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ILONA N. RASHKOW, Taboo or Not Taboo: Sexuality and Family in the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999). Pp. x + 195. Paper $22.
Continuing in the same vein as her previous work, The Phallacy of Genesis: A Feminist-Psychoanalytic Approach (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1993), Rashkow has written an accessible and thought-provoking psychoanalytic account of kinship in the Hebrew Bible, with a focus on the many troubling familial (e.g., God[Yhwh as father figure) interactions reported in the books of Genesis and Exodus. R.'s primary goal is to read "biblical narratives while reading the works of psychoanalysts" (p. 159), chiefly Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. This approach is subsumed within two larger methodological arenas: reader-response and feminist criticism. R. goes to some lengths to write for the nonspecialist. In this she is more or less successful. She avoids technical language and explains Hebrew grammatical and syntactical structure in some detail when that is necessary for including the lay reader in her conversation. The book reads very...