Date of Award

2009

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Humanities

First Advisor

Marks, Susan

Keywords

Judaism, Gender, Rabbinic, Genesis, Sexuality, Interpretation

Area of Concentration

Religion

Abstract

How did early biblical interpreters approach scenes of sexual seduction and adultery within the book of Genesis? The ways in which these exegetes address sexually-natured biblical texts tell us much about ancient Jewish and Christian concerns regarding gender and sexuality. This thesis analyzes women's sexuality in rabbinic and pseudepigraphic interpretive texts from late antiquity focusing on the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife in Genesis 39. The first chapter provides an overview of women's sexuality within larger rabbinic thought, while the second and third chapters focus specifically on treatments of Potiphar's wife's character within Rabbinic homiletic texts as well as the para-biblical Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. As proven through close readings of these Hebrew and Greek texts, unbounded female sexuality threatens the interpretive group's self-preservation by disrupting the relationship between communities of men within each group.

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