he realizes the danger in setting a precedent for ill treatment of a dead ruler’s remains, Jehu orders Jezebel’s burial: “Attend to that cursed woman and bury her, for she was a king’s daughter” (2 Kings 9:34). Jezebel is not to be remembered as a queen or even as the wife of a king. She is only the daughter of a foreign despot. This is intended as another blow by the Deuteronomist, an attempt to marginalize a formidable woman.

When the king’s men come to bury Jezebel, it is too late: “All they found of her were the skull, the feet, and the hands” (2 Kings 9:35). Jehu’s men inform the king that Elijah’s prophecies have been fulfilled: “It is just as the Lord spoke through His servant Elijah the Tishbite: The dogs shall devour the flesh of Jezebel in the field of Jezreel; and the carcass of Jezebel shall be like dung on the ground, in the field of Jezreel, so that none will be able to say: ‘This was Jezebel’” (2 Kings 9:36–37).

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How Bad Was Jezebel?

With its green hills, fecund grapevines and abundant flowers, the scene depicted in this early-17th-century silk embroidery would appear peaceful—if not for the gruesome detail at left, which shows a woman being pushed out the palace window to a pack of hungry dogs. According to 2 Kings 9, Jehu orders the palace eunuchs to throw Jezebel out a window. When he later commands his men to bury her, little remains: “All they found of her were the skull, the feet and the hands” (2 Kings 9:35). Jehu’s men inform the new king that Elijah’s prophecies have been fulfilled: The queen’s corpse has been devoured by dogs; her body is mutilated beyond recognition, so that “none will be able to say ‘This was Jezebel’” (2 Kings 9:37). Death of Jezebel/Holburne Museum, Bath, UK/Bridgeman Art Library

While the Biblical storyteller wants the final images of Jezebel to memorialize her as a brazen hussy, a sympathetic interpretation of her behavior has more credibility. When all a person has left in life is the way she faces her death, her final actions speak volumes about her character. Jezebel departs this earth every inch a queen. Now an aging grandmother, it is highly unlikely that she has libidinous designs on Jehu or even entertains the notion of becoming the young king’s paramour. As the daughter, wife, mother, mother-in-law and grandmother of kings, Jezebel would understand court politics well enough to realize that Jehu has far more to gain by killing her than by keeping her alive. Alive, the dowager queen could always serve as a rallying point for anyone unhappy with Jehu’s reign. The queen harbors no illusions about her chances of surviving Jehu’s bloody coup d’état.

How bad was Jezebel? The Deuteronomist uses every possible argument to make the case against her. When Ahab dies, the Deuteronomist is determined to show that “there never was anyone like Ahab, who committed himself to doing what was displeasing to the Lord, at the instigation of his wife Jezebel” (1 Kings 21:25). It is interesting that Ahab is not held responsible for his own actions.⁸ He goes astray because of a wicked woman. Someone has to bear the writer’s vituperation concerning Israel’s apostasy, and Jezebel is chosen for the job.
Every Biblical word condemns her: Jezebel is an outspoken woman in a time when females have little status and few rights; a foreigner in a xenophobic land; an idol worshiper in a place with a Yahweh-based, state-sponsored religion; a murderer and meddler in political affairs in a nation of strong patriarchs; a traitor in a country where no ruler is above the law; and a whore in the territory where the Ten Commandments originate.

Yet there is much to admire in this ancient queen. In a kinder analysis, Jezebel emerges as a fiery and determined person, with an intensity matched only by Elijah’s. She is true to her native religion and customs. She is even more loyal to her husband. Throughout her reign, she boldly exercises what power she has. And in the end, having lived her life on her own terms, Jezebel faces certain death with dignity.

“How Bad Was Jezebel?” by Janet Howe Gaines originally appeared in Bible Review, October 2000. The article was first republished in Bible History Daily in June 2010.

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Janet Howe Gaines is a specialist in the Bible as literature in the Department of English at the University of New Mexico. She published Music in the Old Bones: Jezebel Through the Ages (Southern Illinois Univ. Press).

Notes

a. Asherah is the Biblical name for Astarte, a Canaanite fertility goddess and consort of Baal. The term asherah, which appears at least 50 times in the Hebrew Bible (it is often translated as “sacred post”), is used to refer to three manifestations of this goddess: an image (probably a figurine) of the goddess (eg., 2 Kings 21:7); a tree (Deuteronomy 16:21); and a tree trunk, or sacred post (Deuteronomy 7:5, 12:3). See Ruth Hestrin, “Understanding Asherah—Exploring Semitic Iconography,” BAR, September/October 1991.

b. In the Septuagint, 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings are all included in Kings, which therefore has four books, 1–4 Kings.

c. A similar statement is made by the unnamed prophet who anoints Jehu king of Israel in 2 Kings 9:10.

