Carol Newsom, Sharon Ringe, Jacqueline Lapsley
The Women's Bible Commentary - Family and Civil Laws
The Women's Bible Commentary - Family and Civil Laws
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Family and Civil Laws The family laws of Deuteronomy 21–26 contain the greatest number of explicit references to women. Not surprisingly, they have garnered much attention from womanist and feminist Deuteronomic scholars…
The Women's Bible Commentary - Concern for the Poor
The Women's Bible Commentary - Concern for the Poor
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Concern for the Poor Deuteronomy is both inclusive (of those comprising “Israel”) and, at the same time, exclusive (of non-Israelites). It is composed by and addressed to urban elite and at the same time, expresses a much-noted concern for the poor. Deuteronomy 14 reframes the ti…
The Women's Bible Commentary - Construction of a Shared Story
The Women's Bible Commentary - Construction of a Shared Story
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Construction of a Shared Story The first of the Moses speeches, Deuteronomy 1:1–4:43, consists of two sections: a “historical review” (Deut. 1–3) and a sermonic interpretation of the commandment against idolatry…
The Women's Bible Commentary - Women Challenge Authority
The Women's Bible Commentary - Women Challenge Authority
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Part Two: The New Generation (Numbers 26-36) A second census (Num. 26) marks the opening of a new phase of God’s work with the people. By contrast to Part One, the final chapters include stories where disobedience may have been brewing but is averted. Sometimes communities that h…
The Women's Bible Commentary - The Journey from Sinai to the East Bank of the Jordan
The Women's Bible Commentary - The Journey from Sinai to the East Bank of the Jordan
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
The Journey from Sinai to the East Bank of the Jordan Once the journey is underway, the bulk of this section of Part One focuses on disputes about leadership. Wholesale disobedience (Num. 14) results in a thirty-eight-year pause in the journey…
The Women's Bible Commentary - Preparations for Leaving Sinai
The Women's Bible Commentary - Preparations for Leaving Sinai
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Part One: The Old Generation (Numbers 1-25) Preparations for Leaving Sinai Although Part One of the book concerns the rebellious failure of the exodus generation, there are no narratives of rebellion in the opening chapters. Topics covered include census reports, the sacred dutie…
The Women's Bible Commentary - Construction of the Sanctuary and Priesthood
The Women's Bible Commentary - Construction of the Sanctuary and Priesthood
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Construction of the Sanctuary and Priesthood After the golden calf incident, the Israelites begin construction of the tabernacle as God has instructed. Women have multiple roles in these final chapters…
The Women's Bible Commentary - Women in the Joseph Tales
The Women's Bible Commentary - Women in the Joseph Tales
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Women in the Joseph Tales The Comparative Absence of Women in the Joseph Tales. The Joseph narrative has no heroes who are tricksters, and its women are only two: Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, mentioned in one line (41:45) as part of the reward given to Joseph for…
The Women's Bible Commentary - Tamar: Trickster Would-be Mother
The Women's Bible Commentary - Tamar: Trickster Would-be Mother
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Tamar: Trickster Would-be Mother Genesis 38 begins as a story of Judah, who is left in the land of Canaan during Joseph’s ordeal in Egypt. In the Joseph narrative, Judah is one of the villain brothers. He does not actually want to kill the boy Joseph but suggests he be sold to a …
The Women's Bible Commentary - Trickery as Vengeance in Men’s Literature
The Women's Bible Commentary - Trickery as Vengeance in Men’s Literature
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Trickery as Vengeance in Men’s Literature Genesis 34 is a tale of trickery involving female sexuality. Dinah, daughter of Leah and Jacob, is raped by Shechem, the son of Hamor. The question of status that is addressed through trickery is not her status, however, but that of her b…
The Women's Bible Commentary - Rachel: Stealing Laban’s Teraphim
The Women's Bible Commentary - Rachel: Stealing Laban’s Teraphim
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Rachel: Stealing Laban’s Teraphim In an interesting scene leading up to the departure of Jacob and his household from Laban’s land (31:4–16), Jacob speaks to the feuding wives/sisters. He reviews all that has happened to them, tells of a vision he had promising him much of Laban’…
The Women's Bible Commentary - My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man and I Am a Smooth Man
The Women's Bible Commentary - My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man and I Am a Smooth Man
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man and I Am a Smooth Man The ancestor hero of Israel, Jacob, father of the Israelites, is smooth, whereas the founding father of the neighboring, related, Semitic-speaking people, the Edomites, is hairy. Particular cultural messages are encoded in such…
The Women's Bible Commentary - Rebekah the Trickster
The Women's Bible Commentary - Rebekah the Trickster
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Rebekah the Trickster In Genesis 27, the woman herself is the trickster who formulates the plan and succeeds, moving the men around her like chess pieces. Lest the reader think that here one finally encounters a more liberated woman, beware that again success is gained through th…
The Women's Bible Commentary - The Wife/Sister Tales
The Women's Bible Commentary - The Wife/Sister Tales
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
The Wife/Sister Tales Three times in Genesis, when the patriarch and his wife are “sojourning”— traveling as resident aliens—in a foreign land, the ruler of that country is told that the wife is a sister of the patriarch…
The Women's Bible Commentary - Hagar: Mothering a Hero
The Women's Bible Commentary - Hagar: Mothering a Hero
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Hagar: Mothering a Hero The story of Hagar leads to a wider discussion of the major themes of this study: the barrenness of the patriarch’s wives, the annunciation scenes, and the wives’ positions as mother of the patriarch of the next generation…
The Women's Bible Commentary - “The Daughters of Men”
The Women's Bible Commentary - “The Daughters of Men”
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
“The Daughters of Men” Women— “the daughters of men”—are also involved in another, briefer creation tale in Genesis 6:1–4 that marks the passage from ideal to reality. Here the women themselves are the fruit attracting the divine “sons of God,” members of God’s entourage in ancie…
The Women's Bible Commentary - Reading Genesis 3
The Women's Bible Commentary - Reading Genesis 3
by SPCK - Newsom, Ringe and Lapsley
Reading Genesis 3 Like Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, Genesis 3 is about a movement from a fixed and unchanging world to a new, non-static order. Genesis 1 and 2 describe the way in which a sterile world is replaced by one teeming with life…
THE WOMEN'S BIBLE COMMENTARY - Moses and Pharaoh