The Bible, Gender, and Reception History: The Case of Job's Wife

Katherine Low

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780567520456
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Biography

The Bible, Gender, and Reception History: The Case of Job's Wife investigates the fleeting appearance in the Bible of Job's wife and its impact on the imaginations of readers throughout history. It begins by presenting key interpretive gaps in the biblical text concerning Job and his wife, explaining the way gender studies offers guiding principles with which the author engages a reception history of their marriage. After analyzing Job and his wife within medieval Christian theology of Eden, the author identifies ways in which Job's wife visually aligns with medieval images of Satan. The volume explores portrayals of Job and his wife in publications on marriage and gender roles in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, moving onto an investigation of William Blake's sharp artistic divergence from the common tradition in his representation of Job's wife as a shrew. In the exploration of societal portrayals of Job and his Wife throughout history, this book discovers how arguments about marriage intertwine with not only gender roles, but also, with political, social, and historical movements.

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• Acknowledgments
• List of Figures
• INTRODUCTION
• Early Christian Versions of Job’s Wife
• Reception History and Job
• Gender Theory
• The Gendered Body and Job
• Outline of Chapters
• Chapter 1. EDEN’S DUNGHILL AND THE WIFE’S DEVIANT SPEECH
• Medieval Christian Theological Writings on Job
• Job and His Wife in Medieval Christian Texts
• Medieval Gendered Deviant Speech
• Chapter 2. THE TROUBLESOME TRIO OF JOB, HIS WIFE, AND SATAN IN MEDIEVAL ART
• Medieval Images
• Speculum Humanae Salvationis
• Chapter 3. SATAN’S DISAPPEARANCE FROM THE DUNGHEAP AND JOB’S WIFE AS RENAISSANCE SHREW
• Medieval Bodies: Job and Satan
• Early Modern Changing Views of Roles at the Dungheap
• Chapter 4. JOB’S WIFE’S PLACE IN THE WOMAN QUESTION, SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES
• Job and His Wife in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Literature
• Summary
• Chapter 5. WILLIAM BLAKE’S JOB
• Overview of Blake’s Job Engravings
• Job and His Wife in Blake’s Job Series
• CONCLUSION
• Bibliography
• Index of References
• Index of Authors