Vulnerability and valour : a gendered analysis of everyday life in the Dead Sea scrolls communities / Jessica M. Keady.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Keady, Jessica M., author.

Series:

Library of Second Temple studies ; 91.

Library of Second Temple studies ; 91

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Dead Sea scrolls.

Purity, Ritual--Judaism.

Purity, Ritual.

Qumran community.

Physical Description:

vii, 204 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

London ; New York, NY : Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2017.

Summary:

The library of Second Temple Studies (LSTS) is a premier book series that offers cutting-edge work for a readership of scholars, teachers in the field of Second Temple studies, postgraduate students and advanced under-graduates. All the many and diverse aspects of Second Temple study are represented and promoted, including innovative work from historical perspectives, studies using social-scientific and literary theory, and developing theological, cultural and contextual approaches. Jessica M. Keady uses insights from social science and gender theory to shed light on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qymran communities. Through her analysis Ready shows that it was not only women who could be viewed as an impure problem, but also that men shared these characteristics as well. The first framework adopted by Keady is masculinity studies, specifically Raewyn Council's hegemonic masculinity, which Keady applies to the Rule of the Community (in its 1Q5 form) and the War Scroll (in its 1QM form), to demonstrate the vulnerable and uncontrollable aspects of ordinary male impurities. Secondly, the embodied and empowered aspects of impure women are revealed through an application of embodiment theories to selected passages from 4Qp (4Q266 and 4Q272) and 4QTohorot A (4Q274). Thirdly, sociological insights from Susie Scott's understanding of the everyday - through the mundane, the routine and the breaking of rules - reveal how impurity disrupts the constructions of daily life. Keady applies Scott's three conceptual features for understanding the everyday to the Temple Scroll (11QTa) and the Rule of the Congregation (1QSa) to demonstrate the changing dynamics between ordinary impure males and impure females. Underlying each of these three points is the premise that gender and purity in the Dead Sea Scrolls communities are performative, dynamic and constantly changing. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction

The debate about purity and impurity in the Dead Sea Scrolls

Purity and impurity in the Dead Sea Scrolls: masculinity, embodiment and the everyday as methodological tools

Masculinity studies and the men of the Dead Sea Scrolls communities

Thinking beyond the abstract : towards an embodied reading of purity

Everyday living and the constructions of spatial privacy in the Dead Sea Scrolls communities focusing on the Temple Scroll and the Rule of the Congregation

Conclusion : beyond an abstract reading of purity.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780567672247

0567672247

OCLC:

962409755

Publisher Number:

40026962206

40026973632