What was God thinking when He ENGENDERED or created male and female? What does that have to do with gender roles? And is that purpose still relevant today? Patsy Cameneti boldly explores God's thoughts and creative intention for humankind. Stripping away cultural and traditional thinking, she examines raw truths from God's Word about gender, sexuality, marriage, and family that deliver practical insights into your everyday life. ENGENDERED doesn't shy away from topics of the day and brings God's perspective to subjects like these: How to enjoy marriage as God designed it What God thinks about sex Sexuality and gender clarity Parenting God's way Reflecting God's image through gender roles As you discover God's original purpose and design for these areas, you'll be enlightened and empowered to live the life God ENGENDERED for you from the beginning.

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award for 1998. How can women's full participation transform Jewish law, prayer, sexuality, and marriage? What does it mean to "engender" Jewish tradition? Pioneering theologian Rachel Adler gives this timely and powerful question its first thorough study in a book that bristles with humor, passion, intelligence, and deep knowledge of traditional biblical and rabbinic texts.

The egotism that fuels the desire for greatness has been associated exclusively with men, according to one feminist view; yet many women cannot suppress the need to strive for greatness. In this forceful and compelling book, Alison Booth traces through the novels, essays, and other writings of George Eliot and Virginia Woolf radically conflicting attitudes on the part of each toward the possibility of feminine greatness. Examining the achievements of Eliot and Woolf in their social contexts, she provides a challenging model of feminist historical criticism.

How do survivors of sexual and domestic violence relate to religion and to a higher power? What are the social and religious contexts that sustain and encourage eating disorders in women? How do these issues intersect? The relationship between Christian religious discourse, incest, and eating disorders reveals an important, and so far unexamined, psychosocial phenomenon. Drawing from interviews with incest survivors whose sexual and religious backgrounds are intimately connected with their problematic relationship with food, Jennifer Manlowe here illuminates the connections between female body, weight, and appetite preoccupations. Manlowe offers social and psychological insights into the most common forms of female suffering—incest and body hatred. The volume is intended as a resource for professionals, advocates, friends of survivors, and most importantly, the survivor of incest herself as she attempts to understand the links of meaning in her mind between her incest experience and her subsequent eating disorder.

Learning How to Die Can Teach Us How to Live All of the world's religions refer to death in some way. Everyone is somewhat familiar with stories about where we go or what happens to us after death. From an early age, we have all heard stories of heaven or hell or some other version of paradise. Many of us believed such stories, and a great number of us still do. When considering that such stories manage to persist in modern times, an age of science and logic, we can be sure that death is an issue to which humans attach great importance. In a sense, the idea of an afterlife can be a great source of comfort to those whose death is imminent, as well as to their loved ones. Those who have led especially difficult lives can look forward to a more pleasant world, while those who have enjoyed happiness and abundance have the chance to experience more good fortune. To those left behind, the idea of an afterlife presents the chance to meet a loved one again. We may not be conscious of it, but such hopes and expectations stay with us throughout our lives. If such an afterlife does exist, then there is no reason to avoid or fear death. Moreover, if we believe that another life awaits us, then we would believe that we are only separated from our loved ones temporarily before being reunited with them later on.

The philosophy of the blues From B.B. King to Billie Holiday, Blues music not only sounds good, but has an almost universal appeal in its reflection of the trials and tribulations of everyday life. Its ability to powerfully touch on a range of social and emotional issues is philosophically inspiring, and here, a diverse range of thinkers and musicians offer illuminating essays that make important connections between the human condition and the Blues that will appeal to music lovers and philosophers alike.

In the long tradition of the archaeology of the eastern Mediterranean bodies have held a prominent role in the form of figurines, frescos, or skeletal remains, and have even been responsible for sparking captivating portrayals of the Mother-Goddess cult, the elegant women of Minoan Crete or the deeds of heroic men. Growing literature on the archaeology and anthropology of the body has raised awareness about the dynamic and multifaceted role of the body in experiencing the world and in the construction, performance and negotiation of social identity. In these 28 thematically arranged papers, specialists in the archaeology of the eastern Mediterranean confront the perceived invisibility of past bodies and ask new research questions. Contributors discuss new and old evidence; they examine how bodies intersect with the material world, and explore the role of body-situated experiences in creating distinct social and other identities. Papers range chronologically from the Palaeolithic to the Early Iron Age and cover the geographical regions of the Aegean, Cyprus and the Near East. They highlight the new possibilities that emerge for the interpretation of the prehistoric eastern Mediterranean through a combined use of body-focused methodological and theoretical perspectives that are nevertheless grounded in the archaeological record.