This book presents an important re-theorisation of gender and anti-Semitism in medieval biblical drama. It charts conflicts staged between dramatic personae in plays that represent theological transitions, including the Incarnation, Flood, Nativity and Bethlehem slaughter. Interrogating the Christian preoccupation with what it asserted was a superseded Jewish past, it asks how models of supersession and typology are subverted when placed in dramatic dialogue with characters who experience time differently. The book employs theories of gender, performance, anti-Semitism, queer theory and periodisation to complicate readings of early theatre's biblical matriarchs and patriarchs. Dealing with frequently taught plays as well as less familiar material, the book is essential reading for specialist, undergraduate and postgraduate researchers working on medieval performance, gender and queer studies, Jewish-Christian studies and time.

Introduction: what God was doing before he created the world1 The old man and the pregnant virgin: linear time and Jewish conversion in the N-Town plays
2 Grave new world: fantasies of supersession and explosive questions in the York and Chester Flood plays
3 Time out of joint: queering the Nativity in the Towneley Second Shepherds' Play
4 Passion meets Passover: temporal origami in the Towneley Herod the Great
5 Conclusion: the spectator's God's-eye view
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index