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From Eve to Esther: Rabbinic Reconstructs of Biblical Women (Gender & the Biblical Tradition)

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For the length of text this is, 186 pages, this text is packed with information about the interpretation of women characters in the Hebrew Bible in normative rabbinic Judaism. The book is structured around themes:

Modesty and Matrimony

Women and Torah Study

Women and Prayer

Daughters and Rapes

Harlots

Prophetesses

Key women from the Bible: Eve, Sarah, Rebeccah, Leah, Rachel, Rahab, Dinah, Tamar (both of them), Ruth, Deborah, Esther, Hannah, Hulda, and other unnamed women, such as Jephthah's daughter, are analyzed, first in their biblical context, then in the interpretations of them in the rabbinic tradition. The primary sources for the rabbinic tradition drawn upon, are Midrash Rabbah, Midrash Tanhuma, and Babylonian Talmud. Occasionally other sources are used as well, such as Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews, his monumental collection of Midrash, hellenistic sources outside the Jewish canon, like Philo and the aprocryphal Ben Sira.

The book is well footnoted. The citations are almost invariably to readily available English translations of the rabbinic materials.

The book is respectful of tradition and factual, rather than launching into polemic on the evils of patriarchy and setting out a revolutionary program to relegate traditional rabbinic Judaism to the dustbin of history in favor of a feminist revolutionary program. Instead, the information is presented in a way that allows the reader to come to their own conclusions.