Student Projects - Religious Studies

Project Name

The Gender-Specific Language of the Major Prophets of The Hebrew Bible: The Case of First and Second Isaiah

Project Description

Prophecy was one of the most important institutions in the Hebrew Bible. The prophet is regarded as the voice of the Lord, reminding the people of God’s commandments when they forget to follow the Law. This project takes a special look at how gendered imagery appears in the Book of Isaiah, a prophetic book that spans the longest period of time and is thought to have been edited during the postexilic period.

Gendered imagery in the Book of Isaiah is compared with gendered imagery from surrounding Near Eastern peoples and other biblical writings. These images include vivid rape imagery. Cities, personified as women, suffer terrible violation and humiliation during military invasion. These images take on great detail in the writings of Second Isaiah (Isa 40-55) and serve to explain military defeat in theological terms. This project has also compared the imagery in Isaiah with other instances of gendered language in other prophetic writings, like Hosea and Jeremiah. Rhetorically, such images generate horror in the audience and urge the audience to reform its ways.

Of particular interest in this study is the metaphor of the birthing woman and its appearance in the literature of this time period. The laboring woman is a compared to warriors who struggle in life and death situations on the battlefield. The imagery of birthing does not point to the weakness or cowardice of a woman or man, but the imminent life-threatening event. The particular image of the birthing woman comes to be transformed in later apocalyptic contexts in more positive ways.

Project Outcomes

2009, Department Research Award in Religious Studies, Fairfield University ($1,000)

Iulia O. Basu, "The Harlot and the Mother: Gendered Metaphors in First and Second Isaiah." Published in the Journal of Theta Alpha Kappa 35.1 (2011): 22-50.