“The presentation of this volume is extremely clear and helps readers from other disciplines to follow the authors’ arguments. Each chapter contains enough background information to understand the respective contexts, and relevant text passages are mostly cited in both translation and the original language (in endnotes), although occasionally the respective biblical passages could have been quoted in full for scholars less familiar with the biblical material. An especially valuable feature is the book’s bibliographic organization. The bibliographic references cited are listed in the endnotes of each chapter. In addition, the volume is concluded by an extensive, thematically organized bibliography listing studies within the historiography and archaeology of childhood.”
Christoph Schmidhuber, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 10.52 (2019)
“Malgré une aire géographique et une chronologie vastes, l’ouvrage fait montre d’une grande unité autour de la méthode adoptée et de la nature des sources privilégiées, en l’occurrence la Bible hébraïque et le Nouveau Testament. Ce recueil d’articles s’inscrit en outre dans une perspective comparatiste avec les sociétés des régions adjacentes, mondes cunéiforme et gréco-romain, tout en mettant en lumière l’agentivité des enfants au sein de ces sociétés.”
Sophie Laribi Glaudel, Anabases [En ligne], 32 | 2020.
The topic of children in the Bible has long been under-represented, but this has recently changed with the development of childhood studies in broader fields, and the work of several dedicated scholars. While many reading methods are employed in this emerging field, comparative work with children in the ancient world has been an important tool to understand the function of children in biblical texts.
Children in the Bible and the Ancient World broadly introduces children in the ancient world, and specifically children in the Bible. It brings together an international group of experts who help readers understand how children are constructed in biblical literature across three broad areas: children in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East, children in Christian writings and the Greco-Roman world, and children and materiality. The diverse essays cover topics such as: vows in Ugarit and the Hebrew Bible, obstetric knowledge, infant abandonment, the role of marriage, Greek abandonment texts, ritual entry for children into Christian communities, education, sexual abuse, and the role of archeological figurines in children’s lives. The volume also includes expertise in biological anthropology to study the skeletal remains of ancient children, as well as how ancient texts illuminate Mary’s female maturity. The volume is written in an accessible style suitable for non-specialists, and it is equipped with a helpful resource bibliography that organizes select secondary sources from these essays into meaningful categories for further study.
Children in the Bible and the Ancient World is a helpful introduction to any who study children and childhood in the ancient world. In addition, the volume will be of interest to experts who are engaged in historical approaches to biblical studies, while appreciating how the ancient world continues to illuminate select topics in biblical texts.
Table of Contents
List of contributors
Foreword
Part I: Children in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East
Chapter 1
Vows and Children in the Hebrew Bible
Heath D. Dewrell
Chapter 2
Turning Birth into Theology: Traces of Ancient Obstetric Knowledge within Narratives of Difficult Childbirth in the Hebrew Bible
Claudia D. Bergmann
Chapter 3
Uncooperative Breeders: Parental Investment and Infant Abandonment in Hebrew and Greek Narrative
David A. Bosworth
Chapter 4
Failure to Marry: Girling Gone Wrong
Kristine Henriksen Garroway
Part II: Children in Christian Writings and the Greco-Roman World
Chapter 5
Girls and Goddesses: The Gospel of Mark and the Eleusinian Mysteries
Sharon Betsworth
Chapter 6
Children and Church: The Ritual Entry of Children into Pauline Churches
John W. Martens
Chapter 7
"Stay away from my children!": Educators and the Accusation of Sexual Abuse in Roman Antiquity
Christian Laes
Part III: Children and Material Culture
Chapter 8
I Bless You by YHWH of Samaria and His Barbie: A Case for Understanding Judean Pillar Figurines as Children’s Toys
Julie Faith Parker
Chapter 9
Coming of Age at St Stephen’s: Bioarchaeology of Children at a Byzantine Jerusalem Monastery (5th–7th Centuries CE)
Susan G. Sheridan
Afterword
Chapter 10
Protoevangelium of James, Menstruating Mary, and Twenty-First-Century Adolescence: Purity, Liminality, and the Sexual Female
Doris M. Kieser
