This paper explores the intersections between two approaches to biblical interpretation: iconographic and gendered approaches. Focusing on the ways that visual images from the ancient Near East have been incorporated in studying gender in the Hebrew Bible, I identify four intersections. These examples demonstrate that participating in an iconographic turn is an important way that gender studies in the Hebrew Bible can develop. I also seek to show that the interactions can be mutually fruitful. In other words, including gender as an area of inquiry is a way that the iconographic turn itself can develop in biblical studies.
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LeMon, “Iconographic Approaches,” pp. 150-51. For some recent examples, see Bonfiglio, “Archer Imagery;” Joel M. LeMon, “Yahweh’s Hand and the Iconography of the Blow in Psalm 81:14-16,” JBL 132 (2013), pp. 865-82; Brent A. Strawn, “Whence Lionine Yahweh? Iconography and the History of Israelite Religion,” in Martti Nissinen and Charles E. Charter (eds.), Images and Prophecy in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean (FRLANT 233; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009), pp. 51-85.
Deryn Guest, Beyond Feminist Biblical Studies (The Bible in the Modern World 47; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2012), pp. 12-15.
For discussion, see ibid., pp. 12-23. Especially influential among Judith Butler’s books is Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 2nd edn, 2010).
See, for example, Susanne Scholz, Introducing the Women’s Hebrew Bible (New York: T & T Clark, 2007), p. 25.
Nahman Avigad, “Excavation in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem,” Israel Exploration Journal 20 (1970), pp. 4-6.
See Austen Henry Layard, Monuments of Nineveh, from Drawings Made on the Spot (London: J. Murray, 1849). For the larger visual context, the full image is available online at http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47dc-46f6-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99. See also Yigael Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands in the Light of Archaeological Study (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), vol. 2, p. 388; Schroer, “Gender and Iconography,” p. 16, pl. 1; Julian Reade, Assyrian Sculpture (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), p. 30 fig. 35; Winfried Orthmann, Der Alte Orient (Berlin: Propyläen Verlag, 1975), pl. 202b.
Winfried Orthmann, Der Alte Orient (Berlin: Propyläen Verlag, 1975), p. 13.
Winfried Orthmann, Der Alte Orient (Berlin: Propyläen Verlag, 1975), p. 14.
Zainab Bahrani, Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia (New York: Routledge, 2001).
Ibid., p. 28.
Cynthia R. Chapman, The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite-Assyrian Encounter (HSM 62; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004).
See Othmar Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms (trans. Timothy J. Hallett; New York: Seabury, 1978), p. 102 fig. 132. Used with permission. For photographs of this artifact, see Orthmann, Der Alte Orient, pl. 214; Dominique Collon, Ancient Near Eastern Art (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), p. 141 fig. 115; Richard David Barnett, The Sculptures of Aššur-Nasir-Apli II, 883-859 BC, Tiglath-Pileser III, 745-727 BC [and] Esarhaddon, 681-669 BC, from the Central and South-West Palaces at Nimrud (London: British Museum, 1962), pl. XL; Yadin, The Art of Warfare, vol. 2, pp. 406-407)
See, for example, Peggy L. Day, “The Bitch Had It Coming to Her: Rhetoric and Interpretation in Ezekiel 16,” BibInt 8 (2000), pp. 231-54.
See Gordon Loud, The Megiddo Ivories (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939), pl. 4: 2a and 2b. Courtesy of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. See also LeMon, “Iconographic Approaches,” p. 153 fig. 7; Keel and Uehlinger, Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel, fig. 65; James B. Pritchard, The Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 111 fig. 332
Schroer and Staubli, Body Symbolism in the Bible, pp. 73-75, fig. 20-21.
Schroer and Staubli, Body Symbolism in the Bible, p. 4. See my note 56 above.
Fontaine, “‘Be Men, O Philistines’”, pp. 62-69. Fontaine also relies heavily on the important work of Chapman, The Gendered Language of Warfare.
Irene Browne and Joya Misra, “The Intersection of Gender and Race in the Labor Market,” Annual Review of Sociology 29 (2003), pp. 487-513 (493).
See David Stronach, “Early Achaemenid Coinage: Perspectives from the Homeland,” Iranica Antiqua 24 (1989), fig. 1 [1-3, 7]. Used with permission. See also Ryan P. Bonfiglio, “Archer Imagery,” fig. 1, 4-6; Mark B. Garrison, “Archers at Persepolis: The Emergence of Royal Ideology at the Heart of Empire,” in John Curtis and St. John Simpson (eds.), The World of Achaemenid Persia: History, Art and Society in Iran and the Ancient Near East (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2010), p. 338, fig. 32.1
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This paper explores the intersections between two approaches to biblical interpretation: iconographic and gendered approaches. Focusing on the ways that visual images from the ancient Near East have been incorporated in studying gender in the Hebrew Bible, I identify four intersections. These examples demonstrate that participating in an iconographic turn is an important way that gender studies in the Hebrew Bible can develop. I also seek to show that the interactions can be mutually fruitful. In other words, including gender as an area of inquiry is a way that the iconographic turn itself can develop in biblical studies.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 408 | 37 | 1 |
Full Text Views | 281 | 4 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 149 | 12 | 2 |