Are You Shaved? A Hermeneutic of Hair Removal

This guide accompanies the following article(s): Mark Sneed, Social Scientific Approach to the Hebrew Bible, Religion Compass 2/3 (2008) pp. 287–300, 10.1111/j.1749‐8171.2008.00072.x Author’s Introduction The social science approach to the Hebrew Bible has steadily gained in popularity in recent years. It is heir to the older and formerly dominant historical critical approach to the Bible but focuses on society as whole instead of just kings, high priests, and the elite. And it goes beyond the also popular social history approach by incorporating social theory into its interpretation of texts and Israelite society. It transforms the two dimensional portrayal of biblical characters in Scripture into three dimensional flesh and blood figures whose lives are motivated and shaped by larger societal forces. The social science approach also aids in foregrounding the ‘Otherness’ of the biblical text, demonstrating how the biblical text reflects a culture that is unfamiliar to our modern Western world. It also serves as a check against the currently popular literary critical approach to the Bible that has a tendency to blunt that strangeness of the ancient text and read modern cultural assumptions and notions back into the same text. But the social science approach has also become more postmodern, and its adherents are not naïve about how their own social locations influence the way they interpret Scripture and the choices they make regarding what models they apply to the biblical text. Biblical sociologists have also become more skeptical about the reliability of ancient texts for reconstructing socio‐historical reality because of their inherently biased character and have proposed ways to separate the wheat from the chaff. And finally, the social science approach has become more self‐conscious of the speculative nature of applying theoretical models to ancient texts and the danger of making the text fit the model. However, in spite of this, biblical sociologists believe it is worth the risk and that their approach makes an important contribution to biblical criticism and that it makes biblical studies exciting and relevant. Online Materials 1. http://www.kchanson.com/ A fascinating site from a New Testament sociologist. It contains tremendous amounts of information including archaeological photos, bibliographies (e.g. ‘The Old Testament: Social Sciences &amp; Social Description’), and numerous links to other related sites like Ancient World on the Web (with over 250 www‐sites) and to electronic journals. 2. http://virtualreligion.net/vri/ Its Biblical Studies: Social World of the Bible provides links to electronic journals and other related sites, some with photos. 3. http://sites.google.com/site/biblicalstudiesresources/ This site has a Hebrew Bible Resources category that includes electronic journals and the homepages of three Hebrew Bible sociologists: Don Benjamin, David J. A. Clines, and Philip Davies, with some of their articles. 4. http://courses.missouristate.edu/VictorMatthews/ Homepage of a preeminent Hebrew Bible anthropologist and Ancient Near Eastern expert that contains bibliographies and numerous links to other related sites and to electronic journals. 5. http://www.socioweb.com/ The Socio Web has links to great sites that often have articles on various sociological topics and social theorists. 6. http://www.trinity.edu/mkearl/index.html A Sociological Tour Through Cyberspace is an amazing site that is colourful and filled with articles about and guides to various aspects of sociology and links to numerous related sites. 7. http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/w3virtsoclib/index.html WWW Virtual Library: Sociology: Theories has wonderful articles on the primary theorists in sociology and related resources. 8. http://www.denverseminary.edu/dj/articles2005/0100/0101.php#trans The Denver Journal has various related resources, and its Annotated Old Testament Bibliography: Sociological and Anthropological Studies is helpful. Annotated Reading List 1. Weber, Max. Ancient Judaism. Translated by Hans H. Gerth and Don Martindale. New York: Free, 1952 So fortuitous for biblical sociologists, one of the fathers of sociology theorizes on the development of the Israelite religion from a comparative religion standpoint; a classic. It is not the easiest read, so it should be reserved for graduate students. 2. Gottwald, Norman K. The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250–1050 bce. Paperback ed. The Biblical Seminar. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999 The father of modern Hebrew Bible sociology draws on Durkheim, Weber, and especially Marx to trace the development of the early Israelite faith that sprang from a confederation of recently liberated peasants; another classic. Compare the following reviews: Bernhard W. Anderson ( Theology Today 38 [1981]: 107–8 – mainly critical); Robert R. Wilson ( Interpretation 38 [1982]: 71–4 – generally positive); Carol Meyers ( Catholic Biblical Quarterly 43 [1981]: 104–9 – somewhat positive). 3. Gottwald, Norman K. The Hebrew Bible: A Brief Socio‐Literary Introduction. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009 This abridged version of the 1985 classic introduces the student broadly to biblical sociology and then applies it book by book to the Hebrew Bible. Compare the following reviews of the unabridged version: J. J. M. Roberts ( Theology Today 43 [1987]: 580–1 – generally negative); Robert Gnuse ( Currents in Theology and Mission 13 [1986]: 174–5 – generally positive). </jats:

