Lecture: “Bodies of Poetry: Tyre’s Failure in Ezekiel 27”

The Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations warmly invites you to attend an upcoming public lecture with Dr. Jacqueline Vayntrub, Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible at Yale Divinity School, entitled “Bodies of Poetry: Tyre’s Failure in Ezekiel 27”

Abstract: In Ezekiel 27, the Phoenician island city of Tyre is depicted as a ship. Yet the poetry takes the literary form of body descriptions. As a ship, Tyre’s heavy trade wealth determines its seaworthiness. As a body, Tyre’s interactions with others bring about initial success but ultimately, the city’s demise. Together, these images produce a surprising statement on why political communities fail.

Speaker biography: Jacqueline Vayntrub is assistant professor at Yale Divinity School and currently a fellow at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Beyond Orality: Biblical Poetry on its Own Terms (Routledge 2019) and articles on poetry, wisdom, and the history of biblical interpretation in Harvard Theological Review, Vetus Testamentum, Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, Biblical Interpretation, Catholic Bible Quarterly, and Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel. Volumes in the Yale Anchor Bible Reference Library and the SBL Writings from the Ancient World series are forthcoming.