Women and Exilic Identity in the Hebrew Bible 9780567668455, 9780567668424, 9780567668448

Citation preview

vii

C ONTRIBUTORS Mark J. Boda, Professor of Old Testament McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario Jennie Grillo, Assistant Professor of Old Testament Duke Divinity School, Durham, North Carolina Danna Nolan Fewell, Professor of Hebrew Bible Drew Theological School, Madison, New Jersey Martien A. Halvorson-Taylor, Associate Professor University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia Holly Morse, Lecturer in Religions and Theology University of Manchester, UK Carolyn J. Sharp, Professor of Homiletics Yale Divinity School, New Haven, Connecticut Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, Professor of Old Testament Studies Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California Katherine E. Southwood, Associate Professor in Old Testament Oxford University, UK C. A. Strine, Lecturer in Ancient Near Eastern History and Literature Sheffield University, UK Lawrence M. Wills, Visiting Professor of Judaic Studies and Religious Studies Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island

9780567668424_pi-x.indd vii

10/19/2017 8:18:44 PM

viii

A BBREVIATIONS AB ABRL AfO AGR AOTC APB ARS AUS AW.CH BBC BCBC BETL BHS BI Bib BibInt BIS BJS BMW BO.SHNP BTB BZAW CB.OTS CBQ ECC ET EZ FAT FC FCB FT GCT HBM HBT HDR HeBAI HR HTKAT HTR HUCA ICC

9780567668424_pi-x.indd viii

Anchor Bible Anchor Bible Reference Library Archiv für Orientforschung Advances in Gender Research Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries Acta PatristicaetByzantina Annual Review of Sociology American University Studies The Ancient World: Comparative Histories Blackwell Bible Commentaries Believers Church Bible Commentary Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia Biblical Interpretation Biblica Biblical Interpretation Biblical Interpretation Series Brown Judaic Studies Bible in the Modern World Berit Olam: Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry Biblical Theology Bulletin Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Coniectania Biblica. Old Testament Series Catholic Biblical Quarterly Eerdmans Critical Commentary Expository Times Exegese in unserer Zeit Forschungen zum Alten Testament Feminist Criminology The Feminist Companion to the Bible Feminist Theology Gender, Culture, Theory Hebrew Bible Monographs Horizons in Biblical Theology Harvard Dissertations in Religion Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel History of Religions Herders theologischer Kommentar. Altes Testament Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual International Critical Commentary

10/19/2017 8:18:44 PM

ix

Abbreviations IMR JAJ JANESCU JAS JBL JBQ JFSR JHS JJSa JJS JMME JPH JQR JR JRS JSa JS JSHRZ JSOT JSOTSup JSP JWCI LAT LCBI LCHS LHBOTS MNTS NAC NCB NCBC NEA NIBC NICOT OBT OTL OTM OTS PG PHR PMET RB RBS SBL SBLDS SBLMS SBLSymS SC SGO SHBC

9780567668424_pi-x.indd ix

ix

International Migration Review Journal of Ancient Judaism Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society of Columbia Universtiy Journal of Asian Studies Journal of Biblical Literature Jewish Bible Quarterly Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion Journal of Hebrew Scriptures Journal of Japanese Studies Journal of Jewish Studies Journal of Mass Media Ethics Journal of Pacific History Jewish Quarterly Review Journal of Religion Journal of Refugee Studies Japanese Studies Journal for Semitics Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes Latin American Theology Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures Library of Hebrew Bible. Old Testament Studies McMaster New Testament Studies New American Commentary New Century Bible New Collegeville Bible Commentary Near Eastern Archaeology New International Bible Commentary New International Commentary on the Old Testament Overtures to Biblical Theology Old Testament Library Oxford Theological Monographs Oudtestamentische Studien Patrologia Graeca Pacific Historical Review Problems of Modern European Thought Révue biblique Resources for Biblical Study Studies in Biblical Literature Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series Sociology Compass Sozial. Geschichte Online Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary

10/19/2017 8:18:44 PM

x

x SI SPQ SR SS SSN ST TDOT TER TG TSAJ UCLF VT VTSup WAW WBCa WBC WSQ ZABR ZAW

9780567668424_pi-x.indd x

Abbreviations Short Introductions Social Psychology Quarterly Social Research Semeia Studies Studia Semitica Neerlandica Studia theologica Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament The Ecumenical Review Thinking Gender Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism University of Chicago Legal Forum Vetus Testamentum Vetus Testamentum, Supplements Word and World Westminster Bible Companion Word Biblical Commentary Women’s Studies Quarterly Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

10/19/2017 8:18:44 PM

1

I NTRODU C T ION Martien A. Halvorson-Taylor and Katherine E. Southwood

The study of migration has emerged as a sustained focus in the field of biblical studies. It includes a spectrum of migrations from forced to voluntary and return as well as range of focal points, such as exile and diaspora. The inquiry grows out of two related assumptions: that the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles were significant to the development of ancient Israelite religions and expression and, further, that large portions of the Hebrew Bible were produced during and in response to the experience of exile and Diaspora. Such scholarship on exile and Diaspora has been host to a diversity of methodological approaches, from historical critical to sociological, migration, and metaphor studies. Comparatively less attention has been spent, however, considering the role of gender in the experiences of exile, and here we might also say the experience of women more specifically. Less attention, too, has been paid to the role of gender in shaping how exile, return, and migration are conceptualized throughout the biblical text. Against this backdrop, the chapters collected in this volume developed and began to coalesce. A number, originating as papers delivered at the SBL’s Annual Meetings in 2012 and 2014, addressed the depiction and the experience of women in the exilic and early post-exilic periods, and others addressed the place of gender in writing and thinking about exile. Further papers grew out of a common interest in exploring the role of women and gender in the subfield of exile and forced migration studies, a topic that has as yet not been of sustained examination. Undergirding all of these essays are the basic observations that exilic language, tropes, and historiographic notices are gendered and that attention to the ways in which gender inflects and informs biblical literature is necessary for understanding the thought world of its authors—and, implicitly that this ancient thinking has lasting currency and relevance in this age of global migration. The resulting volume reckons, if not wrestles, with the diversity of ways in which gender and exilic identity inform each other. It considers a wide range of materials, from the migrations of Sarah and Rebekah in Genesis, to the trope of exile as a battered and bereaved woman that resurfaces time and again in the prophetic materials, to the figure of the restored Israel as a woman both in prophetic literature and also in early Jewish novels. This is to name but a few of the examples

