Kristine Henriksen Garroway – författare

The death of a child is perhaps the most painful, heartbreaking, and seemingly-unnatural experience we have the displeasure of living with. Yet it is difficult to say with certainty whether or not this sentiment was shared by the inhabitants of ancient Israel. Many studies have explored death in ancient societies by examining types of burial, burial rites, biblical notions of death and the afterlife, care for the dead, even cults of the dead -- yet no single study has been devoted to children and death in ancient Israel. The study of childhood death is tightly entwined with the concerns of a field that is relatively new to the scholarship of ancient Israel: personhood. An exploration of the concept of personhood is needed in the context of childhood death. In The Dying Child, Kristine Henriksen Garroway argues for a stronger position of the child in current archeological trends. Many archaeologists hesitate to ascribe various domestic objects to children, despite their obvious presence in the ancient home. This functionally ignores an entire class of people in the study of death. In acknowledging the personhood of children in burials and other deathly-rituals, Garroway considers emotional and personal aspects of ancient Israeli life -- filling a critical gap in our understanding of this culture.

What did violence against women and children mean for ancient audiences and how do modern audiences hear and process the meaning of violence in the texts of the Hebrew Bible? The rape of Tamar, the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter, babes ripped from the womb during war—texts such as these are hardly fodder for Sunday School classes; yet we are left with the reality that the Bible is a violent text full of war, murder, genocide, and destruction, often carried out at the behest of God. The essays in this volume explore ways in which the Hebrew Bible uses and abuses women and children to make indelible points concerning the people of Israel, the lived realities of the Israelite society, and God’s relationship to His people. Where other works turn to the study of the violence itself, or to the divine nature of violence, this volume focuses in on the human component. As a result, these studies are reminders that women and children born out of trauma are at once vulnerable and valuable, fragile and resilient.

What did violence against women and children mean for ancient audiences and how do modern audiences hear and process the meaning of violence in the texts of the Hebrew Bible? The rape of Tamar, the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter, babes ripped from the womb during war—texts such as these are hardly fodder for Sunday School classes; yet we are left with the reality that the Bible is a violent text full of war, murder, genocide, and destruction, often carried out at the behest of God. The essays in this volume explore ways in which the Hebrew Bible uses and abuses women and children to make indelible points concerning the people of Israel, the lived realities of the Israelite society, and God’s relationship to His people. Where other works turn to the study of the violence itself, or to the divine nature of violence, this volume focuses in on the human component. As a result, these studies are reminders that women and children born out of trauma are at once vulnerable and valuable, fragile and resilient.

The clothed and adorned body has been at the forefront of Nili S. Fox's scholarship. In her hallmark approach, she draws on theoretical models from anthropology and archaeology, and locates the text within its native cultural environment in conversation with ancient Near Eastern literary and iconographic sources. This volume is a tribute to her, a collection of essays on dress and the body with original research by Fox's students. With the field of dress now garnering the attention of biblical and Ancient Near Eastern scholars alike, this book adds to the growing literature on the topic, demonstrating ways in which both dress and the body communicate cultural and religious beliefs and practices. The body's lived experience is the topic of section one, the body lived. The body and the social construction of identity is discussed in section two, the body cultured, while section three, the body adorned, analyzes the performative nature of dress in the biblical text.