1. For a fuller treatment of Jezebel, see Janet Howe Gaines, Music in the Old Bones: Jezebel Through the Ages (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1999).

2. All references to the Bible, unless otherwise noted, are to Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985).

3. The translation of the Greek text is my own. According to Sir Lancelot C.L. Brenton (The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English, 3rd ed. [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1990], p. 478), the translation of the entire line is “And Jezabel sent to Eliu, and said, If thou art Eliu and I am Jezabel, God do so to me, and more also, if I do not make thy life by this time tomorrow as the life of one of them.”

4. For a discussion of Phoenician customs, see George Rawlinson, History of Phoenicia (London: Longmans, 1889).

5. As corroborating evidence, see the story of David’s plot to kill Uriah the Hittite in 2 Samuel 11:14–17. Like Jezebel, David writes letters that contain details of his scheme. David intends to enlist help from the entire regiment as confederates who are to “draw back from” Uriah, but Joab makes a shrewd and subtle change in the plan so that it is less likely to be discovered.

6. Eleanor Ferris Beach, “The Samaria Ivories, Marzeah, and Biblical Text,” Biblical Archaeologist 56:2 (1993), pp. 94–104.

7. For an excellent, detailed discussion of Biblical imagery concerning women seated at windows, see Nehama Aschkenasy, Woman at the Window (Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1998).

8. For a reassessment of Ahab’s character based on the archaeological remains of his building projects and extrabiblical texts, see Ephraim Stern, “The Many Masters of Dor, Part 2: How Bad Was Ahab?” BAR, March/April 1993.

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Related reading in Bible History Daily

Biblical Sidon—Jezebel’s Hometown

Scholars Debate “Jezebel” Seal

Jezreel Expedition Sheds New Light on Ahab and Jezebel’s City

Scandalous Women in the Bible

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Jezreel—Where Jezebel Was Thrown to the Dogs

Fit for a Queen: Jezebel’s Royal Seal

How Women Differed

First Lady Jezebel

Elijah and Jezebel

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Adam and Eve. Eve reaches for the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In this interpretation by Károly Patkó, Adam is also reaching for the fruit, but his head is turned as if unsure of his actions, while Eve looks straight at the fruit.

A single bite of fruit forever heaved the entirety of a fallen and sinful creation onto the shoulders of Eve; through the lens of millennia of patriarchal interpretations of the scriptures, women throughout history have had to shoulder the blame and consequences. From an inferior place in spiritual service, to their place in society as a whole, women have been forced to take a backseat to their male fellows for no other reason than Eve ate the fruit first.

While most would not be surprised to find that modern scholarship and theological interpretations have taken great strides to find new perspectives on the story of the first mother, they would be astonished to learn that forward-thinking and pro-women interpretations of the Garden of Eden have been around for hundreds of years.

1. In Genesis 1, God creates Man and Women at the same time and gives them the same mandate: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground” (Genesis 1:28). Some women have used this to argue that this indicates God made no distinction between the sexes, and neither should society.
2. In Genesis 2-3, the use of the word ‘ezer (“helper”), does not imply subordination. Rather, God himself is described as the helper of the Israelites (Genesis 49:25; Psalm 37:40). Eve serves as the helper to Adam—as God served to the Israelites.
3. Adam did not treat Eve as inferior to him or as his subordinate.
4. According to Genesis 3, Adam was with Eve as she spoke with the serpent. Scholars have asked why he didn’t speak up. Why did he eat the fruit and allow Eve to do the same?

Eve is a complex character. Has she been adjusted to fit societal views and affirm the oppression of women, or does the biblical Eve truly demonstrate that women are made of “inferior stock”? To learn of the different interpretations of Eve by women, read Amanda W. Benckhuysen’s full article “The Gospel According to Eve,” published in the Spring 2020 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Subscribers: Read the full article “The Gospel According to Eve” by Amanda W. Benckhuysen in the Spring 2020 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review

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Did Eve Fall or Was She Pushed?

Was Eve Cursed?

Eve and Adam

Adam and Eve

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This article first appeared in Bible History Daily on April 29, 2020.

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How did Jacob become Israel? The life of Jacob in the Bible is full of interesting episodes. Genesis 32 records that Jacob wrestled a stranger—possibly an angel or God. The stranger blesses Jacob and gives him a new name. This image by Gustave Doré is titled “Jacob Wrestles with the Angel.”

Who did Jacob wrestle with in the Bible?

Genesis 32 describes an interesting encounter from the life of Jacob. On his way to meet his twin brother Esau (for the first time after a falling out 20 years earlier), Jacob and his party approach the Jabbok River. Sending his family and servants across the river before him, Jacob stays on the other side by himself, where he meets a mysterious man: “Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak” (Genesis 32:24).

In the September/October 2014 issue of BAR, Phyllis Trible addresses this story in her Biblical Views column “Wrestling with Faith.” She connects this episode from the life of Jacob in the Bible to her own struggle with feminism and the Bible.