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 1

10/19/2017 8:04:01 PM

2

2

Martien A. Halvorson-Taylor and Katherine E. Southwood

that are considered here. The chapters are also joined by a common interest in the methodological problems and possibilities connected to pursuing these issues. Jennie Grillo notes the diversity of texts that figure exiled Israel or devastated Jerusalem as a woman and that use such motifs as adultery, rape, and shame to convey her guilt. These motifs are lively in the marriage metaphors that are so vividly spun and preserved in prophetic literature—for example, in Hosea, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah. They reflect a robust tradition, crossing the boundaries of particular books, that imagine an individual woman to stand, to figure, for the wider community. Susanna in the Greek version of Daniel, Grillo argues, not only bears elements of other female figures who stand for the exilic experience, but her narrative explicitly takes up elements of the marriage metaphors—the accusation of adultery, rape, and the shame of exposure, among them—to fashion a response, as it were: not a figure of collective shame, but instead a figure for national vindication. The imagining of Susanna, then, reflects an engagement with and an interpretation of earlier tropes, and it becomes a way of rewriting post-exilic Israel as innocent and whole. Danna Nolan Fewell takes on the taxonomy that evaluates the stance of biblical and extra-biblical texts on the issue of interethnic marriage and that has been used, shorthand, to assess which are “favorably” and “not favorably” disposed to the practice. Engaging a socio-narratological approach (that recognizes that narratives reflect, if not contribute to collective identity), Fewell reexamines the book of Ruth and, moreover, the assumption that Ruth provides an “antidote” to Ezra and Nehemiah by its unequivocal and univocal inclusion of foreigners in the community. She argues, instead, that the book trades in a complexity that allows for reflection about, if not a subtler negotiation of the boundaries of its people—of the boundaries between insider and outsider, immigrant and native. She roots this debate in the particular social context that surrounds Jerusalem and its ambivalences about the “ones returning,” who bring with them claims upon the community and its resources. Narrative detail, the figuring of its two female characters, its construction of space and identity markers—all these suggest that the book preserves ambivalence that resists easy conclusions about the status of outsiders. Ruth, then, is not a clear polemic against the thought of Ezra–Nehemiah, but more a delicate exposition of the questions about community and inclusion in the post-exilic period. Lawrence Wills examines how gender and the other are constructed during the era of the forced migration, considering the concepts comparatively across three phases: “the exile,” Ezra–Nehemiah (which itself provides a diachronic statement), and the period after the Maccabean Revolt. Drawing in cross-cultural and transhistorical insights, he expands theorems formulated in his earlier work to pay particular attention to how the other is defined in terms of gender and, how, in turn, gender is related to “external others.” This allows for his observation that the construction of gender underlies national identity and that, in the Hasmonean period, the concept of “exile” was not simply appropriated, but redrawn in light of concepts of gender; both of these depend upon the construal of the place of women and their relationship to “external others.”

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 2

10/19/2017 8:04:02 PM

3

Introduction

3

Casey Strine, drawing on social scientific study of involuntary migrations (“refugee or forced migration studies”), returns to the vexing wife–sister accounts in Genesis, in which Abraham twice passes Sarah off as his sister and Isaac mimics the ruse with Rebekah. He argues that these events should be read in the context of a larger narrative that positions Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Rebekah as each variously experiencing environmentally induced external and internal displacement. Drawing a comparison with other cross-cultural examples of displacement in which migrant women enter into a form of sex work, he explores the wife–sister ploy both as a way of navigating the uncertainties of living beneath a foreign overlord, whose motives are not known, and of securing financial resources for the family unit. The Genesis accounts counter the implicit vulnerability of the male migrant by seeking to assert his control, a strategy that reveals the underbelly of the ruse: the woman’s ability to secure the financial security of the couple, regardless of her consent or dissent, undermines the standing of the man. This “emasculation” may be masked by appealing to his “clever” or “quick thinking,” as the Abraham episodes do, but the literature’s anxiety about a man’s standing in exile is nevertheless in full view. Carolyn Sharp observes the limits of method in the study of exile and gender. Namely, she probes the possibilities and challenges of engaging material culture to shed light on gender in ancient Israel; the problem of texts that are not explicit about gender identity—that suppress as much as they articulate—for understanding gender; and the slow acclimation of biblical scholarship, particularly when compared to other disciplines, to theorizing gender. In considering Jeremiah 44, she is explicitly taking up a text that, though it focuses on diasporic Judean women, has not yet been carefully examined for what it says about gender. Using insights from studies of the body and epistemology (or embodied epistemology) and from studies of memory and dissensus, Sharp uncovers a remarkable “narrative of contestation” in which the women, the female bodies, attest to a distinct epistemology. This epistemology challenges that of the prophet, and indeed the women provide a dissenting memory that contests Jeremiah’s narrative. She argues, further, that the theology of the book of Jeremiah does not simply reflect these disputes but is, on a fundamental level, built upon them. Her exposure of these dynamics suggests not only the power conflicts that are preserved in the prophetic material but also offers ways of reading across a variety of texts that offer prospects: there is more still to say about gender in the postexilic period. Mark Boda notes the complex if flexible family imagery that appears in Isaiah 49:14–66:24 in which Zion appears, in the space of these verses, as a diverse range of feminine family members—a bride and an abandoned wife, a mother and a barren woman, a suckling child and a woman in need of a kinsman redeemer—and even as the occasional male family member—the son of Yhwh’s womb, for example. Cut through this metaphorical mixing, regardless of the image, is the repeated mention of Zion as a migrant and of her undeniably tense and conflicted familial relationships with, most pressingly, Yhwh. Boda argues that this metaphorical diversity and the incongruous relationships and familial dysfunction that result from this diversity (e.g., in which sons might marry their mother) were intended

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 3

10/19/2017 8:04:02 PM

4

4

Martien A. Halvorson-Taylor and Katherine E. Southwood

to arrest the hearer, to shock. Engaging sociological approaches that integrate gender and migration studies as a heuristic tool, Boda posits that the diversity of metaphors for Zion speak to the constant renegotiation of gender that are consonant with studies of the migration experience and the resulting familial structures. The family tensions to which the range of metaphors for Zion attest are of a piece with what we know from migration research on the fracturing of families. The penultimate essay in this collection moves more explicitly in a different direction. Daniel Smith-Christopher proposes an exegesis of Esther and Judith that is shaped by context—that is based, in this case, on contemporary scholarship on “comfort women,” women forced into “rape camps” for prolonged sexual slavery to Second World War servicemen. Smith-Christopher’s reading of these two books, both of which explore the plight of the Jewish woman negotiating with foreign overlords for the survival of her people, serves to highlight underappreciated and understudied aspects of the narratives and to comment on modern scholarly treatment of them. These include such questions of the book’s effect on the hearer, of its capacity to evoke hilarity or provoke horror; and also of the book’s suggestion of a larger systematic suppression of women that allowed for Ahasuerus’s harem and that raises anew the issues of Esther’s agency, collaboration, complicity, or passivity in being “taken into” the palace (2:8). These are considered beyond the implications for her character, which is the common resort of modern and ancient readings alike. Smith-Christopher reads Esther instead as a symbol for the people in Diaspora and thus as a reflection on permissible strategies for resistance for the people as a whole. Finally, Holly Morse examines the marriage metaphors in Ezekiel 16 and 23 through an ethnicity-focused feminist approach that is at once attentive to power, colonization, and the foreign Other, and also to Ezekiel’s concern for formulating and preserving ethnic identity in exile. Beginning with a consideration of how gender features in these passages, she focuses on both the crimes of personified Jerusalem and Samaria that provide a metaphor for male religious infidelity and their punishment. She further argues that the personifications spin a form of divine “revenge porn” and “slut shaming” and indeed will rupture the metaphor. Noting that most scholarship on these chapters focuses on how they would have been heard by a male audience, she considers the experience of women in exile and the effect these metaphors would have had on a female audience. These chapters, Morse concludes, construct a narrative for controlling the behavior of women and women’s bodies in exilic circumstances. In particular, she argues that in Ezekiel 16 the marriage and infidelity metaphor intends to speak to a male audience, to explain exile, but also to serve as a cautionary tale to persuade women not to forsake their community. As a whole, then, the chapters in this volume are united both by a concern for method as well as a sensitivity to what the biblical text can reveal about gender and exile in the thought of ancient Judaism. As a collection, they trace a number of trajectories related to women and exilic identity and offer prospects for future study, but they do not pretend to provide a comprehensive overview of the rich

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 4

10/19/2017 8:04:02 PM

5

Introduction

5

possibilities; a wide range of questions still remain tantalizingly open and a number of texts unexplored. We are mindful that the editing of this volume has taken place during a new crisis in migration—one that has also been accompanied by questions about gender and its role in how we interpret, misinterpret, respond to, and ignore these global movements. Gender figures not only in the depiction of those who are fleeing—their motives, prospects, and very existence in new places—but also in the responses and characterization of the leaders who seek to contend with these crises, who stake their political careers on welcoming in refugees or promulgating travel bans. A number of essays make the point that forced migration is as old as, if not older than, the history that it recounts, but the point is, too, that it remains in our future and is very much a part of our present.

