A Womanist Reading of Hebrew Bible Narratives as the Politics of Belonging from an Outsider Within [Hardcover]

The U.S. Declaration of Independence of 1776 decreed that all men were created equal and were endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. Yet, U.S.-born free and enslaved Black people were not recognized as citizens with equal protections under the law until the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. Even then, White supremacists impeded the equal rights of Black people as citizens due to their beliefs in the inferiority of Black people and that America was a nation for White people. White supremacists turned to biblical passages to lend divine justification for their views.A Womanist Reading of Hebrew Bible Narratives as the Politics of Belonging from an Outsider Withinanalyzes select biblical narratives, including Noahs curse in Genesis 9; Sarah and Hagar in Genesis 16 and 21; Mother in Israel in Judges 5; and Jezebel, Phoenician Princess and Queen of Israel in 1 and 2 Kings. This analysis demonstrates how these narratives were first used by ancient biblical writers to include some and exclude others as members of the nation of Israel and then appropriated by White supremacists in the antebellum era and the early twentieth century to do the same in America. The book analyzes the simultaneously intersecting and interconnecting dynamics among race, gender, class, and sexuality and biblical narratives to construct boundaries between us versus them, particularly the politicization of motherhood to deny certain groups inclusion.Vanessa Lovelaceis associate dean and associate professor of Hebrew Bible Old Testament at Lancaster Theological Seminary in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

A Womanist Reading of Hebrew Bible Narratives as the Politics of Belongingis a vital contribution to biblical studies. Thoroughly researched, carefully argued, and lucidly written, the book adeptly moves between biblical texts and their tangled histories of interpretation, with particular attention to race, gender, and power. Lovelace shows us why these blS'