Saul M. Olyan, Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical Differences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), xii + 188 Pps., $80.00.
Being a certifiably disabled man myself, I take great interest in the apparent rejuvenation that ‘disability studies’ has seen in the recent decade. Heretofore, there has been no exploration of the social dimensions of biblical representations of disability. Moreover, thus far there have been no comparisons between biblical notions of disability and those of other ancient West Asian literatures. Saul M. Olyan fills that lacuna with the seven chapters of this book, however. Olyan is Samuel Ungerleider Jr. Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies at Brown University. His previous publications include: Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions (2004), Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (2000), A Thousand Thousands Served Him: Exegesis and the Naming of Angels in Ancient Judaism (1993), and Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel (1988). He has also contributed to, and served as editor of, various journals and publications in the areas of biblical literature and ancient religions.
In this title, Olyan seeks to reconstruct the Hebrew Bible’s ideas of mental and physical disability and their social ramifications (1). He also studies how the ancient Jewish interpreters of the texts perpetuate biblical ideas of disability and biblical models of classification. He notes that whereas the Hebrew bible has no exact equivalent to ‘disability’, it does categorize people on the bases of physical and mental conditions, appearances, vulnerabilities, and diseases. However, he lumps these classifications under the modern term ‘disability’ within this title, because it gives us a better and more subtle understanding of the ways that biblical writers construct hierarchically significant difference and privilege, thereby impacting the individuals’ social value. He notes that the terming of ‘disability/ies’ is inherently socially constructed in any context, rather than being something of a timeless nature. In view of such, he defines ‘disability’ broadly, which enables him to look at the entire gamut of individuals who were stigmatized and assigned marginal social positions in the biblical texts. Included within his classification of disability are those who have physical ‘defects’, those with ‘skin diseases’, the ‘blind’, the ‘deaf’ and the ‘mute’. There are numerous dual oppositions represented in the biblical text, which Olyan points out: whole/defective, clean/unclean, holy/common, honored/shame, blessed/cursed, beautiful/ugly, and loved/hated. Perhaps the most common method of stigmatization employed by the biblical authors in reference to people who we would call ‘disabled’ is by associating them with these undesirable conditions (6).
In chapter one, Olyan reconstructs beauty and ugliness as they are represented in the Hebrew Scriptures, which serves as a preamble of sorts for the remainder of the book. Chapter two is an inquiry into congenital conditions and acquired alterations of the body (e.g., circumcision) that are classified as ‘defects’. The third chapter is a study of disabling disease and physical conditions not classified as ‘defects’ in the biblical texts, but nonetheless have apparent social ramifications. Mental disability is analyzed in the fourth chapter, with Olyan noting both the similarities and differences regarding the representation of these and the previously studied ‘defects’. The fifth chapter is an exploration of the role that disability plays in prophetic utopian visions, such as the one found in Isa 35. Chapter six is an expansion of the conceptioning of ‘whole’/’defective’ to larger cultural issues that are nonsomatic in origin. Finally, the seventh chapter turns its attention to post-biblical interpretive texts (specifically the Dead Sea Scrolls), and how they elaborate upon and perpetuate the biblical notions of disability and the classification models concerning the dual oppositions above mentioned.
In sum, this is a desirable book. The notions of mental and physical disability, both ever-present in texts of the Hebrew bible, receive their first thorough treatment in this book. A primary goal of this study, noted in the introduction, is to investigate the social dimensions of disability as it is represented, particularly with reference to how it communicates social inequality with the Hebrew bible. I think he has accomplished his goal, frankly. This study will help the reader gain a deeper understanding of the ways in which biblical writers constructed hierarchically significant difference and privileged certain groups (e.g., persons with ‘whole’ bodies) over others (e.g., persons with defects’). It also explores how ancient interpreters of the Hebrew Bible such as the Qumran sectarians reproduced and reconfigured earlier biblical notions of disability and earlier classification models for their own contexts and ends. For those with interests in disabilities studies specifically and Old Testament generally, this title will be immensely valuable.
Bradford McCall, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA