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GAIL CORRINGTON STREETE, The Strange Woman: Power and Sex in the Bible (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997). Pp. x + 219. Paper $19.
The classification of sexual behavior is one of the most significant indicators of a society's self-understanding. Even a casual reading of the Bible will reveal that the society depicted there is not only patriarchal in structure but also androcentric in perspective. The particular aspect of this perspective to which Streete directs her attention is the complex of sexual designations for women. She is interested in what they say about women's place in the biblical societies and how this continues to have an impact on our own political and religious understandings. She claims that the language and imagery found within the biblical record show that the characterizations of women all implied some form of male control of female sexual behavior. When the woman's sexual behavior was under control, she was considered virtuous; she was a credit to the man. When, for any reason, her sexual conduct was not under the control of a man, she was vilified and deemed dangerous to the stability of the society. S. articulates two fundamental concerns: (1) that...