Acknowledgments We wish to thank, in particular, our research assistants, Trevor Pomeroy at the University of Oxford and Ashley Tate at the University of Virginia, who assisted us in the editing process.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 5

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

6

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 6

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

7

Chapter 1 “ Y OU W ILL F ORGET Y OU R A NC I E N T S HA M E” : T H E I NNO CE NCE OF S U S A N NA A N D T H E V INDICATION OF I SR A E L * Jennie Grillo

Julius Africanus, like all his contemporaries, read the story of Susanna as a report from the everyday life of the exiles in Babylon, and in his famous letter to Origen he expressed his suspicions about the genuineness of that report, asking: How is it that they who were captives among the Chaldeans, lost and won at play, thrown out unburied on the streets, as was prophesied of the former captivity, their sons torn from them to be eunuchs, and their daughters to be concubines, as had been prophesied; how is it that such could pass sentence of death? . . . whence had a captive such a mansion and spacious garden?1

In spite of the ancient historical sense that wants to search for the realia of golah life in the text of Susanna, there is in fact a very perceptive juxtaposing of biblical texts here: as his list of tropes reveals, Africanus reads the tale of Susanna against the prophets of the exile and the book of Lamentations, and asks how things could have come to look so different. Reading Susanna in conscious contrast with these other biblical pictures of exile is a way to watch the authors and redactors of this Hellenistic tale at work: in these transformations and reconfigurations of earlier Israelite literature, we see how certain scribes within the Daniel tradition imagine the present against its scriptural background. In this chapter, I  will take up Africanus’s invitation to set this tale from longer Greek versions of the book of Daniel against that literary backdrop in the Hebrew Bible; in particular, I examine how the figure of Susanna herself is traced over the familiar outlines of her biblical predecessors, those earlier female figures on whom the experience of exile is * I am grateful to all who participated in the 2014 SBL panel for which this chapter was written; I  also thank fellow members of the 2014 Lautenschlaeger Colloquium in Heidelberg, especially Adele Berlin, for their helpful comments on some of the ideas suggested here. 1 The translation is that of Frederick Crombie in ANF 4:385.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 7

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

8

8

Jennie Grillo

inscribed. My suggestion is that the tale of Susanna participates in the tradition of speaking about the nation, or the city of Jerusalem, or the kingdom of Israel or Judah, by speaking about a woman, but that this tale turns what has been a way of thinking about collective guilt and shame into a way of thinking about collective vindication —the story of Susanna bends the narrative arc of the story of God and Israel upward. I want to argue that Susanna reflects but reworks some aspects of what has been called the “marriage metaphor” in the prophets.2 I make this comparison partly on the basis of what seem like specific allusions within the Susanna tale to the tradition of prophetic invective against Israel or Judah or Jerusalem as a woman, found most prominently in Hosea, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, and Isaiah, and with reflexes throughout the prophetic corpus; I will mention a few acknowledgments of that tradition in the telling of Susanna’s story. But my argument is not that there is any close intertextual relationship between the tale of Susanna and these texts—rather, the story of Susanna is written in the wake of a tradition so widespread that it had become part of Israel’s imaginative vocabulary, a sort of cognitive metaphor, and this later work reacts primarily to the general outlines of that thought-form, and only secondarily to the details of particular iterations.3 A topos with such a broad currency is of course reflected across the literary landscape: Susanna’s story is one of a group of texts in Israel’s late post-exilic literature where an individual, especially an individual female figure, has a figurative relationship to the whole community. For example, Athalya Brenner, Amy-Jill Levine, and others have written of Susanna along with Judith and Esther as, in Brenner’s words, individual protagonists who on another level “seem to be imaged as . . . signifiers, representations, projections or

2 The key book-length studies are: Julie Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel: The City as Yahweh’s Wife (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992); Christl Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion: Gender, Space, and the Sacred in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 2008); Sharon Moughtin-Mumby, Sexual and Marital Metaphors in Hosea, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2008); Johanna Stiebert, The Construction of Shame in the Hebrew Bible: The Prophetic Contribution (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002); Renita Weems, Battered Love:  Marriage, Sex and Violence in the Hebrew Prophets (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 1995). See also Cynthia Chapman, The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite-Assyrian Encounter (Winona Lake:  Eisenbrauns, 2004), and the essays in Athalya Brenner, ed., A Feminist Companion to the Latter Prophets, The Feminist Companion to the Bible 8 (Sheffield:  Sheffield Academic Press, 1995); ibid., ed., Prophets and Daniel, The Feminist Companion to the Bible, Second Series 8 (Sheffield:  Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). For a concise integrative analysis, see David Carr, “Passion for God: A Center in Biblical Theology,” Horizons in Biblical Theology 23, no. 1 (2001): 1–24. 3 Differently, Christina Leisering, in her Susanna und der Sündenfall der Ältesten: Eine vergleichende Studie zu den Geschlechterkonstruktionen der Septuaginta-und Theodotionfassung von Dan 13 und ihren intertextuellen Bezügen (Wien:  LIT, 2008), 199–229, does argue for a close intertextual relationship between the Old Greek (OG) of Susanna and the “Stadt-Frauen” passages of Ezekiel, Isaiah, and other prophetic books.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 8

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

9

1. “You Will Forget Your Ancient Shame”