Who is this man? Who did Jacob wrestle with?

Hosea 12:4 says that the man was an angel or messenger. Rabbis content that the man was Esau, and folklorists say the man was a night demon or river demon. Modern therapists suggest that the man was none other than Jacob himself.

Theologians usually say that the man Jacob wrestled was God, and Jacob also came to this conclusion. After the wrestling match, Jacob named the place Penuel, which means “face of God”—as Jacob says, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved” (Genesis 32:30).

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In her column, Trible remarks that the man with whom Jacob wrestles is “not all powerful, for the coming of dawn restrains his physical aggression. He is not prevailing. So he resorts to an obscene tactic, striking Jacob at his manhood.”

Yet despite this blow, still Jacob holds onto his attacker, saying, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me” (Genesis 32:26).

How did Jacob become Israel? While perhaps this moment might seem like an odd time to us as modern readers for a name change or a blessing, that is exactly what happens.

After asking Jacob his name, the man says, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed” (Genesis 32:28). Trible explains, “The stranger gives Jacob (whose name in folk etymology suggests a grasper, schemer or conniver) the new name Israel (“God rules”).”

While the man refuses to give Jacob his own name—which would definitively answer our query—he still blesses him.

Four outstanding scholars—including Phyllis Trible—look closely at a number of prominent women in the Bible and the men to whom they relate in Feminist Approaches to the Bible, published by the Biblical Archaeology Society. Learn more >>

Who did Jacob wrestle with in the Bible? An angel, man, demon or God? Support for each of these contenders can be found in different camps.

Whoever the stranger was, he departs after giving Jacob a blessing. This episode from Jacob’s life ends as the morning dawns: “The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip” (Genesis 32:31). Despite his new name and blessing, the wrestling match was not cost-free for Jacob. Wounded, he limps from the scene.

Trible uses this chapter from the life of Jacob in the Bible to illustrate the dialogue between feminism and the Bible. Blessings do not always come on our terms, but that is no reason to quit wrestling.

To find out more about more about this story from Jacob’s life and how feminism and the Bible relate, read the full column “Wrestling with Faith” by Phyllis Trible, Professor Emerita of Sacred Literature at Union Theological Seminary in New York, in the September/October 2014 issue of BAR.

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Read more in Bible History Daily:

Jacob the Convert and an Ancient Curse

Learn more about feminism and the Bible in the BAS Library:

Are Feminists Biased About the Bible?

Wrestling with Scripture,

My View: On Becoming a Male Feminist Bible Scholar

Feminist Interpretations of the Bible: Then and Now

If The Bible’s So Patriarchal, How Come I Love It?

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^{This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on September 1, 2014.}

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The Bible in the News

How the Popular Press Relates, Conflates and Updates Sacred Writ

By Leonard Greenspoon

(Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2013), $7.99

 
For more than a dozen years, Leonard J. Greenspoon’s “The Bible in the News” column has been one of the most popular and enjoyed sections of the widely read magazines Bible Review and Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR). For his column, Greenspoon, who is the Philip M. and Ethel Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization at Creighton University, scours the world’s newspapers and popular media looking for interesting, entertaining and often surprising references to the Bible and its timeless collection of sayings, characters and fables. Greenspoon’s perceptive eye and insightful commentary are matched by a charming, tongue-in-cheek humor that always brings a sly smile to the reader’s face.

Developed exclusively for eReaders, this book brings together all of Greenspoon’s “The Bible in the News” articles and columns into a single collection, beginning with his August 2000 feature article “Extra! Extra! Philistines in the Newsroom!” until his recent column in the November/December 2012 issue of BAR. This entertaining array of columns, whose topics range from Adam and Eve in pop culture to North American highways and byways numbered 666 (the number of the beast according to Revelation 13:18), has been conveniently arranged into chapters focusing on biblical episodes and passages from both the Old and New Testaments. The book’s final chapter explores general biblical themes and topics that often appear in media reports, from exceptional Bible translations to champagne bottles named for lesser known biblical characters like Rehoboam and Melchizedek. These and many other fascinating stories about the Bible’s vibrant and continued presence in today’s media culture are found in this eBook, The Bible in the News.

Leonard J. Greenspoon is author of BAR’s popular “The Bible in the News” column, and holds the Philip M. and Ethel Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization at Creighton University in Omaha. He is editor-in-chief of the Studies in Jewish Civilization series, which is publishing its 24th volume this fall. He also co-authored, with the late Harvey Minkoff, BAS’s free guide to modern Bible translations, The Holy Bible: A Buyer’s Guide.
 

