The Bible, Gender, and Reception History: The Case of Job's Wife

Description

The Bible, Gender, and Reception History: The Case of Job's Wife investigates the fleeting appearance in the Bible of Job's wife and its impact on the imaginations of readers throughout history. It begins by presenting key interpretive gaps in the biblical text concerning Job and his wife, explaining the way gender studies offers guiding principles with which the author engages a reception history of their marriage. After analyzing Job and his wife within medieval Christian theology of Eden, the author identifies ways in which Job's wife visually aligns with medieval images of Satan. The volume explores portrayals of Job and his wife in publications on marriage and gender roles in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, moving onto an investigation of William Blake's sharp artistic divergence from the common tradition in his representation of Job's wife as a shrew. In the exploration of societal portrayals of Job and his Wife throughout history, this book discovers how arguments about marriage intertwine with not only gender roles, but also, with political, social, and historical movements.

Katherine Low is Assistant Professor of Religion and Chaplain at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia, USA. She has published articles in JSOT, Journal of Religion and Film and Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, exploring the intersections of religion, gender, and culture.

Low examines how people understood Job's wife in various historical periods. Shebegins in late antiquity, covering sermons, commentaries, and art pieces from the medieval, Renaissance, Reformation, and modern periods. The interpretation of Job's wife through the ages reveals the prejudices of the interpreters, particularly their attitudes toward women and marriage. Over the years, interpreters compared Job's wife to Eve, Satan, the ideal wife, and the shrewish wife. L. approaches her topic through the lens of feminist theory, or genders tudies, highlighting the woman's voice in the text, often silenced or displaced by other concerns. She uncovers how patriarchal interpretation diminishes women. She says, "Job's wife comes to represent a whole package of assumptions about marriage, female vulnerability to satan, and religious expectations of gendered behavior" (p. 23). -- David Penchansky, University of St. Thomas * The Catholic Bible Quarterly * Low's book is a valuable contribution to the field of biblical reception history ... She employs gender theory in her analysis astutely and discerningly and biblical scholars could learn a lot from the ways in which she deploys her methodology ... [An] impressive book. -- Alan Hooker, University of Exeter, UK * Theology and Sexuality * Low has gathered a large amount of material together to argue her case in relation to Job's wife, using primarily gender theory/hermeneutics as the lens through which the various data are analyzed ... there is no question that Low's work is of a strong interdisciplinary character. Those interested in particular in gender theory and its application to the biblical text will no doubt find much to interact with in these pages. Further, because the book deals with such a vast amount of historical material in relation to Job's wife, it should be consulted by all those interested in her reception in history. -- Jordan M. Scheetz, Tyndale Theological Seminary