9

metaphors for the Jewish community in exile, or as surrounded by actual or potential enemies.”4 Women who stand for the Jewish nation or for Jerusalem multiply in later Second-Temple literature: we might think of the lamenting female figures of the city in 4 Ezra 9–10 and 2 Baruch, which in turn issue in the bridal Jerusalem of the book of Revelation.5 Or, in a tragic counterpart to Susanna’s comic plot, Judith Newman has shown how the prayer in Judith 9 makes the Dinah of Genesis 34 into a typological figure for the city of Jerusalem exposed and shamed in an act of rape.6 In Joseph and Aseneth, the heroine finds new figurative life as a City of Refuge which may be in Egypt, but which takes all of its imaginative power from the model of the personified city Jerusalem, blossoming in a land of cedars (15:7; 16:16; 17:6; 19:5–8).7 Altogether, this is a new way that Hellenistic fiction can 4 Brenner, “Introduction,” in A Feminist Companion to Esther, Judith and Susanna, The Feminist Companion to the Bible 7, ed. Athalya Brenner (Sheffield:  Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 13; Amy-Jill Levine, “‘Hemmed in on Every Side’:  Jews and Women in the Book of Susanna,” in A Feminist Companion to Esther, Judith and Susanna, The Feminist Companion to the Bible 7, ed. Athalya Brenner (Sheffield:  Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 311, 319; ibid., “Sacrifice and Salvation:  Otherness and Domestication in the Book of Judith,” in “No-One Spoke Ill of Her”: Essays on Judith, ed. James C. VanderKam (Atlanta:  Scholars Press, 1992), 17–30; for the representative function of Susanna, see also Ulrike Mittman-Richert, “Einführung zu den historischen und legendarischen Erzählungen,” JSHRZ 6, no.1 (2000):  128–30, 137; Adele Reinhartz, “Better Homes and Gardens: Women and Domestic Space in the Books of Judith and Susanna,” in Text and Artifact in the Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity: Essays in Honor of Peter Richardson, ed. Stephen G. Wilson and Michel Desjardins (Waterloo, ON:  Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2000), 335–6; and Helmut Engel, Die Susanna-Erzählung (Göttingen:  Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1985), 10, 74, 98–9, 178–9, though he finds this only in the Old Greek and not in Theodotion. For Judith, see Nancy Tan, “Judith’s Embodiment as a Reversal of the Unfaithful Wife of YHWH in Ezekiel 16,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 21, no.1 (2011):  21–35, and Richard Pervo, “Aseneth and Her Sisters: Women in Jewish Narrative and in the Greek Novels,” in “Women Like This”: New Perspectives on Jewish Women in the Greco-Roman World, ed. Amy-Jill Levine (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), 158. 5 See Edith McEwan Humphrey, The Ladies and the Cities:  Transformation and Apocalyptic Identity in Joseph and Asenath, 4 Ezra, the Apocalypse and The Shepherd of Hermas (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995). 6 Judith Newman, “The Scripturalization of Prayer in Exilic and Second Temple Judaism,” in Prayers that Cite Scripture, ed. James L. Kugel (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 2006), 7–24. 7 See Gideon Bohak, Joseph and Aseneth and the Jewish Temple in Heliopolis (Atlanta:  Scholars Press, 1996), 76–80, and for a specific relationship to the “daughter Zion” of LXX Zech. 2:15 see Christoph Burchard, Untersuchungen zu Joseph und Aseneth (Tübingen, Germany :  J. C. B. Mohr, 1965), 119; cf. Pervo, “Aseneth and Her Sisters,” 152 n.41. For Ross Kraemer, When Aseneth Met Joseph (New  York:  Oxford University Press, 1998), a Christian origin for the work also—mutatis mutandis—makes it open to a symbolic, representative way of speaking of the community by speaking of a woman.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 9

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

10

10

Jennie Grillo

negotiate larger issues of national identity and historical movement on a domestic scale, which could be demonstrated much more widely outside Jewish literature. It is worth acknowledging at the outset that there are various kinds of figurative relationship, with slippages taking place between them and within individual instances. Not all of the women who figure Israel in biblical writings do so as a fully formed personification; it is also difficult to distinguish in practice, though important in theory, between what a motif represents, what it symbolizes, and what it expresses.8 There is a range of figurative possibilities: some are very clearly signed as symbolic confections, like Ezekiel’s invented Oholah and Oholibah; differently, the Daughter Zion of Lamentations connects to a real referent by a stylized name. Or, a particular woman can be elided into a representative woman, as when the death of Ezekiel’s wife is a sign of the destruction of God’s wife, the personified city; a corresponding case might be Hosea’s wife. Differently again, in a passage like Isaiah 3:16ff the individual women of Zion (real women) have become a single female personification of Zion by v.  26. Thus, in a wide range of ways, in the wake of the Babylonian Exile, female figures become a means of sketching on an individual canvas the historical experiences of the whole community in exile. In the case of Susanna, the resemblances to these figures are certainly broad-brush and schematic, but since this is one of the central schemata of community self-fashioning within early Jewish scribal culture, such a relationship is still significant. Susanna is less obviously symbolic than is a character like Judith, whose name marks her out as a representative of her people, though it is worth noting that the Old Greek also calls Susanna simply ἡ Ιουδαία, v. 22.9 But the name of Susanna does have wider possibilities: Ulrike Mittmann-Richert suggests the name alludes to the promise of national restoration in Hosea 14:6, “I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom as the lily” (10.(‫שׁנָּה‬ ַ ‫ כַּשּׁוֹ‬Christina Leisering points out that the lily is a symbol for Israel in 4 Ezra 5:24, “from all the flowers of the world you have chosen for yourself one lily.”11 Harold Fisch reads the whole situation of Susanna and the two elders as a midrash on the phrase “like a lily among thorns” (‫שׁנָּה‬ ַ ‫כְּשׁוֹ‬ ‫ )בֵּין הַחוֹחִים‬in Song of Songs 2:2, which may give Susanna representative capacities depending on how early Song of Songs was read as speaking of Israel and God; Fisch points to a number of midrashim which do exactly that with this particular lily.12 Such a wider field of allusion is especially likely since the milieu of Susanna’s

8 I take this distinction from E. H. Gombrich, “Icones Symbolicae: The Visual Image in Neo-Platonic Thought,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 11 (1948): 165. 9 I will draw on both the OG version and Theodotion in this chapter since I assume that both were known to different groups of ancient Jews, and both functioned as vehicles for reflecting on the old idea of the people as a woman. 10 Mittmann-Richert, “Einführung,” 137. 11 Leisering, Susanna und der Sündenfall der Ältesten, 203. 12 Harold Fisch, “Susanna as Parable: A Response to Piero Boitani,” in The Judgment of Susanna: Authority and Witness, ed. Ellen Spolsky (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 35–41.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 10

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

11

1. “You Will Forget Your Ancient Shame”

11

scribal production is a “scripturalizing” one with a sharp consciousness of inhabiting an existing literary tradition: in Theodotion, the work begins with a reference to the Law of Moses and a scrambled quotation of the Prophets, and ends with another reference to the Law of Moses. In this chapter, then, I will test these readers’ intuition that the figure of Susanna draws after her echoes of the whole people to whom she belongs: I will compare Susanna with earlier stages in Israel’s literary history of imagining the collective as a single female figure. In doing so, I am reading for both continuity and change, discerning how the portrait of Susanna hews to the contours of that model, but also how it departs from the type. I will examine a series of ways in which the story of Susanna seems to pick up the existing topos of Israel/Judah/Jerusalem as a woman, and turn it to vindication.

