Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material -- 1 Introduction: ‘A Spoil of Divers Colours on Both Sides’ -- 2 ‘O Mirror of Our Fickle State’: Riddles, Words and Other Instruments of Illusion -- 3 Not Quite at Home: Geography and Otherness -- 4 ‘Let Me Feel the Pillars on Which the House Stands’: The Role and Symbolism of the Book’s Rhetorical Architecture -- 5 The Tangled Roots of Deborah’s Tree: Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Soul of Judges -- 6 ‘This Broken Jaw of Our Lost Kingdoms’: Death and Cosmic Warfare -- 7 Past as Parable, History as Honey: Judges as Historiography -- 8 Epilogue: Judges and the Deuteronomist -- Bibliography -- Index of Biblical References -- General Index.

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In Hollow Men, Strange Women , Robin Baker provides a masterly reappraisal of Israel's experience during its Settlement of Canaan as narrated in the Book of Judges. Written under Assyrian suzerainty in the reign of Manasseh, Judges is both a theological commentary on the Settlement and an esoteric work of prophecy. Its apparent historicity subtly encrypts a grim forewarning of Judah's future, and, in its extensive treatment of otherness, Judges explores the meaning of God’s covenant with Israel. Robin Baker's scholarly and perceptive reading draws on a deep understanding of ancient Hebrew and Mesopotamian symbolic codes to interpret the riddles in this many-layered text. The Book of Judges reveals complex literary configurations from which past, present, and future are simultaneously presented.

Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on July 25, 2016).