Violence and Personhood in Ancient Israel and Comparative Contexts

Violence and Personhood in Ancient Israel and Comparative Contexts is the first book-length work on personhood in ancient Israel. T. M. Lemos reveals widespread intersections between violence and personhood in both this society and the wider region. Relations of domination and subordination were incredibly important to the culture and social organization of ancient Israel, with these relations often determining the boundaries of personhood itself. Personhood was malleable--it could be and was violently erased in many social contexts. This study exposes a violence-personhood-masculinity nexus in which domination allowed those in control to animalize and brutalize the bodies of subordinates. Lemos also argues that in particular social contexts in the contemporary "western" world, this same nexus operates, holding devastating consequences for marginalized social groups.

T. M. Lemos is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at Huron University College, University of Western Ontario. She received her A. B. in Judaic Studies from Brown University and her Ph.D. with distinction from Yale University in Religious Studies. Her publications include Marriage Gifts and Social Change in Ancient Palestine: 1200 BCE to 200 CE (Cambridge University Press, 2010).