Observations on women in the genealogies of 1 chronicles 1-9

Biblica

Volumn 84, Issue 4, 2003, Pages 457-478

  Labahn, Antje ^a   Ben Zvi, Ehud ^b  

^a 2 28 HM Tory Building ^*

^b UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA   (Canada)

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EID: 61249144993     PISSN: 00060887     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (53)

1. In other words, this article concerns itself only with matters of ancient Israelite history
2. It should be stressed that we are not advancing here the relatively common, but now more and more, and correctly under attack clear-cut dichotomy between "domestic" and "public" roles. Yet, even if one assumes that one of the basic metaphors that underlies the social imagination of ancient Israel (and most societies) in the ancient Near East was that of a "patrimonial household", there were clear, gender-related social expectations. On the patrimonial household as the basic metaphor, see J.D. SCHLOEN, The House of the Father as Fact and Symbol in Ugarit and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake, IN 2001)
3. See BEN ZVI, "The Book of Chronicles: Another Look", SR (2003, forthcoming)
4. This is consistent with the general tendency in Chronicles to qualify the validity of most of the lessons that the readership could have learned from individual accounts by setting them "in proportion" by lessons communicated elsewhere. See BEN ZVI, "The Book of Chronicles: Another Look"
5. and ID., "A Sense of Proportion: An Aspect of the Theology of the Chronicler", SJOT 9 (1995) 37-51
6. Cf. T.C. ESKENAZI, "Out From the Shadows: Biblical Women in the Postexilic Era", JSOT 54 (1992) 25-43
7. Effacing and particularly self-effacing were important and positive attributes within the purview of the (male) literati in the Achaemenid period within whom and for whom te book of Chronicles was written. On self-effacing see E. BEN ZVI, "What is New in Yehud? Some Considerations", Yahwism after the Exile. Perspectives on Israelite Religion in the Persian Era (eds. R. ALBERTZ -B. BECKING) (STAR 5; Assen 2003) 32-48
8. For a recent treatment of the Jabez pericope in Chronicles and for some relevant bibliography see R.C. HEARD, "Echoes of Genesis in 1 Chr 4,9-10: An Intertextual and Contextual Reading of Jabez's Prayer", JHS 4/2 (2002); available at http://purl.org/jhs and http://www.jhsonline.org/
9. See S. JAPHET, 1-2 Chronicles. A Commentary (OTL; Louisville KY 1993) 114-115
10. W. JOHNSTONE, 1-2 Chronicles (JSOTSS 253; Sheffield 1997) I, 62-63
11. It goes without saying that the chances that an actual daughter of Pharaoh married a "nobody" from Judah are nil. The text under discussion, however, does not deal with issues of critical history, but with matters associated with the construction of a social (and ideological) self in the Persian period
12. Cf. G.N. KNOPPERS, "Intermarriage, Social Complexity and Ethnic Diversity in the Genealogy of Judah", JBL 120 (2001) 15-30
13. Also cf. T. WILLI, Juda - Jehud - Israel. Studien zum Selbstverständnis des Judentums in persischer Zeit (FAT 12; Tübingen 1995) 141-142
14. See 1 Chr 2,15-17. In 2 Sam 17,25 the two are characterized as daughters of Nahash. Efforts to harmonize both accounts while maintaining that Zeruiah and Abigail were daughters of Jesse and sisters of David are evident in b. Shab 55b; b. BB 17a
15. Cf. the case of the Barzillai house in Ezra 2,61
16. It is worth noting that the language of the text follows a basic formula,X-l wtb t) Ntyw in which X stands for a male, and which is attested elsewhere, with a number of variants. See Gen 29,28
17. 41,45
18. Exod 2,21
19. Josh 15,17
20. Judg 1,13
21. The daughter's role here is not to link two families - as in the other cases - but to allow the continuation of the house of the father. A study of the defamiliarization of the formula in Gen 29,29, and its potential implications for constructions ofgender as expressions of hierarchy (cf. D. SEEMAN, "Where is Sarah Your Wife?" Cultural Poetics of Gender and Nationhood in the Hebrew Bible", HTR 91 [1998] 103-125), stands beyond the scope of this paper
22. Cf. with some similar cases in Nuzi, see K. GROSZ, "Some Aspects of the Position of Women in Nuzi", Women's Earliest Records. From Ancient Egypt and Western Asia (ed. B. LESKO) (Atlanta 1989) 167-180, esp. 173-177
23. Cf. E. BEN ZVI, "The Urban Center of Jerusalem and the Development of the Literature of the Hebrew Bible", Aspects of Urbanism in Antiquity from Mesopotamia to Crete (eds. W.G. AUFRECHT - N.A. MIRAU - S.W. GAULEY) (JSOTSS 244; Sheffield 1997) 194-209
24. ID., "Introduction: Writings, Speeches, and the Prophetic Books - Setting an Agenda", Writings and Speech in Israelite and Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy (eds. E. BEN ZVI - M.H. FLOYD) (SBLSymS 10; Atlanta 2000) 1-29, esp. 13-16
25. ID., "What is New in Yehud? Some Considerations", Yahwism after the Exile, 32-48
