In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Households and Holiness: The Religious Culture of Israelite Women
  • Hector Avalos
Households and Holiness: The Religious Culture of Israelite Women, by Carol Meyers. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005. 105 pp. $6.00.

Carol Meyers has a distinguished career in biblical studies, and she has made pioneering contributions in the application of feminists perspectives. In this brief book, Meyers adapts a keynote lecture she delivered in 2001 at Basel for the Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament. She explores the impact of sociological and gender studies in the study of Israelite religion.

Aside from the Introduction, the book consists of six very short chapters and a seventh "discussion" chapter. In the Introduction, she notes that "feminist biblical study, whether conducted by women or by men, still tends to represent masculinized approaches" (p. 4). In particular, the emphasis on belief (theology) rather than on practice often effectively excludes or minimizes study of the religious behaviors of women. Similarly, the emphasis on female deities, as a reflection of women's religion, is flawed because, among other things, it assumes that goddesses are linked primarily to female devotees. The solution, argues Meyers, is "[r]ather than think of studying women's religion in the period of the Hebrew Bible, we need to think of studying women's religious culture" (p. 11).

In subsequent chapters, she focuses on the different approaches that can recover women's religious culture, including anthropological (chapter three), archaeological (chapter four), textual (chapter five), and ethnographic approaches (chapter six). In particular, Meyers argues that the religious practices unique to women are best sought among "life processes related to female biology" (p. 16). The overall focus is on how households functioned as sacred spaces where women could exercise powers often denied them in elite male institutions such as the temple. Even so, women also participated in communal religious life more than many scholars might realize. For example, in Ezra 10:1 women are among those praying in the assembly addressed by Ezra. [End Page 152]

Even in this succinct study, Meyers effectively shows how new questions provide a more realistic picture of the religious practices of ancient Israel. For example, from ethnographic comparisons, we can see that health care is a much more important part of religious life than most scholars of Israelite religions have supposed. Thus, in Ziony Zevit's massive tome, The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (New York: Continuum, 2001), we find only one indexed reference to healing and none to "health care" or "medicine."

Yet, as Meyers comments, "throughout the ancient world, 'health care systems' were integrally related with religious culture" (p. 21). Such new thinking can help us search more thoroughly for alternative interpretations of material culture. For example, many of the numerous so-called pillar figurines, which many scholars routinely identify with goddesses, may actually represent human females seeking the aid of a deity for health related issues (e.g., pregnancy, birth and/or lactation). Although Zevit also acknowledges their use in women's rituals, Meyers ties her interpretations much more firmly to studies of what women are seen doing in terms of health care in actual societies.

In her concluding "discussion" chapter, Meyers also reiterates how personnel that receive relatively little or wholly negative discussion in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., midwives, necromancers, diviners, sorcerers) may actually have been a more widespread and well accepted part of the religious life of ancient Israelite women. In addition, Meyers emphasizes that neither patriarchy nor matriarchy accurately describes ancient Israelite societies. Rather, heterarchy, in which ranking might be different in different spheres of life might better reflect the reality of ancient Israel.

If there is a criticism to be made, it is that perhaps we are still privileging the religious life of adult women. Ezra 10:1, which Meyers cites as evidence of the participation of women in communal events, also includes children as participants in the assembly addressed by Ezra. So perhaps we could extend such studies to the religious culture of children, male or female. But, overall, this is a welcome contribution which demonstrates how new perspectives are changing the way we look at the...

pdf

Share