Teaching &amp; Learning Guide for: The Changing Significance of Race: African Americans and the Hebrew Bible

Male alliances, partnerships, and friendships are fundamental to the Hebrew Bible. This book offers a detailed and explicit exploration of the ways in which shared sexual use of women and women’s bodies engenders, sustains, and nourishes such relationships in the Hebrew Bible. Hebrew Bible narratives demonstrate that women and women’s bodies are not merely used to foster and cultivate male homosociality, male friendship, and toxic hegemonic masculinity, but rather to engender&nbsp;them and make&nbsp;them possible in the first place. Thiede argues that homosocial bonds between divine and mortal males are part of a continual competition for power, rank, and honor, and that this competition depends on women’s bodies for its expression. In a final chapter, she also explores whether female characters in the Hebrew Bible use male bodies to form friendships and alliances to advance female power, status, and rank. The book concludes by arguing that women are essential to the toxic biblical hegemonic masculinity we find in the Hebrew Bible, but only because their bodies are used to make it possible in the first place. This book is intended for scholars of the Hebrew Bible, as well as advanced undergraduate and graduate students in religious studies, women and gender studies, masculinity studies, queer studies, and like fields. The book can also be read profitably by lay students of biblical literature, seminary students, and clergy.

If one is to make some progress towards understanding ‘miracle’ in the Hebrew Bible (HB), then certain initial cautionary notes need to be sounded. First, there is arguably no Hebrew word for ‘miracle’; which is arguable because sometimes HB translations do render particular Hebrew words as ‘miracle’. The issue here is a recurrent problem in biblical interpretation, for many of the common terms that interpreters use – ‘conversion’ or ‘history’ or ‘theology’ – cannot be straightforwardly translated into biblical Hebrew (or septuagintal Greek). This does not make such terms unusable, but it does necessitate that they be used with care. For although there may be continuity between what we mean by these terms and what is going on in the biblical text, there may also be difference; and that difference may be partly or wholly obscured if we are insufficiently self-critical in use of a familiar and apparently convenient interpretative category. So, for example, there is a danger that in using the familiar English word ‘miracle’ with reference to the HB one may import familiar implications and overtones from historic debates – such as Hume’s famous definition of a miracle as ‘a violation of the laws of nature’, although the notion of an autonomous natural world was unknown to the writers of the HB. Second, and related, an interest in ‘miracle’ may well introduce distinctions in relation to divine action within the HB which are absent within the biblical text. For within the HB there is a wide spectrum and continuum of divine actions, which happen in both ordinary and extraordinary ways, sometimes with human or other agency and sometimes without. The fact that God does something may indeed make that action or event extraordinary; but the extraordinary as such is not seen as the particular locus of divine action.