Frank Moore Cross: Conversations with a Bible Scholar

Hershel Shanks, Frank Moore Cross

(Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2013), $9.99

 
Celebrate the life of the late renowned Biblical and archaeological scholar Frank Moore Cross with a comprehensive but readable overview of his broad-ranging scholarship. This collection of five interviews with Cross by Biblical Archaeology Review editor Hershel Shanks brings Cross’s insightful and path-breaking scholarly contributions to a wide, general audience, from his ideas about the origins of Israelite religion to his prominent role in the discovery and study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Also included are thought-provoking discussions of the origins of the alphabet and the significance of ancient Hebrew seals and inscriptions for understanding the Biblical past. Furthermore, this new electronic edition of Frank Moore Cross: Conversations with a Bible Scholar allows readers to take full advantage of all of the portability and functionality of their eReader devices, including convenient in-text links that jump directly to specific chapters and notes.

Frank Moore Cross, at the young age of 36, was appointed to one of the oldest and most prestigious positions in academia, the Hancock Professorship of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages at Harvard University, a chair he held for 35 years, until his retirement in 1992. His bibliography includes more than 200 scholarly publications. Even more important than their quantity is their often path-breaking quality, as is widely recognized in the profession. His books include Early Hebrew Orthography (with David Noel Freedman), The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies and Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic. He served as president of the Society of Biblical Literature, as well as of the American Schools of Oriental Research. He received many awards and honors, including the Percia Schimmel Prize in Archaeology from the Israel Museum, the W.F. Albright Award in Biblical Studies from the Society of Biblical Literature, the Medal of Honor from the University of Madrid, as well as honorary degrees. He passed away in 2012 at the age of 91.
 

Aspects of Monotheism

How God is One

Donald B. Redford, John J. Collins, William G. Dever, P. Kyle McCarter Jr., Jack Meinhardt (editor), Hershel Shanks (editor)

(Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2013), $4.99

 
Stemming from a popular symposium sponsored by the Biblical Archaeology Society and the Smithsonian Institution, Aspects of Monotheism: How God Is One—now available in this convenient eReader edition—presents an exciting, provocative and readily understandable discussion of the origins and evolution of monotheism within Judaism and Christianity. Four distinguished scholars from different fields of study—Donald Redford, William Dever, P. Kyle McCarter and John Collins—tackle broad ranging issues related to how the Israelite god came to be identified with the one universal God of the Judeo-Christian tradition. For example, were the ancient Israelites really the first to worship a single god, or did the Egyptians beat them to the punch? And were the ancient Israelites really monotheists, or was the idea of a single, universal God a late development in Israelite history? And what of Christianity? How are we to understand the divinity of Jesus, alongside his Father? Even more difficult, how are we to understand the Trinity? This book grapples with these intriguing questions and provides some often surprising answers. The new electronic edition of Aspects of Monotheism also allows readers to take full advantage of all of the portability and functionality of their eReader devices, including convenient in-text links that jump directly to specific chapters and notes.

Donald B. Redford is the foremost authority on Akhenaten, often called the world’s first monotheist. Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and History at Pennsylvania State University, Redford has been the director of the Akhenaten Temple Project at the University of Pennsylvania since 1972, which led to his production of a film on the project’s findings. Redford’s publications include Egypt, Israel and Canaan in Ancient Times (Princeton Univ. Press, 1992) and Akhenaten: The Heretic King (Princeton Univ. Press, 1984). He is also editor-in-chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (Oxford Univ. Press, 2001) and has written a libretto for an opera, Ra.

William G. Dever is a Near Eastern archaeologist specializing in the Bible. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1966 and went on to serve as director of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem from 1971 to 1975. In 1975, he joined the faculty of the University of Arizona, Tucson as professor of Near Eastern archaeology and anthropology. Professor Dever retired from the University of Arizona in 2002 and currently divides his time between his home in Cyprus and Lycoming College in Pennsylvania, where he is Distinguished Visiting Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology.

P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., is the William Foxwell Albright Professor of Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in the Near Eastern Studies Department at The Johns Hopkins University. A past president of the American Schools of Oriental Research, he is the author of commentaries on 1 and 2 Samuel in the Anchor Bible Series. His other writings include contributions to the Oxford Companion to the Bible, Harper’s Study Bible and Harper’s Bible Commentary.

John J. Collins is the Holmes Professor of Old Testament at Yale Divinity School. He has served as president of the Catholic Biblical Association and as editor of the Journal of Biblical Literature. He is also a member of the expanded team of Dead Sea Scrolls editors. His publications include a commentary on Daniel (Fortress Press, 1993), The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Doubleday, 1995), Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Routledge, 1997) and Seers, Sibyls and Sages in Hellenistic-Roman Judaism (Brill, 1997).
 

The Rise of Ancient Israel

Hershel Shanks (editor), William G. Dever, Baruch Halpern, P. Kyle McCarter, Jr.

(Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2013), $4.99

 
The Rise of Ancient Israel, now available in this convenient eReader edition, is an accessible and engaging overview of one of biblical archaeology’s most critical and hotly debated subjects—the emergence of biblical Israel on the historical stage. Based on a 1991 Smithsonian Institution symposium organized by the Biblical Archaeology Society, this handsomely illustrated book brings together four authoritative and insightful lectures from world renowned scholars that carefully consider the archaeological and historical evidence for ancient Israel’s origins. Furthermore, the new electronic edition of The Rise of Ancient Israelallows readers to take full advantage of all of the portability and functionality of their eReader devices, including convenient in-text links that jump directly to specific chapters and notes.

In the book’s introduction, moderator Hershel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, not only defines the broad range of issues involved in tackling Israel’s beginnings, but also provides the basic information needed to appreciate the scholarly debates. William Dever, America’s preeminent Biblical archaeologist, then assesses the archaeological evidence that is usually associated with the Israelite settlement in Canaan beginning in about 1200 B.C.E. The often controversial views presented by Dever are followed by brief responses from leading scholars who study Israelite origins, including Israel Finkelstein, Norman Gottwald and Adam Zertal. In the book’s final chapters, Baruch Halpern, a senior professor of Jewish studies and biblical history at Penn State University, describes how the Book of Exodus may preserve authentic historical memories of Israel’s emergence in Egypt, while famed biblical scholar P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., discusses the fascinating and perhaps unexpected origins of Israelite religion. The book concludes with an informal but revealing panel discussion spurred by questions from Shanks and the symposium audience.

Author, moderator and editor Hershel Shanks is editor of Biblical Archaeology Review. He is also the editor and author of many books, including Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls (Random House, 1992) and Jerusalem: An Archaeological Biography (Random House, 1995).

William G. Dever is a Near Eastern archaeologist specializing in the Bible. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1966 and went on to serve as director of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem from 1971 to 1975. In 1975, he joined the faculty of the University of Arizona, Tuscon as professor of Near Eastern archaeology and anthropology. Professor Dever retired from the University of Arizona in 2002 and currently divides his time between his home in Cyprus and Lycoming College in Pennsylvania, where he is Distinguished Visiting Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology. Dever is perhaps best known in archaeological circles as the excavator of Gezer.

Baruch Halpern is a professor of ancient history and holds the Chaiken Family Chair in Jewish studies at Pennsylvania State University. A co-director of excavations at Megiddo, his several books include David’s Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King (Eerdmans, 2001).

P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., is the William F. Albright Professor of Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland. He taught at the University of Virginia from 1974 to 1985 and has held visiting professorships at Harvard University and Dartmouth College. A former president of the American Schools of Oriental Research, McCarter wrote the commentaries on 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel in the Anchor Bible series. His many other writings include Ancient Inscriptions: Voices from the Biblical World (Biblical Archaeology Society, l996). Most recently, he has written and contributed to several important articles on the paleography of the newly discovered Tel Zayit abecedary.
 

Feminist Approaches to the Bible

Hershel Shanks (Editor), Phyllis Trible, Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Pamela J. Milne, Jane Schaberg

(Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2013), $4.99

 
This book, developed from a popular symposium sponsored by the Biblical Archaeology Society and the Smithsonian Institution, invites readers to ask how modern notions of gender equality can be reconciled with the largely patriarchal world in which the Bible was written and understood. Four outstanding scholars—Phyllis Trible, Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Pamela J. Milne and Jane Schaberg—examine the stories of a number of prominent women in the Bible, including Eve, Miriam and Mary Magdalene, to highlight the various ways feminists have approached the biblical text and its traditional interpretation by men. They ask how these stories reflect the concerns of women, and in what ways women are treated, described and given voice by the biblical writers. In addition, they look at the lives of the Bible’s women from a modern perspective and, in so doing, ask how modern, 21st-century readers should relate to the text. Can this inherently patriarchal document be reclaimed as source of spiritual inspiration for modern women, as argued by Trible and others? Or, as viewed by Milne, has the Bible been so distorted by patriarchal tradition that feminists simply have no choice but to reject it all together? Readers will critically grapple with these and other tough questions in Feminist Approaches to the Bible.

Now available in this convenient eReader edition, Feminist Approaches to the Bible allows readers to take full advantage of all of the portability and functionality of their eReader devices, including convenient in-text links that jump directly to specific chapters and notes.

Hershel Shanks, moderator and editor, is editor of Biblical Archaeology Review. He is also the editor and author of many books, including Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls (Random House, 1992) and Jerusalem: An Archaeological Biography (Random House, 1995).

Phyllis Trible is University Professor in the School of Divinity at Wake Forest University. She is the author of God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Fortress Press, 1978), Texts of Terror: Literary Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Fortress Press, 1984) and Rhetorical Criticism: Context, Method, and The Book of Jonah (Fortress Press, 1994).

Tikva Frymer-Kensky was professor of Hebrew Bible at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago and director of biblical studies at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Philadelphia. Her publications include In the Wake of the Goddesses (Free Press, 1992) and The Judicial Ordeal in the Ancient Near East (Styx, 1995). She passed away in August 2006.

