[image description: a blue square with brown banners reading “Gender Diversity Pre-Patriarchy: what Genesis 24 reveals” and Blessed Are the Binary Breakers, a multifaith podcast of trans stories.” In the middle of the square is an illustration of a person with light brown skin and long black hair carrying a water jug; to the side of this image is a quote reading “...Among them is Rebekah - who is described in the text’s original Hebrew not as a young woman, but as a young man.” / end id]
My latest podcast episode! Listen wherever you get your podcasts -- for a full list of where to listen as well as a link to the episode transcript, click here.
_________
Avery brings the story of Rebekah and her mother's household told in Genesis 24 into conversation with social anthropologists' understandings of the communal, cooperative societies that preceded the birth of patriarchal, patrilineal societies across the globe.
Ze draws from Leslie Feinberg's text Transgender Warriors to explore how the rise of patriarchy and class impacted ancient persons whom we might identify as trans or otherwise gender diverse -- including the biblical character Rebekah, whom the original Hebrew text identifies as a na'ar, a "young man."
Other texts from which this episode draws are Mx. Chris Paige's OtherWise Christian and Joy Ladin's The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective, as well as An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible by Gravett, Bohmbach, Greifenhagen, and Polaski.
