Abstract
Johanna Stiebert,
Fathers and Daughters in the Hebrew Bible
, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2013; 288 pp.: 9780199673827, £67.00/$125.00 (hbk)
Stiebert’s book is an exploration of one of the family relationships in the Hebrew Bible which receives less attention than the father–son connection: that of the father with his daughter. In Chapter 1 she begins by exploring uses of the words ‘father’ and ‘daughter’ and what the different usages can convey. She then discusses how the world of the ‘father’s house’ operated in the Hebrew Bible in relation to the father–daughter relationship. Part of the discussion is devoted to countering the idea that daughters are not valued, even though the Hebrew Bible may emphasize sons overall. This chapter is very helpful for those who want to understand more about the life of a daughter in the ‘father’s house’, with the caveat that the view we have in the Hebrew Bible will be, as Stiebert makes clear, a very particular one: the male, androcentric view.
Chapter 2 turns to a story in the Hebrew Bible which depicts a terrible use of a father’s authority: that of the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter in Judges 11, pairing it with the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22. This chapter includes a helpful overview of how feminists have written and thought about these stories. Stiebert argues that the sacrifice of daughters is not because they are expendable in a way sons are not but rather because daughters are precious.
Chapter 3 turns to the question of father–daughter incest, in relation to the story of Lot’s daughters. Stiebert uses the laws of Leviticus 18 which detail prohibited sexual relationships as a conversation partner. She explores how the perspectives of modern studies can shed light on incest. She also explores the story of Judah and Tamar and that of Ruth and Boaz. This chapter is in one way less good than the others: it ranges too widely away from the basic father–daughter incest discussion: the work on Judah–Tamar and Ruth–Boaz would have made a chapter by itself and the connection to father–daughter incest was never sufficiently made in my view.
Chapter 4 explores the metaphor of God as Father and his people as his daughter, looking principally at Eve, Wisdom, daughter Zion in Lamentations, Ezekiel 16. Stiebert attempts to take the heat out of the feminist debate on Ezekiel 16. This chapter is clearly explained and well written.
Overall Stiebert’s well-argued and cogent readings are probably best summarised as she herself puts it at the end of Chapter 1: ‘The situation, then, is neither as dire as Wöller depicts it, nor as rosy as Terrien argues, but rather more variegated’ (p. 71). In the Hebrew Bible whose texts are ‘androcentric’ (male centred, written by and for men) it is the father’s viewpoint we hear, she argues, but that viewpoint can be that daughters are valuable. Readers looking for a reasoned feminist exploration of this issue rather than a polemic will find this book very helpful.