Reviewed by: Performing Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible by Milena Kirova Andrew Montanaro milena kirova, Performing Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible (HBM 91; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2020). Pp. xiii + 218. $85. An English rewrite of her two-volume Bulgarian work (2011 and 2017), Performing Masculinity brings Milena Kirova's keen literary criticism to bear on a wide range of biblical passages relevant to masculinity as conceived by the ancient authors. K. presents a perceptive commentary on a unique set of underexamined aspects of masculinity in the Hebrew Bible, including men's roles as shepherds, bandits, and builders. K. provides a valuable contribution to both masculinity studies and biblical studies. This volume comprises nine essays and an epilogue. Kirova employs an important methodological maneuver whereby she resists imposing categories employed by post/modern social sciences onto ancient perspectives without careful consideration. In this regard, her chapter on weeping (see below) can be seen as the most important since in it K. explicates her nuanced critique of the use of masculinity studies. K. makes the commonsense observation that males in hegemonic roles throughout the Hebrew Bible vary from one another in that they are celebrated for contradictory traits. She states, "[I]n the world of the Hebrew Bible we should better talk of hegemonic masculinities, rather than of a hegemonic masculinity, the way Raewyn Connell [Masculinities (2nd ed.; Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 76–77]) does in her attempt to define the new general situation in the postmodern world. . . . [B]iblical masculinity is a category much wider and inherently variable in a way that is unfamiliar to the modern Western world" (p. 150). She notes that pairs of conflicting traits (cruelty and mercy, honesty and trickery) are commonly seen as hegemonic "because biblical men, heroic or not, powerful or weak, have come into being after 'the image and likeness' of God. God and not man is the allencompassing matrix of human being" (p. 163; emphasis original). Kirova frequently returns to her premise that God is the ultimate male before whom all other distinctions among humans—including gender distinctions—become relativized. Important for this methodology and its application is a detailed examination of hegemonic masculinity as it exists in God; however, such an examination is absent from this study. Nevertheless, K.'s analyses will aid anyone interested in this work to engage more fully with the question of God's masculinity. The above premises and methodological concerns are demonstrated throughout the volume in relation to various topics, and in this way the reader gets a sense of K.'s method [End Page 115] in practice as she explores subjects such as the imago dei and bodily perfection, which make the Hebrew man like God (chaps. 1 and 2); humiliation and the "etiquette of unwillingness to become king," which are explained not as lapses in hegemonic masculinity but as necessary rituals for becoming king (chap. 3); and circumcision, such as in the Shechem massacre in Genesis 34, which, after explicating the "ass" theme, K. argues would have been part of an amusing story for the ancients—"the ethical aspect that causes shock to the modern reader simply did not exist" (p. 67; chap. 4). Further, K. explores the role of shepherds, drawing a trajectory ending in apocalyptic texts where God is shepherd (chap. 5). She argues that this results in a collapsing of gender distinctions: "The small differences between worldly men and worldly women are assimilated into the vast difference between man and God" (p. 121). Here the meekness and care of human shepherds make them more like God (and thus closer to the hegemonic). Next, K. examines David's bandit years against similar bandit-kings in Judges, and she argues that, through fairness and generosity, David transcends the category of bandit to become worthy of being king (chap. 6). In chap. 7, she focuses on the theme of weeping both as a manipulative act to elicit a response (particularly from God) and also as an expression of kindness, an attribute of God. She perceptively observes that, far from emasculating men, weeping can be an expression of an attribute that makes men more like God. Kirova further treats men in the role of...