Adultery and innocence The plot of the Susanna tale turns on two moments of peril: the attempted rape by the elders, and their legal charge that Susanna committed adultery in the garden with a young man. To begin at the narrative climax of the story with the second of these, the accusation of adultery is the most obvious connection to the prophetic topos of a woman who stands for the nation: the signal instances are Hosea 1–4, Ezekiel 16 and 23, and Jeremiah 2:1–4:4. The elders’ version of summary justice also inflicts on Susanna the same punishments for adultery with which the prophets threaten Jerusalem: when she is taken before the public assembly, exposed, and threatened with death, it is instructive to compare a passage like Ezekiel 16: 38–40: I will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood are judged, and bring blood upon you in wrath and jealousy. I will deliver you into their hands, and they shall throw down your platform and break down your lofty places; they shall strip you of your clothes and take your beautiful objects and leave you naked and bare. They shall bring up a mob against you, and they shall stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords.13

Susanna’s trial is a point-by-point refutation of this procedure, from the accusation of adultery to the stripping to the crowd of onlookers to the punishment of the elders who are cut to pieces and killed with the same punishment they designed for Susanna. At this trial, Susanna is either unveiled (in Theodotion) or possibly completely stripped (in the Old Greek, on some construals).14 Even if stripping

13 English biblical translations in this chapter are cited from NRSV and NETS respectively. 14 For example, William R.  G. Loader, The Pseudepigrapha on Sexuality (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 228; likewise Lawrence M. Wills, The Jewish Novel in the Ancient World (Ithaca:  Cornell University Press, 1995), 56–7; Carey A. Moore, Daniel, Esther and Jeremiah: The Additions, AB 44 (Garden City : Doubleday, 1977), 103.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 11

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

12

12

Jennie Grillo

was not actually a biblical punishment for adultery, it was certainly perceived to be by the time of Mishnah Sotah 1:5; like the Mishnah, the tale of Susanna is oriented toward a textual ancient Israel rather than toward a real one, and in that textual world the idea of stripping as a punishment for adultery is a natural reading of passages like Hosea 2:12, Ezekiel 16:35–37, and Isaiah 47:3. We should note too that Susanna is to be condemned to death; when her sentence is transferred to the guilty elders “in accordance with the law of Moses” (Th 62; “as the law states explicitly,” OG 62), they too are threatened with death by the sword, and eventually killed. We might compare Deuteronomy 22:20–24 and Leviticus 20:10 for the death of an adulteress, or Ezekiel 23:47, where death by sword is specifically envisaged.15 But the language with which the accusation of adultery is picked over in the elders’ evidence echoes a specifically biblical way of talking about Israel and Judah’s adultery. In a passage paralleled in both editions, Daniel pointedly asks each of the accusing elders “Under what tree did you see them?” (54, 58)—see, that is, Susanna and her lover committing adultery. “Under every green tree” is the slogan of the prophetic campaign against the nation’s cultic unfaithfulness, imagined in sexual terms; the force and the pervasiveness of this motif have been documented in Susan Ackerman’s study Under Every Green Tree.16 To picture Susanna committing adultery under a tree is to picture her, paradigmatically, as the faithless Judah of deuteronomistic polemic. And the whole point in this tale is that Susanna is acquitted of it:  her accusers cannot agree on naming any tree under which she was seen with a lover. This story therefore takes a catchphrase of the rhetoric that condemned pre-exilic Judah and declares the exilic figure of the nation not guilty. That detail of the trees stood out pointedly for early readers of the text: the image of two trees becomes a focal iconographic signifier of Susanna’s story, and she is widely portrayed in early Christian art under the shade of a tree on either side of her. Some representations even make an allusion to the elders’ false testimony by depicting two trees with markedly different leaves, like the elders’ conflicting testimony about them.17 So, the prominent under-the-tree motif casts Susanna as an

15 The connections between Susanna’s trial and sentencing and some of these prophetic passages are also noted by Leisering, Susanna und der Sündenfall der Ältesten, 213–24, though her interest is in the elders’ guilt more than in Susanna’s innocence. 16 Susan Ackerman, Under Every Green Tree (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), see especially 185–94. Cf., earlier, William L. Holladay, “On Every High Hill and under Every Green Tree,” VT 11, no. 2 (1961): 170–6. 17 See, e.g., the fresco of Susanna and the elders in the Museum of Byzantine Culture, Thessaloniki, reproduced in Heaven & Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections, ed. Anastasia Drandaki, Demetra Papanikola-Bakirtzi and Anastasia Tourta (Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Benaki Museum, 2013), 71. The trees looked different to me when the fresco was exhibited at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC in 2013–14, but Evangelia Angelkou in this exhibition catalog calls them both “suggestive of cypresses,” 71.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 12

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

13

1. “You Will Forget Your Ancient Shame”

13

adulteress in the same manner that the biblical writers condemned the nation, and yet Susanna is found to be innocent.

Rape and resistance It is not only the guilt of the exile that the example of Susanna undoes but also the experience of the exile. She is found not guilty of adultery with the youth, but she is also not subjected to that first peril, the rape of the elders earlier in the story. This too figuratively undoes the nation’s suffering: in a number of biblical texts Judah and Jerusalem’s defeat is likened to rape, and the metaphor has a wider ancient Near Eastern currency in treaty-curses and victors’ boasts; this way of speaking is itself, of course, a synecdoche with the many acts of real rape in war.18 The way that exile is experienced as a specifically sexual threat in Esther, and particularly Greek Esther, is another reflex of the same cluster of ideas; all of this, of course, has a background in the conceptual metaphors about cities as women that are widespread in the ancient Near Eastern, West Semitic, and Hellenistic worlds.19 Susanna, by contrast with this history, frees herself from the elders’ attempt at rape before she is freed by Daniel from the charge of adultery; she undergoes the nation’s danger but not its actual suffering. I would not want to press for a precise equivalence between the repudiated rape of Susanna and the metonymic rapes of Zion and her women in the literature of the Babylonian conquest because Susanna’s would-be rapists come from within the Judean community not from Babylon, and their attack is by stealth and subterfuge rather than by the violent physical strength of rape in warfare. But in both Greek versions there is a move to distance the elders from the Judean community and to associate them with Babylon right at the beginning of

18 See Pamela Gordon and Harold C. Washington, “Rape as a Military Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible,” and F. Rachel Magdalene, “Ancient Near Eastern Treaty-Curses and the Ultimate Texts of Terror: A Study of the Language of Divine Sexual Abuse in the Prophetic Corpus,” both in A Feminist Companion to the Latter Prophets, The Feminist Companion to the Bible 8, ed. Athalya Brenner (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 308–25 and 326–52. 19 See, e.g., Aloysius Fitzgerald, “Mythological Background for the Presentation of Jerusalem as a Queen and False Worship as Adultery in the OT,” CBQ 34, no. 4 (1972): 403–16; and ibid., “Btwlt and Bt as Titles,” CBQ 37, no. 2 (1975): 167–83; Mark E. Biddle, “The Figure of Lady Jerusalem: Identification, Deification and Personification of Cities in the Ancient Near East,” in The Biblical Canon in Comparative Perspective, ed. K. Lawson Younger, Jr., William W. Hallo and Bernard F. Batto (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1991), 173–87; Tikva Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses: Theology, the Humanities, and the Education of Seminarians (New York: Free Press, 1992), 168–78; Odil Hannes Steck, “Zion als Gelände und Gestalt:  Überlegungen zur Wahrnehmung Jerusalems als Stadt und Frau im Alten Testament,” in Gottesknecht und Zion: Gesammelte Aufsätze zu Deuterojesaja, Forschungen zum Alten Testament 4 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), 126–48.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 13

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

14

14

Jennie Grillo

the story: the opening verses frame the whole tale with the enigmatic quotation “Lawlessness came forth from Babylon, from elders who were judges” (5), and whatever the literary background of this, it does make the elders a symptom of Babylon. And it is really only Theodotion who finesses the elders’ ambush into an elaborate advance that could come straight from a comedy of Menander; the Old Greek is more brutal and simply has, “they tried to force her” (ἐξεβιάζοντο, 19). So in her story-life Susanna acts out Israel’s exilic peril: she is subjected to the sexually predatory power of Babylon, and yet unlike Israel she escapes it. This narrative, then, goes beyond repudiating the reasons for the exile—the experience of being overpowered and dominated is itself shaken off too.

