“Like the eunuch who does not beget”: Gender, Mutilation, and Negotiated Status in the Ancient Near East

Human Reproduction and Infertility in the Hebrew Bible

“…It provides key insights into how textual representations of disability may reflect cultural values (Mitchell and Snyder 2000). Lemos (2011), for example, analyzes the social disablement experienced by those with crushed testicles, recognizing the multiple identities that eunuchs could inhabit as people with status as well as people prohibited from certain spaces. Additionally, as will be illustrated below, disability studies is particularly applied to representations of female infertility (e.g., Baden 2011; Moss and Baden 2015).…”

Priestly Disability and Centralization of the Cult in the Holiness Code

“…Nevertheless, the presentation of disability in the Mesopotamian texts is multifaceted, and the stigmatization of the disabled existed in Mesopotamia (Lemos, 2011: 58). As in some Mesopotamian texts, disability does not disqualify a priest from all meaningful activities, although it is “recognized as deviating from the norm” (Walls, 2007: 30).…”

“…Although disability is a stigma that marginalizes the disabled priests to a certain degree, it is by no means the only or the most critical aspect that determines their position in society. Lemos (2011: 54) correctly points out that status in ancient Israelite society “was not in fact determined merely by one set of oppositions—whole versus blemished. There were other status oppositions and status hierarchies that came into play and could either mitigate or exacerbate the impact of this or another opposition.” The normate image, including in H’s discourse, is a complex notion because identity is not constructed from a single element but from a combination of elements.…”

“…There were other status oppositions and status hierarchies that came into play and could either mitigate or exacerbate the impact of this or another opposition.” The normate image, including in H’s discourse, is a complex notion because identity is not constructed from a single element but from a combination of elements. Lemos (2011: 55) describes this complexity as follows: Identity, then, is not unitary but multiple, and status is not based upon simple binaries, but is highly complex and situational…. Any given individual has a multiplicity of identities, statuses, and roles because every society, and particularly highly stratified ones, comprises not one but various social groups, which perpetuate not one but various discourses.…”

“…21.16–23 paradoxically underscores not only the superiority of the officiating priests and the high priest but also that of the disabled priests over the rest of the people in the sociocultic hierarchy. It is in this sense that “sometimes the mutilated and disabled had a higher status than those whose bodies were normative and idealized” (Lemos, 2011: 59).…”