ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the various ways that women appear in literature. It also provides practice methods of literary analysis and explores the possibility of female authorship. Fictional literature, that is literature that is not writing about historical events in order to record them for future reference, tells a narrative that never happened. Marginalized groups tend not to be protagonists in literary works, so sometimes it is what is left unsaid and that which remains implied that gives people the most insight into their lived experiences. A closer examination of the Testament of Judah reveals that it emphasizes three evils: exogamy, drunkenness, and lust, all of which relate directly to women. Throughout the Bible and the ancient world more generally, cities and sometimes nations were imagined as female. The prophetic texts of the Hebrew Bible often personified Israel as female, and compared the relationship between Israel and Yahweh to that of a wife and husband.
