My goal in this chapter is to reconstruct biblical notions of beauty and ugliness from their representations in various biblical texts. This investigation of biblical ideas about beauty and its antitype serves several purposes. It allows us to get a sense of which particular physical and nonphysical qualities and characteristics were esteemed by the writers of our texts, which were deemed deficient in some way, and which elicited little or no strong reaction. It also permits us to identify the particular vocabulary of beauty and ugliness native to the biblical text and to examine carefully its deployment by biblical authors, and it allows us to consider dissenting perspectives on beauty and its importance. Finally, a consideration of biblical representations of somatic and nonsomatic ideals and their opposites brings into relief the degree to which all notions of beauty and ugliness are culture specific. Although certain characteristics of biblical constructions of male and female beauty are not unlike some of those familiar in some contemporary Western contexts, others will likely strike readers as alien to their own understandings of beauty. This chapter serves as a preamble to my investigation of biblical constructions of disability, particularly physical disability, for ideas of beauty and ugliness are not infrequently related to “defects” (mûmîm) and other biblical disabilities.

MALE AND FEMALE BEAUTY

I begin with qualities of the beautiful male mentioned in texts that describe the physical appearance and behavior of heroic leaders such as Saul and David, of the ideal male lover of the Song of Songs, and of David's rebellious son Absalom.