Biblical Women Unbound: Counter-Tales
Overview
Rosen gives a new voice to more than a dozen women of the Bible. She imagines and writes the missing chapters of these women’s lives in a witty and engaging collection of stories. In addition, she introduces the book with a lively essay about classical Midrash, its relationship to fiction and the imagination, and the possibilities for new midrashim written for and about women.
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- Provides an introductory essay about classical Midrash
- Discusses relationships in The Book Of Ruth
Top Highlights
“In the vast compilation of Bible commentary known as midrash, much of it embedded in Talmud, only one genre, aggadah, is concerned with storytelling. Another, halakhah, addresses scripture with an eye to its legal aspects.” (Page 3)
In a series of lively midrashic readings of selected biblical texts, novelist Rosen captures the voices of a number of biblical women who are often silenced in the traditional biblical tales in which they appear. For example, in the Genesis tale of Sarah, Abraham, and Isaac (Genesis 22), Sarah knows nothing of Abraham’s intention to sacrifice Isaac in an act of obedience to God, and she is consigned to a role of silence in the story. However, in Rosen’s retelling, Sarah witnesses Abraham’s near-sacrifice of her son Isaac, returns home to die, never to see Isaac again and questions God’s purpose in so testing her faith that God requires the sacrifice of her firstborn son. . . . Other women who gain new voices in this collection include Pharaoh’s daughter, Miriam, Hagar, and Ruth. . . . In prose that is moving and eloquent, Rosen . . . offers compelling portraits of biblical women in these ‘counter-tales.’
—Publishers Weekly
. . . great wit; humor; deep textual knowledge; . . . novelistic delights and insights; learning; paradigm and paradox; drama and suspense; . . . and always, always the happy shock of originality—these are the generous qualities of mind and language Rosen sets before us. . . .
—Cynthia Ozick, American-Jewish novelist and essayist
- Title: Biblical Women Unbound: Counter-Tales
- Author: Norma Rosen
- Publisher: Jewish Publication Society
- Publication Date: 2001
- Pages: 237