Prof. Irmtraud Fischer teaches Old Testament at the University of Graz.

The Bible, and the Old Testament in particular, has often been used to justify unequal gender relations, restrictive sexual morality, and the prohibition of same-sex relationships. In an easy-to-read form that nevertheless stays close to the text, this book presents the Hebrew Bible=s many statements about sexuality: from the creation narratives to legal regulations of sexuality, love songs that fill an entire book, and descriptions of the happiness and travails of sexual relationships, through to unbearable texts about sexual violence that present even God as an accomplice. In the face of recent appalling cases of abuse, readers are enabled to articulate and discover the dimensions of meaning that lie in biblical texts for societies in which gender democracy exists.