Mixed Marriages: Intermarriage and Group Identity in the Second Temple Period

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Intermarriage and group identity in the Second Temple Period will be investigated from different points of view with regard to methodology and analyzed texts. With an introduction to the history of research and a summarizing final section, the individual contributions will be associated with the larger context of the recent debate. Thus not only the diversity of texts on mixed marriage within the Hebrew Bible and related scripture will be shown and emphasized but the question of continuity and discontinuity as well as the socio-historical background of marriage restrictions will be dealt with, too. Covering a wide range of texts from almost every part of the Hebrew Bible as well as from Elephantine, Qumran and several pseudepigrapha, like Jubilees, its focus is on possible counter texts with a more positive notion of foreign wives, in addition to restrictive and prohibitive texts. These different approaches will illuminate the dynamics of the construction of group identity, culminating in conflicts concerning separation and integration which can be found in the debate on the topic of the "correct" marriage.

Author Bio

Christian Frevel is Professor of Old Testament Studies at the Ruhr-University of Bochum, member of the board of the German Society for the Exploration of Palestine, internal fellow of the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities "Dynamics in the History of Religions" and Co-editor of the series "Beitrge zur Wissenschaft des Alten und Neuen Testaments".