Impurity and Gender in the Hebrew Bible

By (author) Elizabeth W. Goldstein

Publication date:

17 September 2015

Length of book:

148 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9781498500807

Impurity and Gender in the Hebrew Bible explores the role of female blood in the Hebrew Bible and considers its theological implications for future understandings of purity and impurity in the Jewish religion. Influenced by the work of Jonathan Klawans (Sin and Impurity in Ancient Judaism), and using the categories of ritual and moral impurities, this book analyzes the way in which these categories intersect with women and with the impurity of female blood, and reads the biblical foundations of purity and blood taboos with a feminist lens. Ultimately, the purpose of this book is to understand the intersection between impurity and gender, figuratively and non-figuratively, in the Hebrew Bible. Goldstein traces this intersection from the years 1000 BCE-250 BCE and ends with a consideration of female impurity in the literature of Qumran.
In Impurity and Gender in the Hebrew Bible, Elizabeth W. Goldstein provides an extended study of the Hebrew word נדה /ndh. Her monograph accomplishes a great deal in following the evolution of the term from its earliest stage…. Throughout her grammatical, historical, and linguistic analysis of the material, she interweaves a feminist hermeneutic. Thus she seeks to determine the extent to which women were – and are – affected by the metaphorical use of what was originally a term for the ritual impurity imputed by a female biological process. She uses all of these methodologies effectively, and writes in an engaging and a well-organized fashion…. As for her feminist hermeneutic, Goldstein proceeds with detailed objectivity and thoughtful insights.