'I Have Perfumed my Bed with Myrrh': the Foreign Woman ('išša zārâ) in Proverbs 1-9

Yee, Gale A.

doi:10.1177/030908928901304304

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Bird 1974:60). Gale Yee (1995) is thus rightly disturbed by the deeply unsettling message that the men communicate through the passages on Woman Stranger:…”

Section: 'mentioning

confidence: 99%

Tamed identities? Glimpsing her identity in Proverbs 10:1–22:16 and selected African proverbs

Masenya

2018

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies

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Notions about worthy womanhood are shaped to a large extent by the cultural contexts in which they are constructed. In the global village though, shaped as it is mainly by Eurocentric cultures, it would be presumptuous to assume that one can with certainty pinpoint what may be termed ‘purely traditional African notions of womanhood’. Also, it will be an exaggeration to argue that Africa does not have its own notions on ideal womanhood. Particularly in Christian African contexts, notions about womanhood are still shaped to a large extent by both the traditional African worldviews and the received biblical interpretations about womanhood. In the preceding scenario, one wonders if women’s identities reveal their real selves or whether they are tamed, and thus artificial. In one’s attempt to unravel notions of womanhood from both the corpus, Proverbs 10:1–22:16 and in the South African context (cf. selected African proverbs), this article has sought to answer the following main question: if images of women in selected African (Northern Sotho) proverbs (cf. also selected South African narratives) and in the book of Proverbs (cf. Pr 10:1–22:16) are brought together, what kind of picture may emerge from such a comparison?

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“…Bird 1974:60). Gale Yee (1995) is thus rightly disturbed by the deeply unsettling message that the men communicate through the passages on Woman Stranger:…”

Section: 'mentioning

confidence: 99%

Tamed identities? Glimpsing her identity in Proverbs 10:1–22:16 and selected African proverbs

Masenya

2018

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies

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“…1 Kings 11:1–8 labels this act as apostasy and blames Solomon’s numerous foreign wives for leading him away from worshipping Yahweh alone. (For a discussion of the social and religious perils associated with foreign women in the Hebrew Bible, see, for example, Newsom [1989]; Yee [1989] and Tan [2008].) 1 Kings 11:30–3 attributes the Davidic line’s loss of kingship over the northern tribes to Solomon’s worship of three specific foreign deities, Astarte, Chemosh and Milcom, and 2 Kings 23:13 depicts the much later Davidic king Josiah (late 7th c. BCE) defiling the places of worship for Astarte, Chemosh and Milcom that Solomon had built.…”

Section: Text Of the Articlementioning

confidence: 99%

Hebrew Bible Goddesses and Modern Feminist Scholarship

Day

2012

Religion Compass

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This essay first traces the association of ancient goddesses with so-called fertility cults and sacred (or cultic) prostitution to J. J. Bachofen's once influential model of human social development, and places prefeminist Hebrew Bible/Old Testament scholarship on this trajectory. It then discusses two streams of feminist theological response to the model, a Great Goddess stream that inverted the values that traditional scholarship associated with ancient goddesses and their worship, and a revisionist stream that strove to reimage the God of the Hebrew Bible to include aspects of the feminine divine. Both streams are assessed critically from the perspective of secular feminist scholarship. Feminist scholars' challenges to the stereotyping of Canaanite goddesses as primarily associated with sexuality and reproduction are then presented, followed by feminists' critiques of both the relevance and veracity of the ancient sources alleged to be evidence for the practice of sacred (or cultic) prostitution. Finally, the essay turns to the texts of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament per se and focuses on the three Hebrew Bible goddesses most discussed in the secondary literature, i.e., Asherah, Astarte/Ashtart and the Queen of Heaven.

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“…The author has apparently adapted those verses for a different use in the prologue. For further reading on the Strange Woman, see Tan 2008; Camp 1991; and Yee 1989.…”

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confidence: 99%

Gender Roles and Translation in the Book of Proverbs

Bellis

2024

The Bible Translator

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The editors of Proverbs structured the book to counter traditional negative sentiments about women. Proverbs such as 19.13, “a stupid child is a ruin to a father, and a wife’s quarreling is a continual dripping of rain” (NRSVue), are misogynistic, presenting problems for the contemporary reader and arguably for the ancient editor as well. Their strategy to combat these old sayings included beginning and ending the book with positive feminine figures, Wisdom in the prologue (Prov 1–9) and the Strong Woman in Prov 31.10-31, and using negative masculine stereotypes as a foil for the negative feminine ones. Recent translations that use gender-neutral language mask these tropes about men’s behavior.

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'I Have Perfumed my Bed with Myrrh': the Foreign Woman ('išša zārâ) in Proverbs 1-9

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Tamed identities? Glimpsing her identity in Proverbs 10:1–22:16 and selected African proverbs

Tamed identities? Glimpsing her identity in Proverbs 10:1–22:16 and selected African proverbs

Hebrew Bible Goddesses and Modern Feminist Scholarship

Gender Roles and Translation in the Book of Proverbs

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