A Mother Gets Custody: The Legal Background to Genesis 21:14-21
This article adopts a law and literature approach toward Genesis 21:14-21, focused on the legal themes within the narrative and how these themes shape the story. Genesis 21:14-21 records the expulsion of Hagar and her son from Abraham’s home. I identify multiple legal idioms and terms within this un...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2024
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| In: |
Biblical interpretation
Year: 2024, Volume: 32, Issue: 4, Pages: 341-356 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Bible. Genesis 21
/ Hagar, Biblical person
/ Parental care
/ Motherhood
/ Literature
/ Law
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| IxTheo Classification: | HB Old Testament |
| Further subjects: | B
Law and literature
B biblical and cuneiform law B Child custody B Genesis B Motherhood B Hagar |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article adopts a law and literature approach toward Genesis 21:14-21, focused on the legal themes within the narrative and how these themes shape the story. Genesis 21:14-21 records the expulsion of Hagar and her son from Abraham’s home. I identify multiple legal idioms and terms within this unit and argue that the narrative uses legal terminology in order to depict the child’s expulsion specifically as a transfer of custody from his father to his mother. In her marginalization from Abraham’s home, Hagar also gains legal rights, and this article examines these shifts in power from a law and literature perspective in order to interrogate Hagar’s parental rights within the biblical text and to demonstrate how they function within the ancestral narrative as a means of formalizing the rupture in Abraham’s household. |
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| ISSN: | 1568-5152 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Biblical interpretation
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15685152-20241844 |