Background
Olyan, Saul Mitchell was born on February 2, 1959 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Son of Sidney David and Eve (Eisenberg) Olyan.
(Mental and physical disability, ubiquitous in texts of th...)
Mental and physical disability, ubiquitous in texts of the Hebrew Bible, receive their first thoroughgoing treatment in this monograph. Olyan seeks to reconstruct the Hebrew Bible's particular ideas of what is disabling and their potential social ramifications. Biblical representations of disability and biblical classification schemas - both explicit and implicit - are compared to those of the Hebrew Bible's larger ancient West Asian cultural context, and to those of the later Jewish biblical interpreters who produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. This study will help the reader gain a deeper and more subtle understanding of the ways in which biblical writers constructed hierarchically significant difference and privileged certain groups (e.g., persons with "whole" bodies) over others (e.g., persons with physical "defects"). It also explores how ancient interpreters of the Hebrew Bible such as the Qumran sectarians reproduced and reconfigured earlier biblical notions of disability and earlier classification models for their own contexts and ends.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521888077/?tag=2022091-20
(A comprehensive analysis of the ritual dimensions of bibl...)
A comprehensive analysis of the ritual dimensions of biblical mourning rites, this book also seeks to illuminate mourning's social dimensions through engagement with anthropological discussion of mourning, from Hertz and van Gennep to contemporaries such as Metcalf and Huntington and Bloch and Parry.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0199264864/?tag=2022091-20
( Good and evil, clean and unclean, rich and poor, self a...)
Good and evil, clean and unclean, rich and poor, self and other. The nature and function of such binary oppositions have long intrigued scholars in such fields as philosophy, linguistics, classics, and anthropology. From the opening chapters of Genesis, in which God separates day from night, and Adam and Eve partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, dyadic pairs proliferate throughout the Hebrew Bible. In this groundbreaking work melding critical exegesis and contemporary theory, Saul M. Olyan considers the prevalence of polarities in biblical discourse and expounds their significance for the social and religious institutions of ancient Israel. Extant biblical narrative and legal texts reveal a set of socially constructed and culturally privileged binary oppositions, Olyan argues, which instigate and perpetuate hierarchical social relations in ritual settings such as the sanctuary. Focusing on four binary pairs--holy/common, Israelite/alien, clean/unclean, and whole/blemished--Olyan shows how these privileged oppositions were used to restrict access to cultic spaces, such as the temple or the Passover table. These ritual sites, therefore, became the primary contexts for creating and recreating unequal social relations. Olyan also uncovers a pattern of challenge to the established hierarchies by nonprivileged groups. Converging with contemporary issues of power, marginalization, and privileging, Olyan's painstaking yet lucid study abounds with implications for anthropology, classics, critical theory, and feminist studies.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691029482/?tag=2022091-20
(Mental and physical disability, ubiquitous in texts of th...)
Mental and physical disability, ubiquitous in texts of the Hebrew Bible, receive their first thoroughgoing treatment in this monograph. Olyan seeks to reconstruct the Hebrew Bible's particular ideas of what is disabling and their potential social ramifications. Biblical representations of disability and biblical classification schemas - both explicit and implicit - are compared to those of the Hebrew Bible's larger ancient West Asian cultural context, and to those of the later Jewish biblical interpreters who produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. This study will help the reader gain a deeper and more subtle understanding of the ways in which biblical writers constructed hierarchically significant difference and privileged certain groups (e.g., persons with "whole" bodies) over others (e.g., persons with physical "defects"). It also explores how ancient interpreters of the Hebrew Bible such as the Qumran sectarians reproduced and reconfigured earlier biblical notions of disability and earlier classification models for their own contexts and ends.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1107404983/?tag=2022091-20
Olyan, Saul Mitchell was born on February 2, 1959 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Son of Sidney David and Eve (Eisenberg) Olyan.
Bachelor, York University, Toronto, Ontario, 1981. AM, Harvard University, 1984. Doctor of Philosophy, Harvard University, 1985.
Assistant professor University Winnipeg, 1985-1987, Yale University, New Haven, 1987-1992, Brown University, Providence, 1992-1994, associate professor, 1994-2000, professor, 2000—2006, Samuel Ungerleider Junior professor Judaic studies, since 2006. Member editorial board Journal Hebrew Sculptures, since 2007, Yale Anchor Bible Series, since 2008. Member advisory board Blackwell Encyclopedia Ancient History, since 2009.
(A comprehensive analysis of the ritual dimensions of bibl...)
(Mental and physical disability, ubiquitous in texts of th...)
(Mental and physical disability, ubiquitous in texts of th...)
( Good and evil, clean and unclean, rich and poor, self a...)
(Book by Olyan, Saul M.)
Member Society Biblical Literature (council 1999—2002), American History Association, European Association Biblical Studies.
Life partner Frederik Schockaert.