Constructions of Gender in Religious Traditions of Late Antiquity

Edited by Shayna Sheinfeld; Juni Hoppe and Kathy Ehrensperger - Contributions by Matthew R. Anderson; Bernadette J. Brooten; Lavinia Cerioni; Federico Dal Bo; Krista N. Dalton; Kathy Ehrensperger; Sari Fein; Sarit Kattan Gribetz; Andrew W. Higginbotham; Juni Hoppe; Matthew R. Hotham; Ruth Kara-Ivanov Kaniel; Sara Parks; Ilaria L.E. Ramelli; Shayna Sheinfeld; Daniel Vorpahl and David Zakarian

This volume examines questions concerning the construction of gender and identity in the earliest days of what is now Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Methodologically explicit, the contributions analyze textual and material sources related to these religious traditions in their cultural contexts. The sources examined are predominantly products of patriarchal elite discourses requiring innovative approaches to unveil aspects of gender otherwise hidden. This volume extends the discussion represented in the volume Gender and Second-Temple Judaism (2020) and highlights the fruitfulness of interdisciplinary research beyond anachronistic discipline distinctions.

Lexington Books / Fortress Academic

Pages: 404 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-9787-1455-7 • Hardback • March 2024 • $130.00 • (£100.00)

978-1-9787-1456-4 • eBook • March 2024 • $50.00 • (£38.00)

Subjects: Religion / History, Religion / Sexuality & Gender Studies, Religion / Ancient

Constructions of Gender in Religious Traditions of Late Antiquity

Hardback

eBook

Summary

This volume examines questions concerning the construction of gender and identity in the earliest days of what is now Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Methodologically explicit, the contributions analyze textual and material sources related to these religious traditions in their cultural contexts. The sources examined are predominantly products of patriarchal elite discourses requiring innovative approaches to unveil aspects of gender otherwise hidden. This volume extends the discussion represented in the volume Gender and Second-Temple Judaism (2020) and highlights the fruitfulness of interdisciplinary research beyond anachronistic discipline distinctions.

Details

Lexington Books / Fortress Academic

Pages: 404 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½

978-1-9787-1455-7 • Hardback • March 2024 • $130.00 • (£100.00)

978-1-9787-1456-4 • eBook • March 2024 • $50.00 • (£38.00)

Subjects: Religion / History, Religion / Sexuality & Gender Studies, Religion / Ancient

Author

Shayna Sheinfeld is assistant professor of religion at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Juni Hoppe is junior executive editor of the Encyclopedia of Jewish-Christian Relations (EJCR) and director of the Intercultural Center Genezareth (IZG) in Berlin, Germany.
Kathy Ehrensperger is research fellow at the Faculty of Theology, University of Basel, Switzerland.

Table of Contents

Introduction Shayna Sheinfeld, Juni Hoppe, and Kathy Ehrensperger
1. Why Should an Androginos Not Become an Enslaved Hebrew? Tannaitic Reasoning about the Androginos within the Roman World Bernadette J. Brooten
2. Because of Her We All Die: Eve in Early Jewish and Early Christian Reception Sara Parks
3. The Feminine as an Intellectual Category in Gnosticism: Proposing a Methodological Framework Lavinia Cerioni
4. Explicit and Implicit Gender Laws — “Incest” in Qumranic and Tannaitic Literature: A Halakhhic Struggle for Cultural Hegemony on the basis of Lev 18:13 Federico Dal Bo
5. Torah, Gender, and Rabbinic Expertise Krista N. Dalton
6. Constructions of Gender in Origen of Alexandria Ilaria L.E. Ramelli
7. One of the Boys: Jerome’s Fabulous Frontier Masculinity Matthew R. Anderson
8. Queen Helena of Adiabene through the Centuries Sarit Kattan Gribetz
9. “For Rachel I Will Return the Israelites”: Maternal Grief and Loss in the Early Jewish Imagination Sari Fein
10. The Body as a Wonderland: Rabbinic Talk of the Human Body as a Sex/Gender Construction
Daniel Vorpahl
11. Shush Shelamzion, your brother Shimon is speaking! A Peculiar Pattern of Palestinian Passivation
Andrew W. Higginbotham
12. Eve in Early Christian Armenian Tradition David Zakarian
13. The Stillborn Messiah and the Non-Viable Redeemer: Gender and Judeo-Christian Entanglement
Ruth Kara-Ivanov Kaniel
14. Tying Knots of Fortitude to Withstand Your Beauty: Women as Temptresses and Tests of Fortitude in Sufi Literature Matthew R. Hotham

Reviews

With the use of diverse methodologies, the contributing authors in this volume skillfully expose the intricate web of gender constructions across the late ancient Mediterranean world. A triumph of contemporary intersectional lenses, this work illuminates the understanding that gender is, and always has been, a richly constructed mosaic in the religious imagination.

— Jennifer Barry, University of Mary Washington

Constructions of Gender in Religious Traditions of Late Antiquity represents a milestone in the study of religious traditions of Late Antiquity. Departing from the cloistered research on Second Temple Judaism, Early and Medieval Christianity, Rabbinics, and Early Islam, a feminist collaboration of renowned scholars substantiates the complexity and diversity of constructions of gender in this broad period. Through novel and interdisciplinary methodologies and gender-sensitive lens, they analyze in depth the normative status of the three monotheistic traditions. Reconstructing rhyzomatic models, the different studies delve into porous borders, small networks, and gendered processes by acknowledging diverse power dynamics and intersectionalities. Those fuzzy borders challenge as well the limits of historical categories, as Late Antiquity, by providing innovative perspectives on gender in religious traditions as further comprehensive markers of temporality and territoriality. This collective volume is a must-read for scholars in Gender Studies, Religious Traditions, and Late Antiquity.

— Magdalena Díaz Araujo, National University of Cuyo

This volume gathers leading scholars of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam working on the intersection of gender and the intermingled religious practices in the post-Second Temple period. Taking gender as a fluid cultural construction that intersects with manifold religious practices, the fourteen chapters cover topics from Hellenistic-Jewish, tannaitic to late Rabbinic texts, so-called Gnostic writings as well as those from Alexandrian and Constantinopolitan Christian intellectuals, Quranic, and Sufi traditions, demonstrating the manifold ways that gender meanders along a slope of symbolic as well as material effect. This long-awaited volume is sure pave new avenues for the research on several of today’s monotheistic religions.

— Angela Standhartinger, University of Marburg

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