| dc.description.abstract | The expulsion of the ‘foreign’ women in Ezra 9-10 has significantly dominated scholarly discussions of this text, where the identity, bodies, sexuality, and religious practices of the women are analysed as issues that pertain to their roles as women, daughters, and wives. It is men, however, who are the primary actors in the text. It is men who initiate the marriage ties and are implicated in alliances by marriage; it is men’s ‘holy seed’ that is at stake; it is men’s possession of the land that is disputed. These debates, it is argued in this thesis, are better analysed as they pertain to men and the production of masculinities. Drawing on contributions from critical studies of masculinities this thesis interrogates men and masculinities in Ezra 9-10 as they are represented, constituted, performed, and embodied in the text. It attends to the ‘feminized’ masculinity of the peoples-of-the-lands, the unstable masculinity of the golah, Ezra’s performance of penitential masculinity, and the rehabilitation of divine masculinity. It explores the way in which the rejection of the marriages and the call for the expulsion of the women and children are rendered sites on which golah masculinities are produced, and power relations within the golah are articulated. This analysis sheds light on the ways in which traits and performances that are culturally ascribed to women, femininity and inferior masculinities are appropriated in the production of masculinities and power relations between men in Ezra 9-10. This thesis posits that the debate over intermarriage is not concerned with who the women are or what they have done; it is concerned with dissenting golah men, and with bringing their masculinities, bodies, and practices under ‘management’ of those who wield the Torah in the narrative world of the text. | en_GB |
