Sexuality and Law in the Torah

Hilary Lipka, Bruce Wells

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780567681607
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

This book examines many of the laws in the Torah governing sexual relations and the often implicit motivations underlying them. It also considers texts beyond the laws in which legal traditions and ideas concerning sexual behavior intersect and provide insight into ancient Israel's social norms. The book includes extended treatments on the nature and function of marriage and divorce in ancient Israel, the variation in sexual rules due to status and gender, the prohibition on male-with-male sex, and the different types of sexualities that may have existed in ancient Israel. The essays draw on a variety of methodologies and approaches, including narrative criticism, philological analysis, literary theory, feminist and gender theory, anthropological models, and comparative analysis. They cover content ranging from the narratives in Genesis, to the laws of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy, to later re-interpretations of pentateuchal laws in Jeremiah and texts from the Second Temple period. Overall, the book presents a combination of theoretical discussion and close textual analysis to shed new light on the connections between law and sexuality within the Torah and beyond.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Titel
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• List of Abbreviations
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction Hilary Lipka and Bruce Wells
• 1 Categories of Sexuality Indigenous to Biblical Legal Materials. David Tabb Stewart
• 2 The Daughter Sold into Slavery and Marriage. Pamela Barmash
• 3 Rachel’s Betrothal Contract and the Origins of Contract Law. F. Rachel Magdalene
• 4 Judah, Tamar, and the Law of Levirate Marriage. Eryl W. Davies
• 5 On the Beds of a Woman: The Leviticus Texts on Same-Sex Relations Reconsidered. Bruce Wells
• 6 The Offense, Its Consequences, and the Meaning of זנה in Leviticus 19:29. Hilary Lipka
• 7 Priestly Marriage Restrictions. Sarah Shectman
• 8 The Inheritance Injunction of Numbers 36: Zelophehad’s Daughters and the Intersection of Ancestral Land and Sex Regulation. M. L. Case
• 9 Reproducing Torah: Human and Divine Sexuality in the Book of Deuteronomy. Steffan Mathias
• 10 Divorce in Archaic Crete: Comparative Perspectives on Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Anselm C. Hagedorn
• 11 Divorce Instruction and Covenantal Unfaithfulness: A New Examination of the Reuse of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 as Metaphor in Jeremiah 3:1-10. Kenneth Bergland
• 12 Sexual Relations and the Transition from Holy People to Human Sanctuary in Second Temple Times. Hannah K. Harrington
• Index of References
• Index of Authors