To be human means to resist dehumanization. In the darkest periods of human history, men and women have risen up and in many different voices said this one thing: "Do not treat me like this. Treat me like the human being that I am." Claiming Her Dignity explores a number of stories from the Old Testament in which women in a variety of creative ways resist the violence of war, rape, heterarchy, and poverty. Amid the life-denying circumstances that seek to attack, violate, and destroy the bodies and psyches of women, men, and children, the women featured in this book absolutely refuse to succumb to the explicit, and at times subtle but no less harmful, manifestations of violence that they face.
"This is a superb resource for those seeking to engage oppression, precarity, and trauma in biblical texts and in contemporary communities. Using the stories of Jephthah's daughter, Abigail, Ruth, Susannah, and more, Claassens highlights women's creativity and resilience in situations of systemic inequity and interpersonal brutality. Sophisticated gender analysis is combined here with unflinching
The Rev. Dr. Carolyn J. Sharp, Professor of Hebrew Scriptures, Yale Divinity School
"In this volume Juliana Claassens has once again applied her careful exegetical eye and her deep theological insight to texts that illumine the experience and witness of women in the Old Testament. The result in every chapter in this collection brings voices and stories of women, usually confined to the margins of biblical interpretation, into our consciousness with fresh perspectives that enrich
Bruce C. Birch, Dean Emeritus and Professor Emeritus, Wesley Theological Seminary
"A tour de force of exegesis, pastoral application, use of literary and sociological theory, Claiming Her Dignity takes its place as both a worthy descendant of Trible's Texts of Terror and the opening of new avenues for feminist, womanist, and postcolonial readings of the Hebrew Bible. Claassens retrieves and animates a powerful but overlooked biblical ethic of resistance that exposes our ideolog
