Gender in Early Jewish and Christian Narratives

Catalog description

Many of the favorite narratives of Jews and Christians in the ancient period (for this course, about 400 BCE to 300 CE) featured women characters or emphasized issues of gender: Esther, Judith, and Susanna; Mary Magdalene and other gospel women, or Thecla, the perhaps legendary companion of Paul. Both Jewish and Christian texts used gender to explore new ways of constructing heroic women and men that either re-inscribed or challenged traditional roles. This seminar takes up a close reading of narrative texts, compared also with wisdom texts (Proverbs, Ben Sira, Wisdom of Solomon, Avot).