Why Is Miriam Also among the Prophets? (And Is Zipporah among the Priests?)

Ackerman, Susan

doi:10.2307/3268330

Cited by 16 publications

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“…The fact that she (and not Aaron) is punished in Numbers 12 indicates that this subordinate position is a result of her sex and the gender roles that the authors of these texts assign to her. Much of this should be seen as the inevitable effects of the transmission of these traditions through scribal mechanisms that were governed by, and that answered to, Israel's male‐dominated monarchic culture (Ackerman, ) and the male‐dominated Aaronide priesthood that stood at the apex of early Jewish literary production in the Persian and Hellenistic eras. In the shaping of early traditions and memories over many generations given to androcentric worldviews, the memory of Miriam as a sacral figure was subjected to the gender categories promoted by Israel's literati; this provides some indication of how this elite class viewed the place of women within the Levite tribe as well.…”

Section: Women and Levite Statusmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Levites in the Hebrew Bible

Leuchter

2017

Religion Compass

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This article provides a summary of the many issues attending the study of the Levites as they appear throughout the Hebrew Bible. The matters of Levite origins, the figure of Moses, the relationship between the Levites and the Aaronide priests, prophecy, kingship, women and Levite status, text production, role in the cult of the Second Temple, and the wisdom tradition are revisited with an evaluation of earlier scholarship and new proposals for understanding these issues and their implications.

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Section: Women and Levite Statusmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Levites in the Hebrew Bible

Leuchter

2017

Religion Compass

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“…Some of the initial works in this recent line of inquiry focused on the five named female prophets in the HB (Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, the ‘wife’[?] of Isaiah, Noadiah), but often concluded that these women and their activities were anomalies under certain unstable circumstances, and thus were not part of a larger phenomenon of female prophecy (e.g., Ackerman 2002). More recently, several works have attempted to answer more positively the question of whether some women and their activities who are not labeled as prophets in the HB might be identified as such, thus pointing to the existence of an established phenomenon of female prophets.…”

Section: Traditional Questions and New Lines Of Inquirymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Phenomenon of Israelite Prophecy in Contemporary Scholarship

Kelle

2014

Currents in Biblical Research

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In the mid-twentieth century, the classic historical-critical approach to the Hebrew Bible’s prophetic books gave way to the study of Israelite prophecy as part of a social phenomenon known throughout the ancient Near East. Since the 1980s, research on the phenomenon of Israelite prophecy has been marked by two main paradigms. The first extends the basic phenomenological approach and identifies Israelite prophecy as a socio-historical phenomenon shared across various ancient cultures. Prophecy was a form of intermediation between the divine and human, and a sub-type of the larger religious practice of (non-technical) divination. The second paradigm questions the usefulness of the biblical texts for reconstructing the ancient realities of prophecy and suggests that Israelite prophecy was a literary phenomenon that emerged among scribes in postexilic Yehud. Within these paradigms, present research offers new insights on lines of inquiry, such as the relationship between prophecy and psychology, prophets in the Second Temple period, and female prophets and prophecy. Overall, scholarship reflects a sharpening distinction between ‘ancient Hebrew prophecy’ as a socio-historical phenomenon and ‘biblical prophecy’ as a literary/scribal phenomenon, and generally approaches Israelite prophecy not as a single phenomenon but as a set of related phenomena.

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“…For women as prophets and as priests, see Ackerman (2002). For female prophets, whether named and unnamed, operating on their own or in guilds, see Gafney (2008).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…14 Others were necromancers (for the ‫ַת‬ ‫ֲל‬ ‫ﬠ‬ ‫בַּ‬ ‫ת‬ ‫שֶׁ‬ ‫אֵ‬ -] of Endor, who not only conjured the ghost of Samuel but also slaughtered a pared and baked unleavened bread to serve King Saul, see 1 Sam 28:7-25; see also Lev ise women (for Tekoah, see 2 Sam 14:4-20; for Abel Beth Maacah, see 2 Sam 20:14-22 ebecca "inquired of Yahweh" ( ‫ת‬ ‫אֶ‬ ‫שׁ‬ ‫רֹ‬ ‫דְ‬ ‫לִ‬ -‫ָה‬ ‫יְהו‬ ) to understand her difficult pregnancy (Gen All these women accessed the Divine through their own actions. 16 ughts en as prophets and as priests, see Ackerman (2002). For female prophets, whether named and , operating on their own or in guilds, see Gafney (2008).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…For women as prophets and as priests, seeAckerman (2002). For female prophets, whether named and unnamed, operating on their own or in guilds, seeGafney (2008).15 The Hebrew root drš is typically used for prophetic inquiries.16 For the work of diviners, soothsayers, magicians, and witches, who might heal by appealing to divinities other than Yahweh, seeGerstenberger (2014).…”

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Women in Israelite Religion: The State of Research Is All New Research

Nakhai

2019

Religions

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Historically, those studying Israelite religion have ignored the existence of women in Iron Age Israel (1200–587 BCE). They have, therefore, accounted neither for the religious beliefs of half of ancient Israel’s population nor for the responsibilities that women assumed for maintaining religious rituals and traditions. Such reconstructions of Israelite religion are seriously flawed. Only in the last four decades have scholars, primarily women, begun to explore women’s essential roles in Israel’s religious culture. This article utilizes evidence from the Hebrew Bible and from archaeological sites throughout Israel. It demonstrates that some women had roles within the Jerusalem Temple. Most women, however, resided in towns and villages throughout the Land. There, they undertook responsibility for clan-based and community-based religious rituals and rites, including pilgrimage, seasonal festivals, rites of military victory, and rites of mourning. They fulfilled, as well, essential roles within the sphere of domestic or household religion. At home, they provided medico-magical healing for all family members, as well as care for women and babies throughout pregnancy, childbirth, and beyond. They, and the men in their communities, worshipped Yahweh, Israel’s primary deity, and the goddess Asherah, as well; for most people, these two divinities were inextricably linked.

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Why Is Miriam Also among the Prophets? (And Is Zipporah among the Priests?)

Cited by 16 publications

References 0 publications

The Levites in the Hebrew Bible

The Levites in the Hebrew Bible

The Phenomenon of Israelite Prophecy in Contemporary Scholarship

Women in Israelite Religion: The State of Research Is All New Research

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