In recent decades, feminist scholars have amply demonstrated the problems that the male sex of the Jewish and Christian God poses for women. But how has God's sex affected men? Through close readings of the Hebrew Bible, as well as insights from feminist and gender criticism, anthropology, and...

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Bibliographic Details

Main Author:	Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard 1956- (Author)
Format:	Book
Language:	English
Published:	Boston Beacon Press 1994
Subjects:	Mannelijkheid Monotheïsme Judentum Religion God (Judaism) > History of doctrines Masculinity of God > History of doctrines Phallicism Sex role > Religious aspects > Judaism Sexualität Gott Christentum
Summary:	In recent decades, feminist scholars have amply demonstrated the problems that the male sex of the Jewish and Christian God poses for women. But how has God's sex affected men? Through close readings of the Hebrew Bible, as well as insights from feminist and gender criticism, anthropology, and psychoanalysis, Howard Eilberg-Schwartz explores the dilemmas created by the maleness of God for the men of ancient Judaism and for Jewish men today Eilberg-Schwartz marshals surprising evidence to show that the men of ancient Judaism were uneasy about the God they most often imagined as male. Rereading stories of the Hebrew Bible - including those of Moses, Noah and his sons, and Sodom and Gomorrah - Eilberg-Schwartz finds evidence of a "divine cover-up," in which the men who were permitted to see God saw only parts of his body, or quickly averted their gaze Furthermore, the Jewish ban on divine images of God can be seen as a way to hide God's male sex. Without this concealment, Eilberg-Schwartz believes, the emphasis of Jewish culture on heterosexuality, procreation, and monotheism itself would have been endangered
Physical Description:	XII, 312 S. Ill.
ISBN:	0807012246