This volume, edited by biblical scholars Dolansky and Shectman, is a new addition to the ever-growing corpus of scholarship emerging in the last decade on ancient Near Eastern studies and gender and sexuality analysis. Noting the impact of earlier collections that are largely Assyriological (such as those produced from the Gender, Methodology and the Ancient Near East workshops) and the lack of such collections in biblical scholarship, this handbook aims to expand the field of investigation beyond the Hebrew Bible, tracing the development and intersection of gender, sexuality and religion as they were mutually constructed across the ancient Near East and early Judaism. Following their 2019 collection of essays in the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, and having pioneered the term ‘gendered historiography’, the editors aim to utilise and elevate new critical approaches to religion, gender and sexuality that prioritise the emic world views of ancient peoples, acknowledging the anachronistic risk of our modern assumptions on these categories. Beyond the expected critical approach to defining gender and sexuality, by bringing religion into the gender-sexuality mix, readers can recognise how religious world views have shaped and influenced the embodiment of sexuality and the construction of gender, and ‘understand religion as an active and dynamic lived and embodied reality’ (p. 10).

Resisting the structure of a traditional handbook, this volume offers a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary selection of topics and issues in the field, presented as ‘case studies’, with contributions from both established and early career scholars. The eighteen chapters are divided into three parts: ‘Gender Roles and Attributions’, ‘Ritual and Body’ and ‘Violence and Power’. These divisions are not meant to be prescriptive, as many of the chapters occupy the themes of two or all categories. Each section begins with a discussion by the editors to guide readers. While such a format has its disadvantages, namely that it sacrifices ensuring a breadth in subjects, this reviewer praises the aims of the editors and welcomes all challenges to traditional formats.

‘Gender Roles and Attributions’ is largely focused on sexuality but also introduces the reader to several important subjects in ancient Near Eastern gender studies. It begins with a historiographical review of the reception of Ištar, in modern biblical and Assyriological academic and popular cultures, and her association with fertility (S.L. Budin). While the discussion largely consists of lengthy quotes, has limited engagement with the primary evidence and may lead readers to think mistakenly that the goddess’s association with fertility is based on hallucination, the chapter succeeds in starting the volume with a critical perspective. N. Cohen’s chapter investigates biblical and Mesopotamian textual evidence for the rights of wives to sex from their husbands. He uncovers the shared origins of this discourse in both cultural contexts as a legal-pedagogical genre, in which the didactic texts of Mesopotamian law codes and the Bible were connected to the gendered culture of the schoolhouse. J. Töyräänvuori’s chapter discusses the Ugaritic pantheon and the evidence of their sexualities in mythic and epic texts. While largely descriptive, the profiles of each of the main gods provide useful summaries. The fourth chapter on the assinnu (O. N’Shea) presents a thorough introduction to the ancient figure, reviewing the sources and gendered approaches in scholarship, tackling the complex and fraught nature of the topic. The epistemological questions concerning the ‘gender bending’ cultic practitioner of Ištar, the challenges this presents to scholarly methods of understanding them (there is even a section on pronouns), and etymological debates are evaluated. Lastly, D. Erbele-Küster’s exciting chapter analyses the overlap of food, fertility, gender and sexuality – particularly the intersection of human and agricultural fertility – across three genres and literary sources: the creation myth in Genesis, love lyrics in the Song of Songs and the narrative book Ruth.

The second section, ‘Ritual and Body’, begins with two chapters on priestly masculinity in ordination rituals by A. Marili and J. Stökl. Masculinity studies is a growing field in ancient world studies, and these pieces are a welcome contribution. Marili’s chapter analyses the silent rituals performed by priests in the Tabernacle, with a focus on the active/passive body in the ordination ceremony described in Leviticus 8. Similarly, Stökl considers several first-millennium ancient Near Eastern texts on the ordination of priesthood as well as administrative and ritual texts to investigate the construction of hegemonic masculinity. The eighth chapter by C. Debourse revises, updates and redevelops the scholarly discussion on women in cultic functions in Late Achaemenid and Hellenistic Babylon. This study reveals how women came to form a prominent and integral part of temple worship in this period, with new positions created for women, convincingly arguing that foreign rule caused social change and influenced gender roles. More closely returning to the theme of the body, G. Zisa’s chapter draws on his authoritative studies on the Mesopotamian therapies for the recovery of sexual desire, known as šà-zi-ga in Sumerian or nīš libbi in Akkadian. Chapter 10 centres the female body to explore bathing rituals undertaken by women evidenced in ancient Jewish texts and archaeological evidence (J. Scales and L. Quick), developing the understanding of the shifting purposes and practices of these rituals, and the lived experiences of ancient Jewish women. A. Brownridge’s chapter investigates the rhetorical function of the pregnancy metaphor in a portion of the Hodayot poems, arguing that the metaphor expressed a boundary between the sectarian Yahad community and the outside world. The final chapter in this part explores varying conceptions and expressions of the divine body, dress and gender performance (S. Cook). Before investigating the biblical sources, it situates the reader in the ancient Near East with a discussion on Mesopotamian concepts of the divine body.

