CLASSICS 308 / JEWISH 432: Sex and Violence in the Ancient Near East (Fall 2025) : Commentaries
How to Find and Use Commentaries
What is a commentary?
A commentary is a type of scholarly work that analyzes a text line-by-line (or, in some cases, word-by-word). Commentaries exist for many types of texts, but the commentaries you will find in this guide are Biblical commentaries.
How can I find commentaries? Where are they located?
The library has many different Biblical commentaries that analyze the Bible from a wide variety of perspectives. This guide will list some commentaries that your professor has identified as being particularly useful for this class, but you are also welcome to seek out additional commentaries in the library's catalog. The easiest way to do this is by searching for books tagged with the subject heading "Bible -- Commentaries." You can click here to see all of the books with that subject heading. Most of the commentaries owned by the library will have this subject heading associated with them.
All Biblical commentaries will have call numbers that begin with BS491. This means that they will be located in the North Stacks of Floor 5 of Memorial Library. Click here to view a map of this floor of the library.
Some commentaries can also be accessed online. The sidebar of this page includes links to a few commentaries that you can access through the Libraries website (you may be required to log in with your NetID before accessing them).
Recommended Commentaries
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Women's Bible Commentary. Westminster John Knox Press, 2015.This work comprises commentaries on every book of the Bible, including the apocryphal books; essays on the reception history of women in the Bible; and essays on feminist critical method. The contributors raise important questions and explore the implications of how women and other marginalized people are portrayed in biblical texts, looking specifically at gender roles, sexuality, political power, and family life, while challenging long-held assumptions. (Description provided by the publisher.)
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Schottroff, Luise, et al. Feminist Biblical Interpretation: A Compendium of Critical Commentary on the Books of the Bible and Related Literature. Zaltbommel, Netherlands, Van Haren Publishing, 2012.With contributions from more than sixty female scholars, this is the only one-volume feminist commentary on the entire Bible, including books that are relatively uncharted territory for feminist theology. (Description provided by the publisher.)
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The Anchor Yale Bible (series)The Anchor Yale Bible Series, previously the Anchor Bible Series, is a renowned publishing program that for more than 50 years has produced books devoted to the latest scholarship on the Bible and biblical topics. (Description provided by the publisher.) This series includes not only commentaries but also a six-volume Biblical dictionary and a significant Reference Library.
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A Feminist Companion to the Bible (series)This series provides a fundamental resource for feminist biblical scholarship, containing a comprehensive selection of essays, both reprinted and specially written for the series, by leading feminist scholars. (Description provided by the publisher.) See the sidebar for a link to the online version of this resource.
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Hermeneia (series)Hermeneia is designed to be a critical and historical commentary to the Bible without arbitrary limits in size or scope. It utilizes the full range of philological and historical tools, including textual criticism (often slighted in modern commentaries), the methods of the history of tradition (including genre and prosodic analysis), and the history of religion. (Description provided by the publisher.) See the sidebar for a link to the online version of this resource.
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Word Biblical Commentary (series)This series emphasizes a thorough analysis of textual, linguistic, structural, and theological evidence. The result is judicious and balanced insight into the meanings of the text in the framework of biblical theology. (Description provided by the publisher.)
Online Commentaries
While most Biblical commentaries relevant to this class are only available in print form, the two below can be accessed online.
- A Feminist Companion to the Bible (series): This series provides a fundamental resource for feminist biblical scholarship, containing a comprehensive selection of essays, both reprinted and specially written for the series, by leading feminist scholars. (Description provided by the publisher.) Note that physical volumes of this work are also available for checkout.
- Hermeneia (series): Hermeneia is designed to be a critical and historical commentary to the Bible without arbitrary limits in size or scope. It utilizes the full range of philological and historical tools, including textual criticism (often slighted in modern commentaries), the methods of the history of tradition (including genre and prosodic analysis), and the history of religion. (Description provided by the publisher.) Note that some volumes of this work are only available in print format. You can view all the library records for all books in this series (including ones that are not available online) on this page.