26. A. LABAHN, "Antitheocratic Tendencies in Chronicles", Yahwism after the Exile, 115-135
27. It is debatable as to whether the Hebrew term #glyp is to be interpreted as indicating an insecure, legal status for the concubine and, thereafter, for her children. The social structure of the higher social strata of ancient Israel was based on polygamy, rather than monogamy. A #glyp was not regarded as an illegal whore of the pater familias, but rather obtained a role akin to, though lower than that of an additional "wife". The concubine herself as well as her children belonged to the household of the entire family and stood under protection of the pater familias. The woman, and consequently her children, obtained a legal status in Israelite society granting a place within family structures. However, the children of the concubine were not given the rights of full heritage. K. Engelken suggests that concubines lived in a somewhat insecure legal sphere, since their status is not granted by any HB law. See K. ENGELKEN, Frauen im alten Israel. Eine begriffsgeschichtliche und sozialrechtliche Studie zur Stellung der Frau im Alten Testament (BWANT 130; Stuttgart 1990) 74-126
28. See 1 Chr 3,9
29. For comparisons of the ratio of named to unnamed concubines, see the statistics in ENGELKEN, Frauen,119-122
30. but see also JAPHET, 1-2 Chronicles, 86-87
31. on the latter, see H.G.M. WILLIAMSON, Ezra-Nehemiah [WBC 16; Waco, TX 1985] 144-45, 159
32. cf. J. BLENKINSOPP, Ezra-Nehemiah [OTL; Philadephia 1988] 197, 200-201)
33. Cf. Codex Hammurabi 137. One may note also that the metaphor underlying Hosea 1-3 shows that children may share the fate of their mother in a case of marital breakdown. On this matter, see also J.J. COLLINS, "Marriage, Divorce, and Family in Second Temple Judaism", Families in Ancient Israel (eds. L.G. PERDUE - J. BLENKINSOPP -J.J. COLLINS - C. MEYERS) (Louisville, KY 1997) 104-163 (116)
34. and note also the cautionary tone of J. BLENKINSOPP, "The Family in First Temple Israel", Families in Ancient Israel, 48-103 (65-66)
35. See, for instance, J.W.H. VAN WIJK-BOS, "Out of the shadows; Genesis 38; Judges 4:17-22; Ruth 3", Semeia 42 (1988) 37-67
36. E. VAN WOLDE, "Texts in dialogue with texts; intertextuality in the Ruth and Tamar narratives", Biblical Interpretation 5 (1997) 1-28
37. See D.C. POLASKI, "On taming Tamar: Amram's rhetoric and women's roles in Pseudo-Philo's Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum 9", JSP 13 (1995) 79-99
38. ID., "Sense of Proportion"
39. See ESKENAZI, "Out From the Shadows"
40. For a socio-economic study of the status of some women in Jerusalem during the Persian period, see C.R. YODER, Wisdom as a Woman of Substance. A Socioeconomic Reading of Proverbs 1-9 and 31:10-31 (BZAW 304; Berlin - New York 2001)
41. Cf., among many others, J. WEINBERG, Der Chronist in seiner Mitwelt (BZAW 239; Berlin - New York 1996) 226
42. J.J. Stamm, favors a social influence of women for Elephantine and the Persian period. See J.J. STAMM "Hebräische Frauennamen", Hebräische Wortforschung. Festschrift zum 80. Geburtstag von Walter Baumgarten (eds. B. HARTMANN - E. JENNI - E.Y. KUTSCH - V. MAAG - I.L. SEELIGMANN - R. SMEND) (VTS 16; Leiden 1967) 301-339, 308310
43. See also A. KIESOW, Löwinnen von Juda. Frauen als Subjekte politischer Macht in der judäischen Königszeit (Theologische Frauenforschung in Europa 4; Münster 2000) 51-63. The evidence of seals might be helpful too. See the "famous" case of )wxp Ntnl) tm) tyml# and of her seal
44. On these matters, see N. AVIGAD, Corpus of West Semitic Stamp Seals (Jerusalem 1997) 31, 33
45. E.M. MEYERS, "The Shelomith Seal and the Judean Restoration. Some Additional Considerations", EI 18 (1985) 33-38
46. See the case of Miptahiah. See for instance, Cowley 13=TAD B 2.7 (and B 29 in B. PORTEN, The Elephantine Papyri in English. Three Millennia of Cross-Cultural Continuity and Change [Leiden 1996]). One may notice also a wife may own and sell property along with her husband (i.e., they are presented as co-owners), in other words she does not have to be widow to own property
47. See, for instance, Kraeling 3=TAD B 3.4 (PORTEN, Elephantine Papyri in English, B 37)
48. See ESKENAZI, "Out From the Shadows". Eskenazi (pp. 32-3) notes that many of the substantive claims advanced by C. Meyers about the role of women and family roles in Early Israel may apply to the Persian period
49. For C. Meyer's positions, see C. MEYER, Discovering Eve (New York 1988)
50. and ID., "The Family in Early Israel", Families in Ancient Israel, 1-47
51. Cf. J.E. DYCK, The Theocratic Ideology of the Chronicler (Biblical Interpretation Series 33; Leiden 1998) 188
52. C. KARRER, Ringen um die Verfassung Judas. Eine Studie zu den theologisch-politischen Vorstellungen im Esra-Nehemia-Buch (BZAW 308; Berlin - New York 2001) 88-90
53. See the paradigmatic case of Bithiah in 1 Chr 4,17-18 discussed above