The third part, ‘Violence and Power’, analyses how both men and women experience power as it is upheld through violence, with the first two chapters considering sexual violence. C. Syfox argues that the Rape of Dinah described in Gensis 34 and rewritten in Jubilees 30 had a different historical-cultural register for biblical and para-biblical authors, namely that her rape symbolised the violation of the Israelite construction of normative sexuality. J. Lehmann elevates the Genesis 39 story of Joseph’s enslavement by the Egyptian Potiphar, and his victimhood of sexual harassment and attempted sexual assault by his master’s wife, a story that has been dismissed by some scholars as holding no weight. This chapter as well as the following two address the theme of beauty, and how this impacts the way in which biblical characters experience gendered power. A.K. de Hemmer Gudme’s chapter analyses three examples of beautiful men and women in biblical texts, arguing that this is more complex than a simple dichotomy of powerful men and vulnerable women. After a discussion of the relationship between beauty and Hebrew Bible configurations of hegemonic masculinity and femininity, she uses the case studies of Psalm 45, Genesis 12 and the Jacob Cycle to expose the inconsistencies of the beauty–power–gender relationship as well as its recurrent themes. C. Palmer’s chapter explores beautiful biblical women as purveyors of Israelite tradition through the lens of femininities theory, analysing the descriptors of their beauty as serving a physiognomic function. Her discussion follows five biblical women who are identified as beautiful but display non-normative behaviours, compellingly articulating how the marker of beauty is used to contain women. The chapter by R.G. Glass presents a comparison of the Book of the Watchers and Aseneth, two Second Temple Jewish stories about accessing heavenly knowledge, arguing that ancient social norms contribute to where and how each character accesses heavenly knowledge, once again bringing together the themes of gender, power, hegemony and beauty. The final chapter by K.J. Murphy returns to the subject of masculinities to discuss priestly power in an examination of priestly underwear in Exodus 28 and the death of Aaron’s priestly sons in Leviticus 10. This study leaves readers with the important reminder of how masculinities are bound by their historical and cultural contexts and are therefore continuously constructed and reconstructed.

A core theme of the volume is how sociopolitical circumstances can impact cultural constructions of gender and sexuality. Across the chapters readers are able to draw clear connections between the cultures and histories described as well as the differences in their concepts of gender, sexuality and religion. Importantly, the authors repeatedly remind readers that these concepts are created through political and social conditions, and that cultural practices work to construct, negotiate and perpetuate hegemonic gender relations. The use of gender and sexuality in identity construction is also a recurring motif, and critical revisions of the ancient sources serve to highlight how gender, sexuality, class and ethnic status intersect.

The editors must be commended for bringing together a diversity of biblical and broader ancient Near Eastern scholars so that non-specialists and scholars alike can take advantage of their shared interests and historical contexts. The volume reminds readers of the broader Mesopotamian origins of much of the literary and cultural phenomena found in biblical texts, with many of the chapters offering analysis demonstrating that cuneiform comparisons bring new meanings to biblical texts. Equally, it highlights the relevance of the methodological approaches used in biblical studies to Assyriologists.

The combination of both established and emerging scholars across biblical and broader ancient Near Eastern scholarship leads to an exciting new edition for all interested readers. The ambitious volume succeeds in providing readers with a thorough overview as well as new critical understandings of some of the most important themes and subjects concerning gender, sexuality and religion in ancient Near Eastern studies. Many of the chapters demonstrate the use of numerous theoretical approaches to understanding sexuality as a cultural phenomenon, including gender and performance theory and speech-act theory. The thorough discussions of emerging fields such as masculinities and femininities studies are particularly valuable. Crucially, for both seasoned and emerging scholars alike, the volume repeatedly reminds readers that even gender-theoretical approaches with the best intentions risk anachronism and distortion of the ancient past.