Pamela J. Milne is professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Windsor, Ontario, and the author of an introduction and annotation for the Book of Daniel in The NRSV: Harper’s Study Edition (HarperCollins, 1993) and “The Patriarchal Stamp of Scripture” (Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 1989).

Jane Schaberg was professor of religious and women’s studies at the University of Detroit-Mercy, where she had taught since 1977. A specialist in the New Testament, Schaberg was the author of The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the New Testament Infancy Narratives (Crossroad, 1990) and “The Gospel of Luke” in The Women’s Bible Commentary (Westminster/ John Knox Press, 1992). She passed away in April 2012.
 

The Search for Jesus

Modern Scholarship Looks at the Gospels

Stephen J. Patterson; Marcus J. Borg; John Dominic Crossan, Hershel Shanks (editor)

(Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2013), $4.99

 
This engaging and accessible book, developed from a popular symposium sponsored by the Biblical Archaeology Society and the Smithsonian Institution and now available in this convenient eReader edition, presents scholarly discussions on the birth, life and death of the historical Jesus. Top New Testament and historical Jesus scholars Stephen Patterson, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan give their views on who Jesus was, what he said and how the Jesus of history differs from the Jesus of faith. Included are detailed explorations of the historical and archaeological evidence for Jesus outside the Bible, as well as investigations into the various methods scholars use to dissect the Gospels for evidence of what Jesus may have actually said and done. Along the way, readers will follow Patterson, Borg and Crossan through the thickets of ancient texts, theology, archaeology, anthropology, the Nag Hammadi codices and even the Dead Sea Scrolls as they reveal what modern scholarship has learned about the historical Jesus, the first-century man the Gospels tell us was born in Bethlehem, preached in Galilee and was crucified in Jerusalem. The new electronic edition of The Search for Jesus also allows readers to take full advantage of all of the portability and functionality of their eReader devices, including convenient in-text links that jump directly to specific chapters and notes.

Hershel Shanks, moderator and editor, is editor of Biblical Archaeology Review. He is also the editor and author of many books, including Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls (Random House, 1992) and Jerusalem: An Archaeological Biography (Random House, 1995).

Stephen J. Patterson is George H. Atkinson Professor of Religious and Ethical Studies at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. Patterson is a former contributing editor of Bible Review and the author of numerous books, including Beyond the Passion: Rethinking the Death and Life of Jesus (Fortress Press, 2004). His research focuses on the historical Jesus, Christian origins and the Gospel of Thomas.

Marcus J. Borg is Hundere Distinguished Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University, past chair of the Historical Jesus Section of the Society of Biblical Literature and a Fellow of the Jesus Seminar. He is the author of several books, including: Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus (Edwin Mellen, 1984); Jesus: A New Vision (1987) and Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time (1994), both published by HarperSanFrancisco; and Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship (Trinity Press International, 1994).

John Dominic Crossan is professor emeritus of religious studies at DePaul University in Chicago. He is a founder of Semeia: An Experimental Journal for Biblical Criticism and was general editor from 1980 to 1986. He was also a founder and co-director (with Robert W. Funk) of the Westar Institute Jesus Seminar from 1985 to 1993. He has written more than 25 books on the historical Jesus in the last 35 years, including The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (1991), Excavating Jesus (with archaeologist Jonathan L. Reed in 2001) and In Search of Paul (2004), all published by Harper San Francisco.

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A former nun, Schaberg earned her Ph D. in Biblical studies from Union Theological Seminary and joined the faculty at UDM in 1977. She taught feminist interpretation, Biblical studies, and introductions to religious studies and women’s studies. Her research focused on the infancy narratives of Jesus and, more recently, on Mary Magdalene and the Gnostic Gospel of Mary.

She authored several books, including The Illegitimacy of Jesus (Harper and Row, 1987) and The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene (Continuum, 2004), which were sometimes controversial, but she was a leading Biblical scholar who was widely admired by her colleagues and students. She contributed work to several BAS publications, including Bible Review magazine, the book Feminist Approaches to the Bible (1995) and a recent Biblical Views column in the November/December issue of BAR. She also served as a judge for the 2011 BAS Publication Award for “Best Book Relating to the New Testament.”

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Tikva Frymer-Kensky

Frymer-Kensky received her M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University, and specialized in Assyriology, Sumerology and women and religion. Her most recent book, Reading the Women of the Bible received a Koret Jewish Book Award in 2002 and a National Jewish Book Award in 2003. The Chicago Jewish News voted her one of the Jewish Chicagoans of the Year in 2005. She was also honored by the Jewish Publication Series in 2006 by being the first women to be included in their Scholar of Distinction series.

At the time of her death she was working on a commentary on Ruth and a book on Biblical theology. She is survived by her husband, Rabbi Allan Kensky, and children Meira and Eitan.

