Mystery of the House of Royal Women
Royal Pilagsim as Secondary Wives in the Old Testament
Studia Semitica Upsaliensia, No. 23

By Tal Davidovich
December 2007
Uppsala University
Distributed by
ISBN: 9789155468828
214 Pages
$67.50 Paper Original

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From the beginning of time women have had a place and taken active part in the life and development of humankind. In the OT there is some reflection of the different roles women played in familial and social life from the times of Eden until the revival of Israel as a nation.

Though men usually occupy the primary attention in the OT texts and are presented as the ones who "run the show", women are never totally forgotten. Women are mentioned throughout the OT. Even if not always acting, they are there. They appear in different texts parallel not only to men but also to other women.

The stories in which women play main roles in a certain household, also include women with other roles in the same household. Next to women who are wives and mistresses of the house, there are women who have secondary roles, though not necessarily secondary in their importance to the story of events. These women of secondary status serve as a kind of mirror to the "main women" in the text. They mostly stand in the background, but occasionally, under certain circumstances, they come forward. In a few cases these secondary women play the main role, as in the story of Hagar as it is told in Gen 21:12-21.

Partial Contents

1. Introduction
2. Review on Royal Secondary Women in the Ancient Near East & Egypt
3. Royal pilagsim as a Group
4. An Individual Royal pileges
5. Children of Royal pilagsim
6. Royal Women with Secondary Status
7. Chief of Concubines
8. Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Religious History
Old Testament Studies


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