Using Exodus 2 and other references to wet nurses in the Hebrew Bible as a springboard, this article examines the socio-historical conditions of free and enslaved wet nurses in antiquity through a cross-cultural investigation of Graeco-Roman and rabbinic legal and cultural texts. It then analyzes Exodus 2as an example of resistance literature during the Persian period to support anti-colonial resistance within the Jewish community in Yehud against Persian control. The wet nurse represents the resistance of the enslaved class to oppression and genocide.
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2.
Aly, A.Abou.1996." The Wet Nurse:A Study in Ancient Medicine and Greek Papyri." Vesalius2/2:86-97.
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Berquist, Jon L. 1996."Postcolonialism and Imperial Motives for Canonization."Semeia 75:15-35. 1995.Judaism in Persia’s Shadow: A Social and Historical Approach. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.
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Bradley, Keith R. 1986. "Wet-Nursing at Rome: A Study in Social Relations."Pp. 201-29in The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives, edited by B. Rawson. Ithaca, NY:Cornell University. 1980."Sexual Regulations in Wet-Nursing Contractfrom Roman Egypt."Klio: Beiträge zur alten Geschichte 62:321-25.
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Brenner, Athalya.1997. The Intercourse of Knowledge: On Gendering Sex and Desire in the Hebrew Bible. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill.
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Card, Claudia.1996."Rape As a Weapon of War."Hypatia11/4:5-18.
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Dandamaev, Muhammad A.1987."Free Hired Labor in Babylonia during the Sixth through Fourth Centuries BC."Pp. 271-79in Labor in the Ancient Near East, edited by M. A. Powell.American Oriental Series, Vol.68. NewHaven, CT: American Oriental Society.
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Fildes, Valerie.1988.Wet-Nursing: A History from Antiquity to the Present. Oxford, UK/New York, NY:Basil Blackwell.
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Giladi, Avner.1999.Infants, Parents and Wet Nurses: Medieval Islamic Views on Breastfeeding and Their Social Implications. Leiden , The Netherlands/Boston, MA/ Köln, Germany: Brill.
10.
Gordon, Pamela, & Harold C. Washington .1995."Rape as a Military Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible."Pp. 308-25in A Feminist Companion to the Latter Prophets, edited by Athalya Brenner.Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press.
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Gottwald, Norman K.1989."The Exodus As Event and Process:A Test Case in the Biblical Grounding of Liberation Theology."Pp. 250-60in The Future of Liberation Theology: Essays in Honor of Gustavo Gutiérrez, edited by Marc H. Ellis & Otto Maduro.Maryknoll, NY:Orbis Books .
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Gruber, Mayer I.2000."Isa 49:15,23,Nursing Mothers."Pp. 321-22 in Women in Scripture: A Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, and the New Testament, edited by Carol Meyers. Grand Rapids, MI:William B. Eerdmans.
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Harlow, Barbara.1987.Resistance Literature. New York, NY / London, UK:Methuen.
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Hezser, Catherine.2005. Jewish Slavery in Antiquity. Oxford , UK:Oxford University Press.
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Jacobs, Harriet.1987.Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Written by Herself (1861), edited by L. Maria Child & Jean Fagan Yellin.Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press.
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Jones, Jacqueline.1985.Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work and the Family, from Slavery to the Present. New York, NY: Vintage Books.
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Joshel, Sandra R.1986. "Nurturing the Master’s Child: Slavery and the Roman Child-Nurse."Signs12/1:3-22.
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Lefkowitz, Mary R., & Maureen B. Fant, eds. 2005. Women’s Life in Greece and Rome: A Source Book in Translation (3rd ed.).Baltimore, MD:Johns Hopkins University Press.
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Lloyd, Alan B.1992. "Egypt, History of: Persian Period (Dyn. 27-31)." ABD2:364-67.
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Loomba, Ania.1998.Colonialism/Post-Colonialism. New York, NY:Routledge.
21.
Maher, Vanessa.1992. The Anthropology of Breast-feeding: Natural Law or Social Construct. New York, NY:St. Martin’s Press. (Pp. 1-35: "Breast-Feeding in Cross-Cultural Perspective:Paradoxes and Proposals.")
22.
Preuss, Julius.1978. Biblical and Talmudic Medicine. New York, NY/London, UK: Sanhedrin Press.
23.
Reinhartz, Adele.2004."Ruth."Pp. 1578-85in The Jewish Study Bible. New York, NY:Oxford University Press.
24.
Ringgren, Helmer.1990."Yanaq."TDOT6:106-08.
25.
Satlow, Michael L.1995.Tasting the Dish: Rabbinic Rhetorics of Sexuality. Brown Judaic Studies303; Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press.
26.
Smith-Christopher, Daniel L.1996. "Resistance in a ‘Culture of Permission': Sociological Readings of the Correspondence with Persian Authorities in Ezra 1-7."Pp. 15-38in Truth’s Bright Embrace: Essays and Poems in Honor of Arthur O. Roberts, edited by Paul N. Anderson & Howard R. Macy.Newberg, OR: George Fox University Press.
27.
Stoler, Ann Laura.1991."Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power:Gender, Race, and Morality in Colonial Asia."Pp. 51-101in Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern Era, edited by Micaela di Leonardo.Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
28.
Tcherikover, Victor A., Alexander Fuks, and Menahem Stern, eds. 1960.Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum. Jerusalem, Israel/ Cambridge, MA:Magnes Press/Harvard University Press.
29.
Whedbee, J. William.1998. The Bible and the Comic Vision. Cambridge, UK/New York, NY:Cambridge University . (Pp. 129-71:"Liberation and Laughter:Exodus and Esther as Two Comedies of Deliverance.")
30.
White, Deborah G.1999. Ar’n’t I a woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South (Rev. ed.).New York, NY:Norton .
31.
Wolfe, Lisa Michele.2007."Deborah.1."New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible2:75.
