Violence and Personhood in Ancient Israel and Comparative Contexts

By: T. M. Lemos

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Synopsis: Violence and Personhood in Ancient Israel and Comparative Contexts is the first book-length work on personhood in ancient Israel. T. M. Lemos reveals widespread intersections between violence and personhood in both this society and the wider region. Relations of domination and subordination were incredibly important to the culture and social organization of ancient Israel often resulting in these relations becoming determined by the boundaries of personhood itself. Personhood was malleable—it could be and was violently erased in many social contexts. This study exposes a violence-personhood-masculinity nexus in which domination allowed those in control to animalize and brutalize the bodies of subordinates. Lemos argues that in particular social contexts in the contemporary "western" world, this same nexus operates, holding devastating consequences for particular social groups.