The Book of Judith tells the story of a fictitious Jewish woman beheading Holofernes, the general of a powerful army, to free her people. The story has fascinated artists and authors for centuries, and is becoming a major field of research in its own right.

The Sword of Judith is the first multidisciplinary collection of essays to discuss representations of Judith throughout the centuries. Bringing together scholars from around the world, it transforms our understanding of Judith’s enduring story across a wide range of disciplines. The book includes sections on Judith in Christian, Jewish and secular textual traditions, as well as representations of Judith in art, music and theatre. The collection includes new archival source studies and the translation of unpublished manuscripts and texts previously unavailable in English.

These essays, by presenting translations of unpublished manuscripts, analyzing new archival sources, and exploring Judith’s representation in narrative, poetry, art, music and theatre, demonstrate how Judith serves as a template for marking changing views of politics, ethics, gender roles and theology from the Patristic period to the nineteenth century.

— Amy-Jill Levine, Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies & Gender Issues, 24 (2013): 146-48

These essays brim with new examples, new insights, new comparisons... a quantum leap forward.

— Lawrence M. Wills, Journal of Biblical Literature, 13 (2011): 244

... [A] very successful and informative work.

— Friedrich V. Reiterer, BN: Biblische Notizen, 158 (2013): 137-38.

© 2010 Kevin R. Brine, Elena Ciletti and Henrike Lähnemann

The Sword of Judith: Judith Studies Across the Disciplines, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Kevin R. Brine, Elena Ciletti and Henrike Lähnemann, The Sword of Judith: Judith Studies Across the Disciplines. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2010, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0009

Further details about CC-BY-NC-ND licenses are available at: http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/