144 SHOFAR Summer 2000 Vol. 18, No.4 The Intercourse of Knowledge: On Gendering Desire and "Sexuality" in the Hebrew Bible, by Athalya Brenner. Biblical Interpretation Series, Vol. 26. Leiden, New York and Kobo: Brill, 1997. 190 pp. $72.50 hardcover. Feminist readers ofthe Hebrew Bible have long been divided over whether the Hebrew Bible affIrms gender equality (if not socially, then at least ontologically) and offers positive views offemale sexuality, or whether it assumes gender asymmetry and locates female sexuality as a symbol for "otherness," danger, and chaos. Athalya Brenner's recent book The Intercourse ofKnowledge: On Gendering Desire and "Sexuality" in the Hebrew Bible offers a forceful contribution to the latter perspective by attending to the ways that the Hebrew Bible constructs and genders human sexuality and sexual desire. As the book's title, The Intercourse of Knowledge, suggests, the theme of knowledge (sexual and epistomological) and the reciprocities (or lack thereof) of who knows and who is known is key to the argument she develops. By and large in the Hebrew Bible, Brenner argues, it is men who "know" women, and women who are "known"; it is men who are the active agents of love and desire, and it is women who are the passive recipients ofsuch agency. In short, it is men alone who possess sexuality (understood as the "autonomous potential for socio-sexual behaviours motivated by desire" [po 178]). And because "sexuality is a requisite for constructing gender," Brenner comes to the somewhat startling argument that in the Hebrew Bible, there is only one gender-male. Her argument proceeds through a linguistic analysis of biblical terms for desire, sex, and gendered physiology, to a consideration ofideologies and technologies related to procreation and contraception, to an analysis of socio-religious codes relating to incest and other acts of sexual transgression, and finally, to reflections on biblical "pornoprophetics," that is, the graphic, female sexual imagery offered up in the "marriage" metaphors of Hosea, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Throughout this somewhat eclectic array of topics, Brenner fmds a common thread: that biblical women are represented as much more "pre-sexual" than men, as fundamentally biological rather than cultural beings, whose nakedness can be legitimately exposed and exploited, in contrast to biblical males, whose sexual organs are inviolate and hidden, both in the text and in the language. This contrast between women as biological creatures who lack sexuality and males as cultural agents who possess sexuality, is illustrated, for example, in Brenner's linguistic analysis of the biblical terms for male and female. The posited derivation of neqebiih ("female") from the verb niiqah-"to pierce"-suggests to Brenner connotations of female as "hole," "opening," or "orifice." Femaleness is marked by a physiological feature, and is coded as a passive receptacle, an orifice waiting to be filled. Ziikiir ("male"), by contrast, is derived from the verb ziikar-"to remember"suggesting that the male is the carrier ofmemory and social continuity; maleness is thus Book Reviews 145 linked to culture and social agency. Males then are a gender, products ofand producers ofculture, whereas women are but a sex, defmable by a decisive physical characteristic. This negating of female humanity reaches its fullest expression, Brenner argues, in biblical depictions of Israel as a harlot who is stripped naked and sexually violated in punishment for her "sins"; in these "pornoprophetic" texts, the male prophetic voice and intended male audience "assume the right to undress the female and to drive knowledge into her gazed-at being, while they remain safely protected by layers of clothing and self-righteousness" (p. 171). Brenner's analysis ofbiblical sexuality is informed by recent arguments about the subordination ofsexuality to structures ofsocial power in the ancient world. As Daniel Boyarin puts it, "there was no autonomous realm of'sexuality' within classical cultures at all; desire and pleasure were inextricably bound up with the relations ofpower and domination that structured the entire society.... The world was divided into the screwers-all male-and the screwed-both male and female" (Boyarin, cited in Brenner, p. 4). Sexual desire, sexual pleasure, and therefore, sexuality itself, were the prerogative of the "screwer" class. Brenner does a brilliant job in making a case for similar...

Reviewed by: Dress, Adornment, and the Body in the Hebrew Bible by Laura Quick Laura Carlson Hasler Laura Quick. Dress, Adornment, and the Body in the Hebrew Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. 185 pp. doi:10.1017/S0364009421000131 Laura Quick's Dress, Adornment, and the Body in the Hebrew Bible is a compelling study of how clothing reflects and activates identity in the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East. In Quick's analysis, adornments are agential symbols of an individual's social role and status. This monograph investigates [End Page 433] the means by which bodies were coded in the ancient Levant, and invites us to rethink our interpretations of well-known biblical stories. The complex relations among personhood, clothing, and the body emerge in chapter 1 ("Dress and the Body"). Quick contends that the imagined porousness of bodies in antiquity meant that adornment could serve as an extracorporeal expression of personhood (27). As part of the "permeable body complex," clothing reveals and extends the boundaries of the self. As with each chapter, Quick's formulations have consequences for biblical interpretation. Here, Quick argues that clothing participates in the transfer of monarchical and marital status. Quick's formulation of clothing "encod[ing] personhood" raises questions related to the precise contours of "personhood" as well as to the limits of such coding (33). In her discussion of David and Saul's episodic showdown in 1 Samuel 24, Quick argues that David's "cutting the hem of Saul's cloak is a symbolic act with huge significance: Saul is understood to have physically been breached or damaged" (38). This raises the possibility that "to encode," for Quick, signals the erosion of the distinction between the "merely" symbolic and the physically real. The "heavy symbolism" of clothing, in other words, not only reveals or foretells status changes, it brings them about. Though Quick leaves the somatic effects that David incurs ambiguous—David's action of cutting has "damaged Saul in some way" (38; italics mine)—the implication is that clothing may afford a middle way between sign and activity. David has not quite dismantled Saul's grip on the kingship but he has also not quite not done that either. Later, Quick calls the donning of certain adornments "sign" or "speech" acts, raising the further question of how such performative symbols operate when mediated by written narrative (65, 174). In chapters 2 ("Dress and Ritual") and 3 ("Dress and Identity") clothing participates in adaptations of the body through the invocation of ritual. Drawing upon Akkadian literature, Quick clarifies perplexing moments in the Hebrew Bible (like the reference to Judah's wine-soaked garments in Genesis 49:11) in terms of the ritual acts they invoke and the bodily consequences—protection, absolution, cursing—they incur. Quick argues, moreover, that this connection between clothing and ritual illuminates women's agency in the realm of textile production for cultic practice, particularly in rites of protection, mourning, and interaction with the dead (72). The question of the efficaciousness of apparel resurfaces in the story of Tamar and Amnon (2 Samuel 13). Though Tamar's robes signal her "protected" status, that status is violently disregarded by Amnon. Tamar responds, Quick contends, through the heavily symbolic rending of these very garments. Yet this story also seems to shine a light on the complex relation among human agents and their effective symbols. 2 Samuel 13 invites us to ask: Who is willing—or able—to transgress bodies coded with protection and why? Why do some symbols "work" and others fail? Quick deploys the Ugaritic tale of Aqhat, and the boundary-defying adornment of Pughat in particular, to illustrate the central argument of chapter 3: that dress is a complex means of identity or role-adoption. The compound affordances of clothing also surface in the high priest's clothing, which is perceived as provocative, insofar as it aims to capture divine attention. Quick contends that this garb also obfuscates the priest's body, enabling his role to transfer to another, to represent the Israelites writ large, and to blur the priest's gender. She concludes [End Page 434] that this clothing renders the priest's body both whole and...

