Full Description
This book is about both the fear of gender reversal and its expression in the prophet Ezekiel's reworking of the marital metaphor. Kamionkowski argues that the abomination of "wife Jerusalem" is that she is attempting to pass for a male, thereby crossing gender boundaries and upsetting the world order. This story is therefore one of confused gender scripts, ensuing chaos and a re-ordering through the reinforcement of these strictly defined prescriptions of gendered behaviour.Using socio-historical evidence and the existence of the literary motif of "men turning into women" as a framework, this book argues that Ezekiel 16, in particular, reflects the gender chaos which arises as an aftermath of social and theological crises.
Contents
I. Introduction; 1. Ezekiel and Gender Reversal; 2. Preliminary Considerations; a) Composition and Dating; b) Approaches to Ezekiel 16 and 23; 1. Traditional Commentators; 2. Feminist Readers; 3. Covenant Theologians; 3. Where Do We Go From Here?; II. Metaphor; 1. Metaphor Theories; 2. Cognitive Metaphor Theory; 3. Schemas and Slots; 4. Metaphor and Contextual Knowledge; 5. Metaphor and Persuasion; 6. Metaphor and Biblical Studies; 7. 'A Metaphor is Just a Metaphor'; 8. Conclusions; III. Gender Reversal: A weak man is a woman; 1. Metaphor in Socio-Cultural and Historical Context; a) Exile, Shame and Gender Crisis; b) Ezekiel and Exile; c) Responses to Gender Confusion: Hypervirility; d) Responses to Gender Confusion: Emasculation; e) Excursus: Psychologising Ezekiel; 2. Metaphor in Literary Context; a) The Mesopotamian Evidence; b) The Biblical Evidence; 3. Conclusions; IV. Ezekiel 16 and the Emasculated Man; 1. The Passive Girl; a) Translation and Commentary; b) Vulnerability ad absurdum; c) He Gives her Life; d) He Gives her Sexual Experience; 2. The Assertive Woman; a) Translation and Commentary; b) Women's Ejaculation; c) Usurping the Phallus; d) The Violent Woman; e) Financial Independence; f) Women's Ejaculation, Again; g) Inversion of Gender Order; 3. Conclusions; V. Ezekiel 23 and the Hypervirile Man; 1. Introducing Oholah and Oholibah; 2. Differences between Ezek. 16 and Ezek. 23; a) Roles of the Characters and Use of Verbs; b) Reformulation of Key Phrases; c) Affinities with Hosean and Jeremian Traditions; 3. Conclusions; VI. Conclusion
