Inhalt: | Virginity and violence in cross-cultural perspective -- Bloodied sheets: the biblical nuptial bed as rape scene -- "Trustworthy women" and other witnesses: tweaking Deuteronomy in pre-rabbinic and early rabbinic Judaism -- Doubts and faith: possible alternatives in three first century Jewish authors -- Struck by wood, struck by God: virginity beyond and despite anatomy in the Protevangelium of James, the Mishnah, and late antique Syriac poetry -- Open doors and accused brides: subjectivity and a new standard for virginity testing in rabbinic Babylonia -- Impure nuptials and sex as work: the Bavli's attempted divorce of virginity from violence -- (de)mythologizing the hymen: Augustine, the Bavli, and the rejection of force |
