Gender differences between men and women are not just a matter of sexual differentiation; the roles that men and women play are also socially and culturally determined, in ancient Israel and post-biblical Judaism as in every other context. That is the theme of these ten studies. What understandings of masculinity and femininity underlie the regulations about incest? And what kind of rights did mediaeval Middle-Eastern Jewish women have within their marriage relationships?

This substantial commentary presents 1 Samuel as a sophisticated work of literature, where the reader is challenged with a narrative that is fraught with interpretative possibilities. In his distinctive literary reading Bodner lays special emphasis on the intriguing array of characters that populate the narrative, and on the plot, in its design and its configurations. Thus, a host of intriguing episodes and personalities are passed in review: from the symbolically charged closed womb of Hannah to the backwards fall and the broken neck of Eli, to the strange tour of the Ark of God through the...