Scan barcode
lizshayne's review
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Going along with my "how do you even rate theory", this book was absolutely fascinating, both in what it successfully does, in what it thinks it's doing and doesn't, and in what it has no interest in doing.
Frymer-Kensky's argument is two-fold:
1) Paganism was still patriarchy and goddesses is not the same as agency so you can't rediscover God's wife and think you've found egalitarianism.
2) While Tanakh upholds patriarchal structures, the women of tanakh are neither models nor stereotypes of femininity.
I feel like she's a little too willing to let some things slide, but overall makes a very intriguing and compelling case. She's also absolutely uninterested in justifying or condemning the text, which means she'll just analyze things like Pilegesh B'Giv'ah and then go on without feeling the need to opine that it's bad. Which is so odd to me even though I understand why she, as a critic of what the text is doing, doesn't feel obligated to comment when she agrees with the moral position the text is taking.
Frymer-Kensky's argument is two-fold:
1) Paganism was still patriarchy and goddesses is not the same as agency so you can't rediscover God's wife and think you've found egalitarianism.
2) While Tanakh upholds patriarchal structures, the women of tanakh are neither models nor stereotypes of femininity.
I feel like she's a little too willing to let some things slide, but overall makes a very intriguing and compelling case. She's also absolutely uninterested in justifying or condemning the text, which means she'll just analyze things like Pilegesh B'Giv'ah and then go on without feeling the need to opine that it's bad. Which is so odd to me even though I understand why she, as a critic of what the text is doing, doesn't feel obligated to comment when she agrees with the moral position the text is taking.
More...