Articles in BAS Publications

“Unwrapping the Torah,” Bible Review, 18:05, Oct 2002

“Creation Myths Breed Violence,” Bible Review, 14:03, Jun 1998

“Forgotten Heroines of the Exodus,” Bible Review, 13:06, Dec 1997

“The Trial Before God of an Accused Adulteress,” Bible Review, 2:03, Summer 1986

“Inanna—The Quintessential Femme Fatale,” BAR 10:05, Sep/Oct 1984

“God Before the Hebrews,” BAR 8:05, Sep/Oct 1982

“What the Babylonian Flood Stories Can and Cannot Teach Us About the Genesis Flood,” BAR 4:04, Nov/Dec 1978

“Goddesses: Biblical Echoes,” Feminist Approaches to the Bible, 1995

Tikva Simone Frymer-Kensky

September 3, 2006/10 Elul, 5766

A Eulogy by Jeffrey H. Tigay

According to the Talmud, “when a scholar dies, all are next-of-kin,” that is, the loss and mourning affect the entire community. Such is the case with Tikva. In addition to Meira and Eitan, all who learned from Tikva as a teacher, a lecturer, an author, and a colleague are bereaved. In Tikva’s case the circle is very wide indeed: from the members of this congregation and her students and colleagues at the University of Chicago and the other institutions where she taught, and extending to fellow scholars in Bible, Judaica and the ancient Near East in this country, Israel and elsewhere, to the rabbinical community and other clergy, to Christian colleagues in her interfaith activities, and the many readers of her books and articles which were read far and wide by scholars and laity alike. All are bereaved, all are family.

I am acutely aware that it is not possible to do justice to Tikva. Eulogies are always prepared on short notice and her accomplishments were so numerous that I can barely scratch the surface. But let me share with you some thoughts of a colleague and friend.

I first met Tikva around 1960 when we were both students in the undergraduate school of the Jewish Theological Seminary, although at the time she was still in high school and commuting to the seminary after-hours. Over the years we were classmates both at the Seminary and later in graduate school at Yale, and subsequently we were colleagues and family friends. Both of us were members of an interdenominational group of about 30 Biblical scholars who meet one weekend a year to present and critique each other’s scholarly papers. Tikva was the den-mother for all the Jewish members: she always brought Shabbat candles, wine, and challah, and she would invite us to join her at sunset for candle-lighting, kiddush [the blessing over wine] and ha-motzi [the blessing over bread]. The years when she and Alan lived in Philadelphia were an especially blessed time in our friendship since we lived close enough to attend the same synagogue, Meira and Eitan and our children attended the same schools, and Tikva and I had time to share ideas about projects we were working on. An added treat was having many opportunities to hear Alan present divrei Torah [lectures on Bible and Talmud], instructing and inspiring the congregation.

From the time I met Tikva it was apparent that she was a brilliant and enthusiastic student. Her brilliance was almost intimidating because she was such a quick study, so perceptive and already so knowledgeable. One mutual friend wrote to me last week that he remembers meeting her when they were both writing dissertations, and he recalled: “She was so far ahead of most of us in all ways.” Tikva and I first met in the classes of Yochanan Muffs, then one of the future greats of the Seminary faculty, whose brilliance and passion for the Bible were mirrored in Tikva’s, and whose devotion to the study of ancient languages provided a life-long model of grounding one’s scholarly enthusiasm in solid linguistic and textual data. His impact on her was so great that she later dedicated one of her books to him. Already fluent in Hebrew, Tikva went on to master Aramaic, Akkadian and Sumerian and several other ancient languages, studying at Yale and, for a year, at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. In the course of her studies she was exposed to a veritable who’s who of Biblical, Near Eastern and Jewish scholarship, and I want to mention their names because they meant so much to her: in addition to Muffs there were H.L. Ginsberg, Shalom Paul, Moshe Held, Abraham Halkin, Avraham Holtz and Joel Kramer at the Seminary, Franz Rosenthal, Marvin Pope, Jacob Finkelstein and William Hallo at Yale, and in her postdoctoral days the Hebrew University’s Moshe Greenberg and Harvard’s Thorkild Jacobsen. Under their tutelage Tikva delved deeply into the civilizations of ancient Israel and Mesopotamia as well as a broad range of Judaica, eventually focusing on the areas of law, religion, and literature. She wrote her dissertation on trial-by-ordeal in the ancient Near East, and began to publish a steady stream of articles and books about ancient Mesopotamia and the Bible, and about Jewish theology. One of my favorites is her masterful study of the Babylonian and Biblical accounts of the flood, which I have assigned to my students for years.