Sight and shame It is not only the events of Susanna’s history but also the thematic treatment of her story that mirrors and then redraws the biblical portrait of the nation as an unfaithful wife. Chief among these themes is a focus on sight and looking, and on shame as intricately interwoven with sight. Being shamed by being exposed to sight is a recurring motif whenever the prophets speak against the nation imagined as a woman: already Julie Galambush in her 1992 study drew attention to how the book of Ezekiel thematizes sight and uses looking to generate shame in the depictions of Jerusalem as a woman in chs 16 and 23.20 And this nexus is widespread, as we see in the work of a number of scholars who have compared the prophetic portraits to pornography. The close connection of shame with exposure to sight and especially nakedness is basic: the classic study for this association in Greek literature is Bernard Williams’s Shame and Necessity, and it is worth remembering that the Susanna tale has its literary heritage in Greek precursors as well as in Jewish ones.21 But the shame of exposure to sight may be especially closely correlated with the experience of exile: Johanna Stiebert observes, “The fall of Jerusalem strikes me as the salient event that has given rise to shame discourses” within the Hebrew Bible, and a major thesis of her book is that shame, especially female shame, is particularly associated with the experience of exile.22 Why is shame, especially the shame of being naked and exposed to hostile sight, such a natural way of speaking about the experience of exile? In part, this is another instance of real life taking on figurative freight: just as rape becomes

20 Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel, 94 n.14, 104–6, 109, 125; see also Mary E. Shields, “Multiple Exposures: Body Rhetoric and Gender Characterization in Ezekiel 16,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 14, no. 1 (1998): 5–18. 21 Bernard Williams, Shame and Necessity (Berkeley :  University of California Press, 1993), see especially 77–9, 85, 89. 22 Stiebert, The Construction of Shame, 2.  The connection between shame and exile also informs Timothy S. Laniak, Shame and Honor in the Book of Esther (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998).

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 14

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

15

1. “You Will Forget Your Ancient Shame”

15

an image of conquest in the wake of actual war crimes of rape, so too nakedness becomes a way of speaking about exile in a world where captives are shown stripped as they are led away into exile across the panels of Assyrian reliefs.23 But there may also be a ripple of linguistic interference that causes exposed nakedness to become an easy way of thinking about exile: the root (or roots) glh occurs in biblical literature both for exile (most commonly hifil “to exile,” intransitive qal “to go into exile,” qal passive participle or hofal “exiled/be exiled”) and for exposure (qal with direct object “to uncover, reveal”; nifal “to be exposed, revealed”; piel “to uncover, disclose”). Jörn Kiefer, in the most comprehensive study of this lexeme, speculates about the interrelatedness of the ideas:  going into exile denudes the land, or movements make people visible.24 In literary use, of course, the point is not whether the two senses have any real shared history but whether the crowded linguistic space makes the two thoughts cross-fertilize in the minds of native writers and speakers.25 That is, does the idea of migrating to a faraway land get colored by the idea of exposing nakedness, through the point of contact created by their shared consonants? If the biblical writers are able to pun on the two senses, then surely such coloring does occur. As an example, exile is envisaged as itself comprising stripping or exposure in exactly this way in the wordplay of Lamentations 4:22: The punishment of your iniquity, O daughter Zion, is accomplished: he will keep you in exile (‫ ) ְל ַהגְלוֹתְֵך‬no longer; But your iniquity, O daughter Edom, he will punish: he will uncover (‫ ) ִגּלָּה‬your sins.

Some readings eliminate the wordplay here by giving to both words a single meaning: for House this is the “exile” sense of the root, for Renkema the “reveal” sense, but these solutions involve an elision of the object for the first meaning and some repointing for the second.26 Or, each word can be read as containing both meanings, but pouring the whole contents of the root into each instance in this way tends 23 Shalom Paul, “Biblical Analogues to Middle Assyrian Law,” in Religion and Law: Biblical-Judaic and Islamic Perspectives, ed. Erwin B. Firmage, Bernard G. Weiss, and John W. Welch (Winona Lake:  Eisenbrauns, 1990), 333–50; for additional sources, see Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion, 122–3. 24 Jörn Kiefer, Exil und Diaspora (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2005), 115–16, referring also to ancient and early modern lexicography for different ways of structuring the shared conceptual space. 25 On the historical-linguistic question, TDOT speculates that “Emigration or exile can be understood as an uncovering of the land, and thus ‘revealing’, ‘uncovering,’ could be the original meaning of glh (cf. Phoen.), but one could also argue conversely” (Hans-Jürgen Zobel, “‫ ָגּלָה‬.” TDOT 2:476–88). 26 Paul R. House, Song of Songs/Lamentations, WBC 23b (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004), 450. For House, ‫ ִגּלָּה עַל־חַטּ ֹאתָ י ְִך‬, which he translates “he will uncover your sins,” is “a phrase that means he will send Edom into exile, the same way that the uncovering of Jerusalem meant her introduction to exile in 1:3.” Johan Renkema, Lamentations, trans.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 15

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

16

16

Jennie Grillo

to collapse together what normal usage holds apart: talk of a Doppelbedeutung is not supported by standard use.27 Rather, glh normally operates with two quite distinct senses, and the wordplay depends on the difference. The pun activates a submerged connection between two senses that are separate but which nevertheless have an associative relationship.28 Certainly, any etymological connection between the two senses is obscured in normal use, but the matching consonants preserve a ghost of the connection, as a nuance or echo. Perhaps, then, this is the conceptual and linguistic environment that makes a stripped woman such a natural symbol for exile, and makes the experience of exile one of conscious shame.29 Shame, and especially the shame of nakedness exposed to hostile sight, is a repeated note in Theodotion’s treatment of Susanna’s story. Here, once again, the way in which Theodotion tells his tale makes the figure of Susanna into a reminder of the shamed city and people of Jerusalem as well as a departure from that type. The tale of Susanna, of course, thematizes sight and looking and, especially, the position of the viewer; and the recension of Theodotion in particular takes the telling of the story in an optical direction. Many readers have, in fact, found Susanna’s vindication unsatisfactory, precisely because it remains within the paradigm of a woman controlled by looking, and liable to shame or honor on the basis of a gaze of which she is never the subject. Susanna has also very often been read through the openly voyeuristic painting tradition of her Renaissance interpreters:  the moral critique of Mieke Bal is the most sophisticated example.30 Cheryl Exum draws extensively on Bal’s work on Susanna when she describes the type of biblical writer who “invites a kind of voyeuristic complicity between the narrator and his assumed or ideal male readers. The narrator does more than control our gaze at the naked, or partially naked, female body; he excuses it by letting us look without any blame being attached”—Exum calls this whole category of biblical story Brian Doyle (Leuven: Peeters, 1998), 566–70, repoints the hifil used of Israel to a nifal and translates “He has completed your exposure!” 27 The two-in-one reading is that of Ulrich Berges, Klagelieder, HTKAT (Freiburg:  Herder, 2002), 267–8: the verb for Judah in 4:22 “u.a. auch die Aufdeckung der Scham meint,” and Edom’s exposure will in turn lead to her exile (267). 28 Robert B. Salters, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Lamentations, ICC (London, New York:  Clark 2010), 338, finds wordplay here; this is also Kiefer’s reading of Lam. 4:22 (Exil und Diaspora, 484). 29 There may possibly also be a wordplay on the two senses in Isaiah 47:2, taunting the stripped and humiliated maiden daughter Babylon, where ‫ גלה‬occurs three times in two verses: ‫שׂפִּי־שֹׁבֶל ַגּלִּי־שׁוֹק ִעב ְִרי נְהָרוֹת‬ ְ ‫ַגּלִּי ַצמָּתֵ ְך ֶח‬ Paul comments: “The reference here is to the degradation endured by the captives deported to alien lands. As they demeaningly trip across the waters. . . they raise their skirts on high, thus uncovering their shame to all” (“Biblical Analogues,” 340). 30 Mieke Bal, “The Elders and Susanna,” Biblical Interpretation 1, no. 1 (1993): 1–19.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 16

