RELI 225 - Women and the Bible

Cross-Listed as WGSS 225

In this course we will examine the roles, identities, and representations of women in the Tanakh/ Old Testament, New Testament, and Jewish and Christian apocrypha. We will explore how biblical writers used women “to think with,” and we will consider how gender is co-constructed alongside religious, social, and sexual identities. We will ask the following sorts of questions: What opportunities for social advancement and leadership were open to women in ancient Israelite, early Jewish, and early Christian communities, and how did these opportunities differ from those open to women in other religious formations in the ancient Mediterranean? How did biblical regulations of bodies, sexuality, marriage, and family life shape women’s lives? What are the social and material effects of biblical representations of women? And how might current feminist theories inform our interpretation of biblical texts about women? Alternate spring semesters. (4 Credits)