Over the years Tikva’s scholarship was recognized with prestigious awards. She won several post-doctoral research fellowships and in recent years she won both a Koret Jewish Book Award and a National Jewish Book Award for her book Reading the Women of the Bible. Just this year a collection of her articles, Studies in Bible and Feminist Criticism, was published by the Jewish Publication Society in its Scholar of Distinction series, with the generous sponsorship of members of this congregation. Another scholar wrote to me that just a week before Tikva died he had worked through this volume trying to formulate “what a Frymer-Kensky ‘theology of [the Bible]’” might look like…and [he] was going to send her a draft to learn if what [he] said rung true to her.”

Tikva’s best-known works were her two “feminist” books, In the Wake of the Goddesses and Reading the Women of the Bible. The subtitle of In the Wake of the Goddesses is Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth. Because of Tikva’s erudition and meticulous scholarship, the book was unsurpassed for reliability, and one reviewer called it “probably the best factually based survey of [ancient Mesopotamian] religion available today.” In it, Tikva explores “what happens in the Bible…to the functions and roles once played by goddesses” in Mesopotamian religion, and she argues that “the absence of goddesses causes major changes in the way the Bible…looks at humanity, culture, society, and nature.” God himself absorbs most of the functions of the goddesses, including control of fertility, and as a result the divine is sexually neutralized: God is non-sexual; he is masculine only in grammar and metaphor, but not in actual gender. And corresponding to the absence of gender differentiation in the divine is the Biblical concept of humanity that transcends gender. One of Tikva’s major insights is that the Bible does not see men and women as being different in essence. They are socially unequal, and women are subordinate, “but they are not inferior in any intellectual or spiritual way.” Misogyny and notions such as feminine wiles and the battle between the sexes are absent. To the extent that such ideas are found in Judaism, Tikva attributes them to Greek ideas that entered Judaism in the Hellenistic period. She sees the Bible’s positive evaluation of women as one of the beneficial effects of Biblical monotheism, and considers the challenge of returning to this gender-neutral vision as part of the unfinished business of monotheism. But she also notes negative effects of the Bible’s removal of gender from the divine, particularly the fact that the Bible, and Judaism and Christianity in general, have so little to say about such important things as human sexuality and reproduction. In fact, her desire to fill this gap is one reason why she wrote her book Motherprayer, a remarkable anthology of little-known prayers, meditations, and reflections on every aspect of female reproductive life, drawn from ancient Near East, Jewish and Christian sources.

Tikva’s book, Reading the Women of the Bible, consists of a close reading of more than two dozen Biblical narratives about women. The book is studded with countless fine insights reflecting Tikva’s multidisciplinary linguistic, historical, literary-critical and psychological acumen. But its most notable feature lies in its methodology and attitude. Modern literary scholarship, both feminist and other types, has sometimes been characterized as operating with a “hermeneutic of suspicion,” a view that writers serve ulterior motives and political agendas. Some feminist scholarship is written with a good deal of anger. This was not Tikva’s approach, though she did not entirely deny its value. In fact, she insisted that “If we tell the Biblical stories about women without taking note of the [inequitable] social system that gives them symbolic value, and [without] naming its inequities, then we unwittingly help to perpetuate the skewed system that the Bible assumes.” But Tikva was a lover of the Bible as well as a feminist, and she added to the hermeneutic of suspicion her own “‘hermeneutics of grace,’ a method of interpretation that recognizes the basic decency and well-meaning character of the Biblical authors” (p. 353). A reviewer noted Tikva’s “irenic,” anger-free tone and observed that “whether…celebrating the women of the Bible…or mourning [their victimization],” Tikva’s “book…enables readers to navigate through the most violent…texts of terror in the Bible free from the stranglehold of rage.”

This irenic approach was consistent with Tikva’s character. She had a notably positive and constructive attitude toward life and people, and I rarely heard her express anger even over things that displeased her. That outlook was surely helpful to her in the past several years. Despite serious illnesses she kept up a pace that would have been impressive even for someone in good health. She continued to teach and to attend scholarly conferences and completed various publications, including her last two books, Reading the Women and Studies in Bible and Feminist Criticism. As late as late month we had a long conversation about one of her ideas about Genesis.

To lose a scholar of such brilliance, erudition, range, and imagination is a loss for all the fields of scholarship in which Tikva was engaged. But as I mentioned at the outset, the loss goes far beyond the world of scholarship: all are bereaved. Tikva was deeply committed to writing for readers beyond her academic peers. As she explained:
When I study the Bible…I am aware…of the impact that my study can have on people, of the possible transformations that it can occasionally cause in Judaism and…[in] the spiritual lives of people who might never even hear my name. (Studies, pp. xx-xxi).

Part of our bereavement lies in the fact that Tikva left a large, unfinished agenda of publications. There was so much more that she would have taught us. But for those who knew and cherished her, the loss is deeper and more personal, a gap in our lives. It’s been said that you can’t make old friends. I knew Tikva for over 45 years, and I had hoped to know her much longer. May her memory be blessed.

Jeffrey H. Tigay is the A.M. Ellis Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages and Literatures at the University of Pennsylvania.

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