Nameless, Blameless, and Without Shame : Two Cannibal Mothers Before a King

by Hens-Piazza, Gina

• ISBN13: 9780814659618
• ISBN10: 0814659616
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-07-01
• Publisher: Liturgical Pr
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Summary

Employing three venues of literary analysis (conventional literary criticism, new literary criticism, and postmodern literary criticism), this book conducts a character study of the two cannibal mothers before a king (2 Kings 6:24-33). Training our attention upon these minor characters yields major insights. In particular, the postmodern literary assessment discloses the violence encoded in texts by the privileging of the powerful and the empowering of the privileged. Moreover, the broader ties that such a character study yields connect these cannibal mothers to portraits of other pairs of biblical mothers and their plight (the two mothers before Solomon, Sarah and Hagar, Rachel and Leah) and prompt us to search for counter-stories in the biblical tradition and in our own lives opposing the violence embedded there. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Gina Hens-Piazza is an associate professor of biblical studies at the Jesuit School of Theology at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	xiii
Part I
Building Character	3	(22)
A Story Within Stories	25	(22)
Literary Criticism and the Tale of Two Cannibal Mothers	47	(30)
Part II
A Postmodern Literary Study of Two Cannibal Mothers Before a King	77	(18)
Stories Speak of Other Stories	95	(22)
Character, Counter Texts, and Conclusion	117	(18)
Bibliography	135