Disability in the Hebrew Bible : interpreting mental and physical differences / / Saul M. Olyan [[electronic resource]]

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910826728303321
• Autore: Olyan Saul M.
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: Cambridge : , : Cambridge University Press, , 2008
• ISBN: 1-107-18726-5; 1-281-71709-6; 9786611717094; 0-511-40938-9; 0-511-49903-5; 0-511-40992-3; 0-511-40802-1; 0-511-40728-9; 0-511-40881-1
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (xii, 188 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)
• Disciplina: 221.8/3624
• Soggetti: People with disabilities in the Bible; People with disabilities in rabbinical literature
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
• Nota di contenuto: Chapter 1 : Constructions of beauty and ugliness -- Chapter 2 : Physical disabilities classified as "defects" -- Chapter 3 : Physical disabilities not classified as "defects" -- Chapter 4 : Mental disability -- Chapter 5 : Disability in the prophetic utopian vision -- Chapter 6 : Non-somatic parallels to bodily wholeness and "defect" -- Chapter 7 : Exegetical perpetuations, elaborations and transformations : the case of Qumran "defects" in the Dead Sea scrolls.
• Sommario/riassunto: Mental and physical disability, ubiquitous in texts of the Hebrew Bible, here receive a thorough treatment. Olyan seeks to reconstruct the Hebrew Bible's particular ideas of what is disabling and their potential social ramifications. Biblical representations of disability and biblical classification schemas - both explicit and implicit - are compared to those of the Hebrew Bible's larger ancient West Asian cultural context, ; and to those of the later Jewish biblical interpreters who produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. This study will help the reader gain a deeper and more subtle understanding of the ways in which biblical writers constructed hierarchically significant difference and privileged certain groups (e.g. persons with 'whole' bodies) over others (e.g. persons with physical 'defects'). It also explores how ancient interpreters of the Hebrew Bible such as the Qumran sectarians reproduced and reconfigured earlier biblical notions of disability and earlier classification models for their own contexts and ends.