Saturday, June 28, 2008

Visiting Israel!

I just arrived in Israel on Wednesday for a month's stay, most of which will be spent in the National Library working on two chapters of my book - Angels’ Tongues and Witches’ Curses: Women and Ritual Power in Late Antique Judaism. I'll be working on researching two chapters.

Chapter 4 is “‘She Spoke in the Language of the Cherubim’: Women and Revelatory Experience in Early Jewish and Christian Literature,” and chapter 5 is “Does God Reveal His Mysteries to Women?” Chapter 4 compares early Jewish and Christian literature that depicts women as recipients of divine revelation. The Jewish texts include Philo’s On the Contemplative Life, the Testament of Job, Jubilees, and Pseudo-Philo, while the Christian texts include Montanist literature and the apocryphal acts.

Chapter 5 discusses rabbinic interpretations of biblical stories of women’s encounters with God and the angels (for example, the matriarchs, Hagar, and the mother of Samson), which occur mostly as announcements to women that they will bear a significant male child (for example, the announcement to Sarah that she will give birth to Isaac, recounted in Genesis 18).

So far, I've not gotten any work done, since Thursday was spent suffering from jet lag, and then Friday was erev Shabbat. I'll be heading to the library tomorrow to get some work done.

2 comments:

  1. Good luck with the book. I have a question about Beruriah, wife of R. Meir, and other rabbinic wives, but if you are too busy, I will hold off.

    Leon Zitzer

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  2. I hope it's a successful and enjoyable trip, Rebecca.

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