Ilana Pardes is Lecturer in Comparative Literature and English at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

This book marks the much needed next step in feminist biblical criticism.

• 1. Preliminary Excavations Miriam and Her Brothers 2. Creation according to Eve Elizabeth Cady Stanton Simone de Beauvoir and Kate Millett Phyllis Trible Esther Fuchs Mieke Bal The Book of J Conclusion 3. Beyond Genesis 3: The Politics of Maternal Naming Maternal Naming-Speeches Uprising Reversal: Dialogic Naming Falling Again Creative Hierarchies When P Expands on Genesis I P versus J Mixed Languages 4. Rachel's Dream: The Female Subplot The Young Barren One versus The Elder Cowife Exchanging Plots Joining Forces Rachel's Death Difference in Development Dreams and Reality 5. Zipporah and the Struggle for Deliverance Female Saviors Back to the Ark The Bridgeroom of Blood Textual Traces The Egyptian Connection The Politics of Transition Longings Eruption 6. The Book of Ruth: Idyllic Revisionism The Plot of Female Bonding The Doubling of the Female Subject Estrangement A Midrashic Parallel 7. " I Am a Wall, and my Breast like Towers": The Song of Songs and the Question of Canonization The (Im)purity of the Songs Eros Constructions of Gender Refraction Revisited Dreams and Walls The Changing of the Guard The Keepers of the Torah 8. Conclusion Job's Wife Beyond Piety Fragment Names Open House Notes Bibliography Index