Late antiquity was a perilous time for children, who were often the first victims of economic crisis, war, and disease. They had a one in three chance of dying before their first birthday, with as many as half dying before age ten. Christian writers accordingly sought to speak to the experience of bereavement and to provide cultural scripts for parents who had lost a child. These late ancient writers turned to characters like Eve and Sarah, Job and Jephthah as models for grieving and for confronting or submitting to the divine.
Jephthah's Daughter, Sarah’s Son traces the stories these writers crafted and the ways in which they shaped the lived experience of familial bereavement in ancient Christianity. A compelling social history that conveys the emotional lives of people in the late ancient world, Jephthah's Daughter, Sarah's Son is a powerful portrait of mourning that extends beyond antiquity to the present day.
By:
Maria E. Doerfler
Imprint: University of California Press
Country of Publication: United States
Volume: 8
Dimensions:
Height: 210mm,
Width: 140mm,
Spine: 38mm
Weight: 635g
ISBN: 9780520304154
ISBN 10: 0520304152
Series: Christianity in Late Antiquity
Pages: 416
Publication Date: 02 January 2020
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Acknowledgments (Premature) Death as a Good: An Introduction 1. Children’s Deaths in Late Antiquity in Ritual and Historical Perspective 2. East of Eden: The First Bereaved Parents 3. Mourning Sarah’s Son: Genesis 22 and the Death of Children 4. Echoes of the Akedah: Jephthah’s Daughter and the Maccabeans’ Mother 5. Death, Demons, and Disaster: Job’s Children 6. Children and the Sword: The Holy Innocents and the Death of Children Conclusion: Children in the Quicksand Abbreviations Notes Bibliography Index
Maria E. Doerfler is Assistant Professor of Late Antiquity in Yale University’s Department of Religious Studies.
Reviews for Jephthah’s Daughter, Sarah’s Son: The Death of Children in Late Antiquity
Theologically astute yet ably interacting with gender theory and social history, this book will interest scholars of early Christianity and biblical interpretation. * CHOICE * This book is not only beautiful to hold and a pleasure to read, but also it has rare intellectual clarity and high scholarly relevance. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review * A powerful study. . . . This is a book that belongs on the bookshelf of all who study . . . late antiquity. * Church History and Religious Culture * Doerfler's outstanding merit is the use of a large and well-mastered corpus of sources. . . . This very well-written volume on the reception of selected biblical figures concerning the death of children will be worthwhile to students and experts in the fields of theology, religious sciences, classical literature, ancient history, Near Eastern studies, psychology, and social studies. * Reading Religion *
