Vayntrub, Body Language (Yale)

NEW BOOK FROM YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS:

Body Language

Voice, Embodiment, and Textuality in the Hebrew Bible

by Jacqueline Vayntrub

Series: The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library

232 Pages, 6.12 × 9.25 in

Hardcover
9780300230901
Published: Tuesday, 23 Jun 2026
$50.00

eBook
9780300291575
Published: Tuesday, 23 Jun 2026
$50.00
Out of Stock

eBook
9780300291551
Published: Tuesday, 23 Jun 2026
$50.00

Description

A revelatory study of embodied voice and its function in biblical texts

Performance, transmission, and corporeality were essential to ancient understandings of textuality. Far more than an aide-mémoire, written text constituted a powerful mechanism for capturing and transmitting embodied vocal presence. In this bold and provocative book, Jacqueline Vayntrub demonstrates how embedded concepts of embodied speechmaking shaped a tradition of aesthetics and interpretation in the Hebrew Bible.

For authors and readers alike, biblical texts functioned as vessels containing voices for posterity, preserving otherwise fleeting moments of performance and transporting audiences into an idealized or stylized past. Through incisive readings of passages from diverse genres and examinations of the social and material dimensions of speech in the ancient Near East, Vayntrub offers a striking reconceptualization of the biblical authors’ understanding of literary craft.

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