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

17

1. “You Will Forget Your Ancient Shame”

17

“rape by the pen.”31 The theoretical perspective of all this critique derives from Laura Mulvey’s now-classic “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” and likewise Galambush analyzed the visual play of Ezekiel in Mulvey’s terms: her Ezekiel is a voyeur and she writes of “an overarching theme of control through focalization.”32 I want to suggest that the story of Susanna simultaneously trades in and devalues that currency of analysis. Instead, there is a much more complicated overlapping of visual fields in the Susanna-tale than a monolithic, one-directional male gaze: the text is crisscrossed by lines of sight from all sides. I have explored elsewhere the way that Theodotion’s use of Greek dramatic conventions and ancient optics converge to draw an intricate map of what happens to whom when seeing takes place;33 here, I  focus instead on one specific way that Susanna turns back shame by her control of the looking that organizes shame. The first shame attaching to Susanna is in fact that of her household servants: “And when the elders told their story, the servants felt very much ashamed (κατῃσχύνθησαν), for nothing like this had ever been said about Susanna” (Th 27).34 Likewise, when Susanna is finally vindicated, it is again the capacity of others for shame that acts as an index of Susanna’s own shame or honor: “Then Chelkias and his wife expressed praise concerning their daughter together with her husband Ioakim and all the relatives, because no shameful (ἄσχημον) deed was found against her” (Th 63). In a similar way, when Susanna is actually exposed at her trial, it is “all who were with her and all who saw/knew her” who weep (Th 33; OG summons the city assembly, all the sons of Israel, five hundred of Susanna’s household and her four children, 28–30). All this reflects what Bernard Williams has called the “essentially interactive” structures of shame that “serve to bond as much as to divide”; the shame of one person

31 Cheryl Exum, Fragmented Women:  Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical Narrative (Sheffield:  Sheffield University Press, 1993), 174, 196–7. See too Brenner, “Introduction,” A Feminist Companion to Esther, Judith and Susanna, 11, for readers as “accomplices” in Susanna. 32 Laura Mulvey’s essay appeared in Screen, Autumn 1975, reprinted in her Visual and Other Pleasures (New  York:  Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 14–27. For this terminology see Galambush, Jerusalem, 162, 94, 104–6, 152, 161–3. 33 Jennie Grillo, “Showing Seeing in Susanna: The Virtue of the Text,” in Prooftexts 35 (2015): 250–70. 34 The αἰσχύνη/αἰσχύνω word-group is almost always the choice made by the LXX when translating Hebrew ‫בושׁ‬: see Nesina Grütter’s entry on αἰσχύνη/αἰσχύνω in the forthcoming Historical and Theological Lexicon of the Septuagint, which I am grateful to the author for sharing with me. For a thorough treatment of shame in Greek literature mostly organized around αἰσχύνη, see David Konstan, “Shame in Ancient Greece,” Social Research 70, no. 4 (2003): 1031–60. The other instance of the lexeme in Susanna is in Th 11 where the elders are ashamed (ᾐσχύνοντο) of their lust: shame adheres to them in a more uncomplicated way.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 17

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

18

18

Jennie Grillo

is replicated in another in what Silvan Tomkins labels the “hall of mirrors of shame.”35 This intersubjective dimension of shame in Susanna also recalls the particular look of passers-by in many of the prophetic portraits of the nation as a woman. Most obviously we find it in Lamentations’ refrain, “all you who pass by, look and see” (1:12, 2:15); the same dynamic is operative in Ezekiel 16, where the naked baby is thrown in an open field where “no eye pitied you,” (v. 5) until God says “I passed you by and saw you . . . I passed you by again and looked on you” (v. 6, v. 8). Later in that chapter at the point of Jerusalem’s disgrace Christl Maier shows how the woman is subject to two bystander gazes, rather like Susanna:  “this passage encircles female Jerusalem who has been exposed to the ‘imperial male’ gaze (v. 37) with a ‘female’ gaze that is equally unsympathetic and loathing while at the same time revealing her disgrace.”36 Certainly the gazes of male and female spectators at the exposed Susanna are presented more sympathetically, but the constricting category of shame seems to exert exactly the same kind of pressure here even as it operates to vindicate her in the eyes of the crowd. The moment of Susanna’s greatest shame is of course her trial where various modalities of shame attach themselves to her from different angles:  she is stripped, touched, and seen. Here the versions are similar, though I  quote Theodotion: “Now Susanna was very refined and beautiful in appearance. Then the scoundrels commanded that she be uncovered (for she was veiled) so that they could be sated with her beauty. But those who were with her and all who saw her began weeping” (Th 31–33). Anne Carson analyzes the relationship of veiling to female honor in the Greek world and points out that unveiling is the moment in an ancient Greek wedding ceremony when the bride is no longer a virgin; relevantly for our interests, she observes that uncovering the head is a specific gesture for the disgrace of exile in Sappho.37 The elders go on to lay their hands on

35 Williams, Shame and Necessity, 81; Silvan Tomkins, “Shame-Humiliation and Contempt-Disgust,” in Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins Reader, ed. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Adam Frank (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995), 154–5. 36 Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion, 125. For the particular shame associated with the gaze of other women, see Jacqueline E. Lapsley, “Shame and Self-Knowledge,” in The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives, ed. Margaret S. Odell and John T. Strong (Atlanta: SBL, 2000), 143–74, at 162–3. 37 Anne Carson, “Putting Her in Her Place:  Women, Dirt, and Desire,” in Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World, ed. David M. Halperin, John J. Winkler, and Froma I. Zeitlin (Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 1990), 135–69. For the importance of the head in demonstrations of honor and dishonor, see the classic study of Julian Pitt-Rivers, “Honour and Social Status,” in Honour and Shame:  The Values of Mediterranean Society, ed. J. G. Peristiany (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1966), 19–77, at 2. The ancient Near Eastern background to the disgrace of unveiling in the Hebrew Bible is surveyed by Paul, “Biblical Analogues,” 341–2.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 18

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

19

1. “You Will Forget Your Ancient Shame”