Introducing the Women’s Hebrew Bible is an up-to-date feminist introduction to the historical, socio-political, and academic developments of feminist biblical scholarship. In the second edition of this popular text Susanne Scholz offers new insights into the diverse field of feminist studies on the Hebrew Bible. Scholz provides a new introductory survey of the history of feminism more broadly, giving context to its rise in biblical studies, before looking at the history and issues as they relate specifically to feminist readings and readers of the Hebrew Bible. Scholz then presents the life and work of several influential feminist scholars of the Bible, outlining their career paths and the characteristics of their work. The volume also outlines how to relate the Bible to sexual violence and feminist postcolonial demands. Two new chapters further delineate recent developments in feminist biblical studies. One chapter addresses the relationship between feminist exegesis and queer theory as well as masculinity studies. Another chapter problematizes the gender discourse as it has emerged in the Christian Right’s approaches to the Old Testament.

A number of readers have claimed that injunctions against male homosexuality in the Hebrew Bible are aimed at cultic prostitution supposedly practiced by non-Israelites. Although several scholars have questioned the historical basis for this claim, less attention has been given to the ideological assumptions that underlie the hermeneutic argument. While cultic prostitutes may or may not have existed, the Hebrew Bible does attempt to link non-Israelite populations to sexual practices that are considered unacceptable by its authors. This attempt is an example of a common rhetorical move whereby the “other” is defined in relation to deviant sexual practice. Ironically, gay readers who rely upon this hermeneutic strategy participate in a process, already begun in the Hebrew Bible and taken further by its readers, in which sexual practice becomes the basis for insult, stereotyping, and condemnation. Since the reliance upon such a common mode of ethnic stereotyping cannot be accepted, gay and gay-affirmative readers need to replace such a “hermeneutics of abomination” with a critical study of the relations between gender ideologies and assumptions about sexual practice that are presupposed by the biblical texts.

