RT Article
T1 Solving the gender problem in Leviticus 12: from Philo to feminism
JF Annali di storia dell'esegesi
VO 37
IS 2
SP 299
OP 319
A1 Whitear, Sarah
LA English
YR 2020
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1750183994
AB The Levitical postpartum purity laws have had great religious significance in both Jewish and Christian tradition, up to the present day. For more than two thousand years, people have asked why, in Lev 12, a new mother’s postpartum impurity is twice as long if she has a female baby. No hypothesis has achieved scholarly consensus. The first part of this article examines some of the various ways that the gender problem has been “solved,” looking at the use of physiological and social explanations, as well as feminist approaches. The second part of the article focuses on the idea, proposed by Martin Noth, that the imbalance is due to the “cultic inferiority” of women. By examining other gender divisions in the Priestly source within Lev 15 and in relation to animals, creation, and genealogies, it will be demonstrated that, to the Priestly author, women occupy a lesser status in the religious realm and that this indeed is the most likely reason behind the post parturient gender imbalance.