Gender Reversal and Cosmic Chaos

This text is about both the fear of gender reversal and its expression, in the prophet Ezekiel's reworking of the marital metaphor. The author argues that the abomination of wife Jerusalem is that she is attempting to pass for a male, thereby crossing gender boundaries and upsetting the world order. This story is therefore one of confused gender scripts, ensuing chaos and a re-ordering through the reinforcement of these strictly defined prescriptions of gendered behaviour. Using socio-historical evidence and the existence of the literary motif of men turning into women as a framework, this book argues that Ezekiel 16, in particular, reflects the gender chaos that arises as an aftermath of social and theological crises.