 | Dangerous Sisters of the Hebrew Bible Fathers, sons, and mothers take center stage in the Bibles grand narratives, Amy Kalmanofsky observes. Sisters and sisterhood receive less attention in scholarship but, she argues, play an important role in narratives, revealing anxieties related to desire, agency, and solidarity among women playing out (and playing against) their roles in a patrilineal society. Most often, she shows, sisters are destabilizing figures in narratives about family crisis, where property, patrimony, and the resilience of community boundaries are at risk. Kalmanofsky demonstrates that the particular role of sisters had important narrative effects, revealing previously underappreciated dynamics in Israelite society. Amy Kalamosfky is the Blanche and Romie Shapiro Professor of Bible and the Dean of Undergraduate and Graduate Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary. She is the author of Gender-Play in the Hebrew Bible (2017), Sexual Violence and Sacred Texts (2017), Dangerous Sisters of the Hebrew Bible (2014), and Terror All Around: Horror, Monsters, and Theology in the Book of Jeremiah (2008). |
