Hanna Tervanotko Gendered Beauty: Observations on Portraying Beautiful Men and Women in the Hebrew Bible ‘It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.’ (Leo Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata) 1 The Hebrew term הʴʩ implies beauty as a physical quality, i.e., something which is pleasant to see. 2 It is present in various forms in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible where several individuals are described ‘beautiful’, הʴʩ. Significantly, the word is attributed to both men and women. As both female and male figures are described beautiful, a question arises whether this attribute is similarly associated with both genders? Or if it is not, how does the use of the term vary? In what follows, I will first engage in a lexical study and analyze those passages where beautiful characters appear treating the male and female figures separately. At this stage, I will go through the references in their chronological sequence in the Hebrew Bible, asking how the adjective ‘beautiful’ is used in each passage, without discussing here the assumed date of the texts. 3 In the next stage of my study I will compare the portrayals of male and female figures with one another and conclude 1 It is my pleasure to offer this article to Dorothea Erbele-Küster, my dear collea- gue and friend. This contribution is a small token for all the support and encourage- ment Dorothea has offered me over the past years. 2 Literally the term means someone full of beauty. The English term has its origins in old French ‘biauté’ and in Latin ‘bellus’ meaning ‘pretty, handsome, charming’. Online Etymology Dictionary, consulted July 16, 2015. 3 Note that due to the constraints of this paper I will limit my discussion to known characters and will not deal with beauty as a broader theme or an attribute assigned to obscure, abstract characters (i.e., women of Prov 1-9). R.L. Hubbard, ‘The Eyes Have It: Theological Reflections on Human Beauty’, Ex Auditu 13 (1997) 57-72, has studied the beauty in a somewhat similar way, though Hubbard’s perspective to the characters is more complex than mine. He takes into consideration all Biblical figures who are characterized as beautiful, yet focusing on his three case studies: Rachel and Leah, David and Absolom and Song of Songs. For thematic studies in beauty in the Hebrew Bible, see e.g., F. Landy, ‘Beauty and the Enigma: An Inquiry Into Some Interrelated Episodes of the Song of Songs’, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 17 (1980) 55-106; W.A. Dyrness, ‘Aesthetics in the Old Testament: Beauty in Context’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 28 (1985) 421- 432, 424-425; L. Ferreter, ‘The Power and the Glory: The Aesthetics of the Hebrew Bible’, Liturgy & Theology 18 (2004) 123-138, who address aesthetics more broadly.