Reviewed by: Allusive Soundplay in the Hebrew Bible by Jonathan G. Kline Elaine T. James jonathan g. kline, Allusive Soundplay in the Hebrew Bible (AIL 28; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016). Pp. xxi + 155. Paper $27.95. In this measured and concise volume (a revision of his Harvard University Ph.D. dissertation [2014]), Jonathan G. Kline argues a convincing case for a type of inner-biblical interpretation, "allusive paronomasia." [End Page 121] His argument is that tradents used subtle wordplay to read and transform existing texts to address their own theological concerns. He draws especially on the models of Michael Fishbane (esp. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel [Oxford: Clarendon, 1985]) and Benjamin D. Sommer (esp. A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66 [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998]) to contribute to discussions about the growth of the texts of the Hebrew Bible. The most significant contribution is his methodology for identifying allusive paronomasia. In three subsequent chapters he offers nine examples illustrating how allusive paronomasia is used in the development of ancient Israel's theological traditions. These illustrations are meant to be exemplary, not comprehensive, which leaves the reader with a taste of this artful mechanism of theological discourse and the sense that there is work yet to be done. The most substantial chapter of the volume is chap. 1, "The Role of Soundplay in Innerbiblical Allusion," in which K. brings welcome clarity to the terminology of what has been loosely called "wordplay," or "soundplay" (p. 8), and a methodology for identifying both allusion (pp. 18-23), and allusive paronomasia (pp. 23-31). His principles are (1) similarity of sound; (2) difference in meaning; (3) proximity; and (4) deliberate juxtaposition. Interestingly, one of his criteria is that the allusive element serves a function—it must be shown to differ from the source text as well as to transform its meaning (e.g., pp. 5, 24, 29, 30). The function of the allusive paronomasia is a way plausibly to trace the author's intentional evocation of an earlier tradition (a criterion that is vital, though somewhat circular). K.'s useful framework will spur further thinking and perhaps lead to a more comprehensive typology of paronomastic allusion. The examples are organized by theological theme: theodicy (chap. 2); judgment (chap. 3); and salvation (chap. 4). In chap. 2, K. examines how the Book of Job wrestles with accepted wisdom traditions (Psalm 8; Proverbs 13; 22). His theological sensitivity is apparent. He writes, for example, of the use of the verb דקפ (pāqad) in Ps 8:5 and Job 17:17-18, which in Psalm 8 means "to care for" but in Job 17 means "to scrutinize": "in Ps 8:5-6… humans are highly exalted creatures whom God has established as nothing less than his viceregents on earth … [but] in Job 7:17-18 … God's scrutiny of Job is much more than he, a mere mortal, can bear" (p. 47). He goes on to a lovely summary statement about the use of paronomasia in the Book of Job: Profound engagement with the graphic and oral/aural shapes of received traditions and the diverse potentialities or implications of those shapes—changing a letter here or a word there—was one way the authors of the book of Job wrestled with the tradition and with God on these issues. By refracting old words of wisdom through the prism of their poetic skill, these ancient sages demonstrate that the difference between the exaltation of humanity and its depravity, between being a little lower than the angels or one step away from Sheol, is sometimes no greater than the difference between two similar-sounding words. (p. 52) Here and elsewhere, K. detects reverence in the tradents' attitude toward their source texts. He writes that "the authors of the alluding texts appear to have sought not (primarily) to undermine the tradition they inherited but rather to mine it for incipient meanings that they believed could only be understood in the light of new circumstances" (p. 6; emphasis original; cf. Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation [End Page 122] [New York: Oxford University Press, 1997]). While K. suggests that his examples illustrate this larger...

T he god of the hebrew bible has a body. this must be stated at the outset, because so many people, including many scholars, assume otherwise. The evidence for this simple thesis is overwhelming, so much so that asserting the carnal nature of the biblical God should not occasion surprise. What I propose to show in this book is that the startling or bizarre idea in the Hebrew Bible is something else entirely: not that God has a body – that is the standard notion of ancient Israelite theology – but rather that God has many bodies located in sundry places in the world that God created.> The bulk of this book is devoted to two tasks: first, demonstrating that in parts of the Hebrew Bible the one God has more than one body (and also, we shall see, more than one personality); and second, exploring the implications of this fact for a religion based on the Hebrew Bible. The first of these tasks is historical and descriptive in nature. The second, especially as taken up in the last chapter, is theological and much more speculative. Before I embark on these two tasks, however, some readers may find a brief discussion of the corporeality of the biblical God beneficial. After all, Sunday school teachers and religious sages have long taught Jews and Christians that the Hebrew Bible is distinctive among the religious documents of antiquity precisely because it rejects the notion of a physical deity.

