The Status of Women in Jewish Tradition
Cambridge University Press, 1/10/2011
EAN 9781107001749, ISBN10: 1107001749
Hardcover, 232 pages, 21.6 x 14 x 1.7 cm
Language: English
Most ancient societies were patriarchal in outlook, but not all patriarchies are equally condescending toward women. Impelled by the gnawing question of whether the inferiority of women is integral to the Torah's vision, Sassoon sets out to determine where the Bible, the Talmud and related literature, especially the Dead Sea Scrolls, sit on this continuum of patriarchal condescension. Of course, there are multiple voices in both Biblical and Talmudic literature, but more surprising is how divergent these voices are. Some points of view seem intent on the disenfranchisement and domestication of women, whereas others prove to be not far short of egalitarian. Opinions that downplay the applicability of the biblical commandments to women and that strongly deprecate Torah study by women emerge from this study as arguably no more than the views of an especially vocal minority.
Part I. Monogamy
1. The sources
2. Pro-CD arguments
3. Anti-CD arguments
4. Indeterminate arguments
5. Make-or-break argument
6. Which way does the evidence point?
7. Gen. 1:27-29 revisited
Part II. Commandments (Misvot)
8. Zeman gerama
9. Derekh
10. The scriptural evidence
11. Deuteronomy
a pattern
12. The priestly Torah
13. Two writers on purity law
14. Torah study
Part III. Intrinsic Equality
15. The Qatlanit law
16. 'Rankings' of Horayot 3:7
17. Venus and Mars
18. Covenant
19. Gauging purity's weight in p
20. Body and soul
Conclusion.