Olyan, Saul M.: Social Inequality in the World of the Text

The Significance of Ritual and Social Distinctions in the Hebrew Bible. This volume consists of fifteen of the author's essays (two of which have not been published previously), spanning almost two decades of research. In these essays, Olyan explores themes such as gender, sexuality, purity and pollution, sanctification, death and afterlife, foreignness, and disability with particular attention to the roles distinctions such as honored/shamed, feminine/masculine, mourning/rejoicing, unclean/clean, alien/native play in creating and perpetuating social differences in texts. Rites of status change such as circumcision, shaving, purification, burial or disinterment, sanctification and profanation of holiness are a focus of interest in a number of these essays, reflecting the author's ongoing interest in the textual representation of ritual. Most of the essays examine texts in their historical setting, but several also engage the early history of the interpretation of biblical texts, including the phenomenon of inner biblical exegesis. The essays are divided into five sections: Rites and Social Status; Gender and Sexuality; Disability; Holiness, Purity, the Alien; Death, Burial, Afterlife and their Metaphorical Uses. The author introduces each of the sections, contextualizing each essay in his larger scholarly project, reflecting on its development and reception and, in some cases, responding to his critics. 240 Seiten, gebunden (Journal of Ancient Judaism. Supplements; Vol. 4/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2011) leichte Lagerspuren/minor shelfwear