Give Me Children Or I Shall Die: Children and Communal Survival in Biblical Literature

· Fortress Press
Ebook
224
Pages

About this ebook

In the subsistence agricultural social context of the Hebrew Bible, children were necessary for communal survival. In such an economy, children's labor contributes to the family's livelihood from a young age, rather than simply preparing the child for future adult work. Ethnographic research shows that this interdependent family life contrasts significantly with that of privileged modern Westerners, for whom children are dependents. This text seeks to look beyond the dominant cultural constructions of childhood in the modern West and the moral rhetoric that accompanies them so as to uncover what biblical texts intend to communicate when they utilize children as literary tropes in their own social, cultural, and historical context.

Discover more

About the author

Laurel W. Koepf-Taylor is assistant professor of Old Testament at Eden Theological Seminary. This is a revision of her dissertation, completed under the direction of David M. Carr at Union Theological Seminary.

Rate this ebook

Tell us what you think.

Reading information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.