In this article that explores male and female metaphors for God in the Hebrew Bible, I argue with specific reference to the book of Jeremiah that the intersection of trauma and gender is particularly important in considering how tumultuous times inevitably impact the way people spoke and continue to speak about God. In this regard, recent developments in terms of gender theory including queer biblical interpretation and masculinity studies help us to engage critically with the gendered metaphors used for God in the Hebrew Bible. For instance, it will be shown how important it is to trouble binary constructions, i.e., in terms of male metaphors for God, to break the cycle of toxic masculinity that leads to further violence in an endless cycle of humiliation, shame and retaliation. And also, to, when it comes to female metaphors for God, move beyond a romanticised understanding of motherhood that is rooted in a prescriptive, essentialising understanding of gender.

The attribution of anthropomorphic characteristics to God in the Hebrew Bible has been a subject of considerable debate among scholars, especially regarding its implications for comprehending divine transcendence and immanence. This study critically examines the anthropomorphic features of God as depicted in the Hebrew Bible, especially the Old Testament, while addressing the ongoing theological and philosophical debate about attributing human characteristics to a transcendent being. The research explores the tension between God’s transcendence and immanence by investigating whether anthropomorphic depictions are literal, figurative, or reflective of the divine self-revelation. The study conducts a theological analysis of selected Old Testament scriptures, categorizing anthropomorphism into four distinct forms: structural, gestural, character-based, and aware anthropomorphism. A literature-based research methodology was used which involved analysis of selected biblical texts, engaging scholarly interpretations and comparative perspectives within the broader Ancient Near Eastern context. The paper contends that anthropomorphic depictions within the Bible are not solely metaphorical devices or projections of human qualities; instead, they serve as a fundamental theological framework that articulates God’s relational and communicative presence. It found that biblical authors employ human characteristics such as physical attributes, emotions, gestures, and cognitive awareness, not to confine God’s nature to human limitations, but to bridge the gap between divine mystery and human understanding. It concluded that anthropomorphism in biblical texts serves as a theological tool to articulate God’s involvement in human affairs, underscoring divine immanence without negating transcendence. The study contributes to biblical scholarship by deducing implications from biblical anthropomorphism for contemporary theological reflection, biblical interpretation, and Bible translation practices.

The attribution of anthropomorphic characteristics to God in the Hebrew Bible has been a subject of considerable debate among scholars, especially regarding its implications for comprehending divine transcendence and immanence. This study critically examines the anthropomorphic features of God as depicted in the Hebrew Bible, especially the Old Testament, while addressing the ongoing theological and philosophical debate about attributing human characteristics to a transcendent being. The research explores the tension between God’s transcendence and immanence by investigating whether anthropomorphic depictions are literal, figurative, or reflective of the divine self-revelation. The study conducts a theological analysis of selected Old Testament scriptures, categorizing anthropomorphism into four distinct forms: structural, gestural, character-based, and aware anthropomorphism. A literature-based research methodology was used which involved analysis of selected biblical texts, engaging scholarly interpretations and comparative perspectives within the broader Ancient Near Eastern context. The paper contends that anthropomorphic depictions within the Bible are not solely metaphorical devices or projections of human qualities; instead, they serve as a fundamental theological framework that articulates God’s relational and communicative presence. It found that biblical authors employ human characteristics such as physical attributes, emotions, gestures, and cognitive awareness, not to confine God’s nature to human limitations, but to bridge the gap between divine mystery and human understanding. It concluded that anthropomorphism in biblical texts serves as a theological tool to articulate God’s involvement in human affairs, underscoring divine immanence without negating transcendence. The study contributes to biblical scholarship by deducing implications from biblical anthropomorphism for contemporary theological reflection, biblical interpretation, and Bible translation practices.

The modern conception of the self as bifurcated between inner and outer realms has and continues to hold sway as an unchecked presumption in biblical interpretation. The past decade of biblical scholarship, however, has seen a burgeoning effort to problematize this imposition with regard to emotion and interiority. The present study joins this conversation by challenging the presumption of “shame” as an emotional and interior category in the Hebrew Bible, a challenge that has already been initiated but is ripe for further probing. Informed by a practice theory of emotion and embodied cognition, and focusing on the metaphor Shame is Clothing, which appears in Job, Ezekiel, and Psalms, this study proposes material and enactive readings of “shame” wherein so-called shame roots as bwš, klm, and ḥpr center on bodily diminishment and practices of defeat as a matter of relational dynamics and power disparities.