Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-265) and indexes.

Part One: Goddesses -- 1. "And the Women Knead Dough": The Worship of the Queen of Heaven in Sixth-Century Judah -- 2. Asherah, the West Semitic Goddess of Spinning and Weaving? -- 3. The Women of the Bible and of Ancient Near Eastern Myth: The Case of the Levite's pîlegeš -- Part Two: Priests and Prophets -- 4. Why Is Miriam Also among the Prophets? (And Is Zipporah among the Priests?) -- 5. The Mother of Eshmunazor, Priest of Astarte: A Study of Her Cultic Role -- 6. Priestesses, Purity, and Parturition -- Part Three: Queen Mothers -- 7. The Queen Mother and the Cult in Ancient Israel -- 8. The Queen Mother and the Cult in the Ancient Near East -- Part Four: Women and Worship -- 9. At Home with the Goddess -- 10. Women and the Worship of Yahweh in Ancient Israel -- Bibliography -- Indexes.

"A collection of scholarly works on women in ancient Israelite religion, with subjects including the worship of goddesses, the roles women played as religious functionaries, and the Hebrew Bible's accounts of women's religious lives"--