Bees, Wasps, and Weasels

Blaženka Scheuer is associate professor of Hebrew Bible Studies / Old Testament Exegesis at the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University.

This study is an excellent example of where gender studies in biblical and rabbinic literature is going. The author concentrates on one rabbinic text, which is a comment on two biblical episodes. The episodes are about the two most prominent prophetesses in the Bible—Deborah and Huldah—both bearing the zoomorphic names of bee and weasel. These names are interpreted in the Babylonian Talmud negatively. This saying prompted the author to investigate the biblical prophetesses—and the animals that their names denote in the Bible—in rabbinic literature, in ancient Near Eastern contexts, in Greco-Roman contexts, and finally, in Early Christianity, in association with Mariology. The ability of one scholar to master all these separate disciplines and languages is staggering, and the breadth and depth of the study is most impressive. It is no longer possible to study biblical feminine prophecy, and the rabbinic reaction to it, without reading this book.

• IntroductionChapter One: Deborah, Huldah, and the Formation of Zoomorphic SlursPart One: DeborahChapter Two: Deborah: A Bee or a Wasp?Chapter Three: Deborah in the Jewish DiasporaChapter Four: Deborah and the Question of a Female DivinePart Two: HuldahChapter Five: Huldah: A Weasel-ProphetessChapter Six: Huldah and the Question of Interpretive AuthorityPart Three: Deborah, Huldah, and Virgin MaryChapter Seven: Deborah, Huldah, and the Virgin MaryChapter Eight: Concluding Remarks