Construction of Gender and Identity in Genesis: The Subject and the Other

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Title Description: Karalina Matskevich examines the structures that map out the construction of gendered and national identities in Genesis 2–3 and 12–36. Matskevich shows how the dominant ‘Subject’ – the androcentric ha’adam and the ethnocentric Israel – is perceived in relation to and over against the ‘Other’, represented respectively as female and foreign. Using the tools of narratology, semiotics and psychoanalysis, Matskevich highlights the contradiction inherent in the project of dominance, through which the Subject seeks to suppress the transforming power of difference it relies on for its signification. Thus, in Genesis 2-3 ha’adam can only emerge as a complex Subject in possession of knowledge with the help of woman, the transforming Other to whom the narrator (and Yahweh) attributes both the agency and the blame. Similarly, the narratives of Genesis 12–36 show a conflicted attitude to places of alterity: Egypt, the fertile and seductive space that threatens annihilation, and Haran, the ‘mother’s land’, a complex metaphor for the feminine. The construction of identity in these narratives largely relies on the symbolic fecundity of the Other Cover Title Copyright Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction Chapter 1: The Subject and Knowledge in Genesis 2–3 1. Defining the Problem 2. The Overture: To Eat or Not to Eat 3. Yahweh and the Institution of Gender (Gen. 2.18-22) ‘Let us make for him a helper’ The making of the animals and woman ‘And he brought her to hā’ādām' 4. hā’ādām and the Interpretation of Gender (Gen. 2.23-24) The emergence of man From one’s flesh to one flesh 5. The Human Beings and Knowledge (Gen. 2.25–3.7) The serpent and the subversion of Yahweh’s voice Woman and the tree ‘They knew that they were naked’ Two kinds of knowledge Knowledge, gender and the image of God The ambiguities of knowledge 6. The Subject on Trial (Gen. 3.8-13) 7. The Final Balance: Judgement and Expulsion (Gen. 3.14-24) The serpent’s curse Woman and gender roles hā’ādām and hā’adāmāh Gender Relationships and the World Order in Genesis 2–3 The Strategies of Closure (Gen. 3.22-24) 8. The Two Plots of Yahweh Elohim Chapter 2: The Subject and the Land in the Abraham Cycle (Gen. 11.27–25.18) 1. The Patriarchal and Matriarchal Successions 2. The Call of Abraham: Ambiguities of Election 3. The Land as Own and Foreign 4. The Gendering of the Land 5. The Wife–Sister Ruse: The Subject in Search of Fertility 6. The Separation of Abraham and Lot 7. ‘There Is No Man in the Land’ 8. Sarah, Hagar and the Project of Dominance (Genesis 16) 9. Hagar and Ishmael: Expelling the Other (Genesis 21) 10. Final Observations Chapter 3: The Mothers and the Mother’s Land in the Jacob Narrative (Gen. 25.19–37.1) 1. Binary Structures in the Jacob Narrative 2. Father’s Land vs. Mother’s Land 3. Rebekah’s Plot 4. Rachel, Leah and the Twists of God 5. The dûdā’îm of Reuben 6. The Father’s Gods and the Way of Women 7. Forms of Binary Relationships in the Jacob Narrative The Subject vs. the Twin: Antagonistic relationship The Subject vs. the Double: Complementary relationship Conclusion Bibliography Index of Authors Index of Biblical References