The Hebrew Bible in Contemporary Fiction and Poetry

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-24835-6
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 378 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 860 g

This book discusses 20th- and 21st-centuries’ literary retellings of biblical texts, focusing on how fiction and poetry fill the extant narrative gaps present in the often-sparse biblical accounts and align the narratives with theological and/or cultural expectations of modern interpreting communities.

The chapters, written by an international group of scholars, explore biblical retellings in a variety of modern languages, ranging from Korean and Chinese to Hebrew and Arabic. Most of the contributions deal with retellings of the narrative books (Genesis, Exodus, Judges, Ruth, 1–2 Samuel, Daniel), but a few are devoted to prophetic (Hosea) and poetic (Psalms) ones. Another set of articles looks beyond specific biblical books and instead analyses how the Bible has been retold in different literary genres (Children and YA literature, sci-fi and fantasy, Christian Inspiration fiction) and in modern political discourse (North and South Korea). All the chapters further highlight how literary retellings of the Bible form two-way movements. They reveal the often-subversive quality of literary retellings: retellings not only emphasise those nuances in the biblical texts that create unease but also problematise their standpoint and question their moral and theological message.

The Hebrew Bible in Contemporary Fiction and Poetry is suitable for students and scholars of biblical studies working on intertextuality and reception history. It is also of interest to those working on comparative literature, particularly with regards to the Hebrew Bible in popular culture and literature.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Tiemeyer, Lena-Sofia

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction

LENA-SOFIA TIEMEYER

1 The Flood Narrative in Feminist and Queer Perspectives

DENAE DYCK

2 Before the Dragon’s Inverted Scales: Reading the Sodom Narrative in Genesis with Its Retelling Stories

SOO KIM SWEENEY

3 She Chose to Turn: Lot’s Wife as Sodom’s Witness in Contemporary Literature

KATHERINE LOW

4 Sad and Beautiful: Sarah’s Laughter in Itzik Manger and Other Modern Poetry

ZOHAR HADROMI-ALLOUCHE

5 ‘Ah gots daughtuh, an’ she gots daughtuh’: Hagar and Her Offspring in Three Reincarnations of Her Biblical Original

KATHRYN WALLS

6 Seeing, Connection, and Visibility in Margaret Atwood’s and the Bible’s Handmaids’ Tales

JO CARRUTHERS

7 Seeing Red: The Elision of Gender-Based Violence in Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent

CAROLINE BLYTH

8 ‘The Sire, to Whom I Must Make Love’: Judah’s Afterlives in Modern Literature

ERIC ZIOLKOWSKI

9 Joseph and His Brothers in Twentieth-Century Literature

BRADLEY C. GREGORY

10 Moses as a Leader in Twentieth-Century Literature

STUART LASINE

11 From Passion to Politics in the Literary Reception of Samson

BRIAN BRITT

12 A Different Kind of Harvest: Contemporary Women Novelists Respond to Ruth

MARY F. BREWER

13 Bathsheba: Innocent Victim or Cunning Schemer?

HUGH PYPER

14 Reimagining Abishag: Retelling Her Story

THEA GOMELAURI

15 Reception of Daniel in Novels

JASON M. SILVERMAN

16 Victim, Vixen, Saint and Sinner: Examining Literary Retellings of Hosea 1–3

KIRSI COBB

17 Singing Scripture: On the Reception of Psalms in Contemporary Praise & Worship Lyrics

DAVID DAVAGE

18 Of Siblings and Soccer, Lions and Lobsters: Retellings of Biblical Stories in Children’s and Young Adult Literature

INA DÖTTINGER

19 Biblical Retellings in Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction

MARIAN KELSEY

20 Retellings and Political Discourse

KYU SEOP KIM

21 The Bible in Inspirational Fiction: The Case of Bathsheba

CERI DEOSUN

Über Autor(innen)

Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer is Professor in Old Testament Exegesis at ALT School of Theology, Sweden, and Research Associate at the Department of Old Testament and Hebrew Scripture, University of Pretoria, South Africa. She has published several monographs and edited volumes on Isaiah and Zechariah, a reception-historical commentary on Jonah (Jonah through the Centuries, 2021), as well as a monograph devoted to Jonathan in modern literature (In Search of Jonathan, 2022).