The Matriarchs of Genesis
Автор: David J. Zucker
Год издания:
Sarah. Hagar. Rebekah. Leah. Rachel. Bilhah. Zilpah. These are the Matriarchs of Genesis. A people's self-understanding is fashioned on their heroes and heroines. Sarah, Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel–the traditional four Matriarchs–are important and powerful people in the book of Genesis. Each woman plays her part in her generation. She interacts with and advises her husband, seeking to achieve both present and future successes for her family. These women act decisively at crucial points; through their actions and words, their family dynamics change irrevocably. Unlike their husbands, we know little of their unspoken thoughts or actions. What the text in Genesis does share shows that these women are perceptive and judicious, often seeing the grand scheme with clarity. While their stories are told in Genesis, in the post-biblical world of the Pseudepigrapha, their stories are retold in new ways. The rabbis also speak of these women, and contemporary scholars and feminists continue to explore the Matriarchs in Genesis and later literature. Using extensive quotations, we present these women through five lenses: the Bible, Early Extra-Biblical Literature, Rabbinic Literature, Contemporary Scholarship, and Feminist Thought. In addition, we consider Hagar, Abraham's second wife and the mother of Ishmael, as well as Bilhah and Zilpah, Jacob's third and fourth wives.
Jesuits and Matriarchs
Автор: Nadine Amsler
Год издания:
In early modern China, Jesuit missionaries associated with the male elite of Confucian literati in order to proselytize more freely, but they had limited contact with women, whose ritual spaces were less accessible. Historians of Catholic evangelism have similarly directed their attention to the devotional practices of men, neglecting the interior spaces in Chinese households where women worshipped and undertook the transmission of Catholicism to family members and friends. Nadine Amsler�s investigation brings the domestic and devotional practices of women into sharp focus, uncovering a rich body of evidence that demonstrates how Chinese households functioned as sites of evangelization, religious conflict, and indigenization of Christianity.The resulting exploration of gendered realms in seventeenth-century China reveals networks of religious sociability and ritual communities among women as well as women�s remarkable acts of private piety. Amsler�s exhaustive archival research and attention to material culture reveals new insights about women�s agency and domestic activities, illuminating areas of Chinese and Catholic history that have remained obscure, if not entirely invisible, for far too long.