Knowledge, Control and Sex: Studies in Biblical Thought, Culture and Worldview.

• Author: Zevit, Ziony
• Position: Reviews of Books - Book Review

Knowledge, Control and Sex: Studies in Biblical Thought, Culture and Worldview. By MEIR MALUL. Tel Aviv: ARCHAEOLOGICAL CENTER PUBLICATIONS, 2002. Pp. xi + 582. $90.

Knowledge, Control and Sex is a vast, ambitious, complex, and challenging book. Although intended for biblicists of linguistic bent and anthropologists, Assyriologists and other students of the ancient Near East will find all or parts of it of interest.

The author's stated objective is to describe the major postulates of the Bible's epistemology through a consideration of case studies, semantic analysis, and biblical narratives within a framework of anthropological theory. Malul, best known for his Studies in Mesopotamian Legal Symbolism (1988) and The Comparative Method in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Legal Studies (1990), provides a brief introduction to the book (pp. 1-17) as well as an extensive introductory chapter, "Approach and Methodology" (pp. 19-93). There follow ten chapters in which various types of data are evaluated within different paradigms. These chapters are divided into three parts, each of which is provided with a brief introduction. Part one, Knowledge, Control and Sex: The Evidence, contains chapters treating "Presentation of the Evidence," "Cognitive Knowledge: The Epistemic Process," "Sensory Knowledge: Legal Control," and "Carnal Knowledge." Part two, The Idea of Knowledge: The Interpretation, treats "Cognitive and Sensory Knowledge: Controlling the Unknown," "Carnal Knowledge: Controlling the Unknown in Woman," and "The Status of Woman." Part three, Related Institutions, treats "Purity and Impurity: Bodily Discharges," and "Circumcision." The final section, part four, Summary, presents a chapter called "Some General Postulates of Biblical Epistemology" (pp. 417-88), and two appendixes. A fifth part contains a list of abbreviations, bibliography, and indexes of sources, terms, subjects, and authors.

This hefty, oversize volume is printed clearly on glossy paper with wide margins that make for easy reading. Characteristically, any group of pages will have an above-the-line discussion that carries forward the chapter's arguments; extensive, embedded comments on aspects of the presented material that are indented and set in footnote-size type; and below-the-line footnotes. Even footnotes, which contain comments on the text, running discussions, and sometimes blocks of analysis that could have been published independently, are quite legible. Malul...