19

Susanna’s head (v. 34), which seems to constitute the climax of Susanna’s shame in the story.38 But at the very moment of Susanna’s greatest shame, she in facts resists shame by diving deeper into it and embracing shamelessness: at the point of her exposure and the imposition of the elders’ hands, she does not look downward in the classic gesture of shame, but upward: she looks up to heaven (Th 35), or lifts up her head (OG 35). We might contrast this with the expected dropped eyes, bowed head, and downward look of shame: Eve Sedgwick calls the posture of eyes down and head turned away the “proto-form” of shame, speaking of “Blazons of shame, the ‘fallen face’ with eyes down and head averted.”39 Likewise Susanna’s loud cry (Th 42–43, transposed from quiet speech in OG 35)  is bold and shameless:  staying quiet is another gesture in the register of shame’s symptoms that Susanna simply casts off.40 Her cry itself does not squirm away from exposure but rushes to welcome it: she addresses God as “you who are familiar with secret things, you who know all things before their beginning,” actively seeking the scrutiny of a God who is, in Hippolytus’s striking image here, “all eye.”41 In all of this, the presentation of Susanna’s shame resonates closely with the subtle twists and turns of shame analyzed by Virginia Burrus in her treatment of shame in a different set of literary texts. Susanna precisely performs the “innovatively shameless turn toward shame” that Burrus observes in Christian martyr narratives: exactly like Burrus’s specimens, Susanna’s shamelessness is “balanced between a refusal and a willful embracing of shame. Whatever it is, it is not simply outside shame but is at once resistant to and contiguous with it”; “Cultivating courage, shamelessness engages the fear of being shamed and thus also exposes the coercive force of shaming: as eye meets eye, defying shame’s inhibition, shame is itself shamed.”42 It is for good reason that Susanna would later become an emblem of this Christian ideology of martyrdom: rather than shrinking from shame, she faces it down and thus transfigures it. The genealogy becomes plain when Susanna is assimilated to the idea of spectacle by Pseudo-Chrysostom, who introduces his celebration of Susanna as martyr thus: “So let Susanna also contend in this common theater, where both

38 For the role of touch in shaming a person, see Virginia Burrus, Saving Shame: Martyrs, Saints, and Other Abject Subjects (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 45–6. 39 Eve Sedgwick, “Shame, Theatricality and Queer Performativity,” in Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity (Durham, NC:  Duke University Press, 2003), 36; behind this is Tomkins, “Shame-Humiliation,” 134–7. 40 Kurt W. Fischer and June Price Tangney, “Self-Conscious Emotions and the Affect Revolution,” in Self-Conscious Emotions: The Psychology of Shame, Guilt, Embarrassment, and Pride, ed. Kurt W. Fischer and June Price Tangney (New York: Guilford Press, 1995), 7, add “staying quiet.” For the scripting of silence as part of a particularly female construction of shame see Pitt-Rivers, “Honour and Social Status,” 42. 41 ὅλος ὀφθαλμός; Hippolytus, Commentary on Daniel, 1.33. 42 Burrus, Saving Shame, 9, 3.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 19

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

20

20

Jennie Grillo

God and the angels and men and women may see her.”43 In this aspect too, then, Susanna is a character who at every point absorbs but then expels the specific terms of the disgrace of the female figure of Israel and Judah in the Bible. She plays the shamed and shameful role of her earlier predecessors in Ezekiel and Hosea, but their shame becomes the occasion for her vindication.44

Conclusion Susanna’s new and altered performance of an old role prompts the question of what exactly this story is doing when it reworks the prophetic treatment of the nation as a woman:  what polemical point is being made by this rewriting, and against whom? Here as throughout, the imaginary world of the text is a biblical one, and all the energy of self-definition is directed against scriptural exemplars rather than real-world ones. Some have seen in the story a post-exilic Judean animus against the remnants of the northern kingdom, or a Hasmonean-period protest against worldly religious leaders messing in politics;45 instead, I suggest that the scribes behind Susanna have historical rather than political targets, and aim at the reshaping of their readers’ imagination about the past, rather than at any contemporary groups. This emerges in the language given to Daniel for his judgments in favor of Susanna and against the elders. In both versions, when Daniel calls Susanna a daughter of Judah, who would not tolerate the elders’ lawlessness as the daughters of Israel did (57), his speech is picking up the thread of the “two sisters” motif that has run all the way from Hosea 4:15. This variation on the nation-aswoman theme has been a way for the prophets to speak about the northern and southern kingdoms or about Jerusalem and Samaria; the main treatments are in Jeremiah 3 and Ezekiel 23. Nevertheless, in Daniel’s speech this trope is employed for polemic not between Israel and Judah but between past and present. Although Daniel contrasts Susanna as a daughter of Judah with the daughters of Israel, he also calls her a daughter of Israel in turn, just as his hearers are sons of Israel (48; cf. OG 7), and in the Old Greek the whole community seems to be “Jacob” (OG 62) just as they are all “the Judeans” for Theodotion (Th 4). So there is nothing wrong with “Israel” as a category in this story; as with very many post-exilic texts, the scribes responsible for Susanna seem able to use “Israel” and “Judah” at times interchangeably and together for the present Jewish people, here even imagined in the diaspora. Rather than an Israel/Judah polemic, the operative polarity is

43 Pseudo-Chrysostom, “On Susanna,” PG 56.589–94. I am grateful to Janet Downie for help with the Greek text. 44 Leisering, Susanna und der Sündenfall der Ältesten, 213–14, also notes the collocation between stripping and shame in Susanna, and its background in prophetic texts; for her, though, Susanna’s body in OG is no longer a site of shaming, and the judgment of the prophetic texts is rejected rather than transfigured. 45 See Engel, Die Susanna-Erzählung, 180.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 20

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

21

1. “You Will Forget Your Ancient Shame”

21

between past and present: the distinction drawn by Daniel is located not in space but in time by the charge to the first elder, “you that have grown wicked in ancient days.” Daniel Smith-Christopher has suggested that by using that slur (“You old relic of evil days” as he translates it) Daniel harks back “to the era before the exile as the ‘evil days,’ for which the exile itself was punishment.”46 Susanna herself is set in contrast to “historical” Israel, not to Israel as any political or ethnic category presently knowable to the text’s audience. It is in that historical typology that Susanna is not a daughter of Israel; her story is a rewriting of both Israel’s and Judah’s pre-exilic past. Deutero-Isaiah proclaimed to the gloriously restored mother Zion that her “ancient shame” of faithlessness and exile was buried in forgetfulness (Isa. 54:4); the figure of Susanna inhabits the same side of the same contrast, undoing the ancient shame of the whole nation. The tale of Susanna is thus by no means a repudiation of the prophetic perspective on faithless Israel and Judah: from the point of view of this text, that prophetic story did indeed tell the truth about the past, but things are different now.47 I have suggested, then, that Susanna does in Israel’s literature what it is sometimes noted that Song of Songs does, which is to provide a happy symbolic counterpart to the broken relationship between God and his people, figured as a woman.48 But Song of Songs projects that happy relationship back into Solomonic memory, to be subsequently lost, whereas Susanna is explicitly located at a point of restoration after faithlessness and exile. In that way, this book does similar work to what Christl Maier, Patricia K. Tull, Mark Biddle and others have proposed for parts of Deutero-Isaiah (ch. 54, ch. 62), reworking and reversing the shamed and failing images of women in earlier prophetic texts and in Lamentations.49 But unlike those works, whose rhetorical stance is directed at a community depicted in the text in something close to real time, the work of rehabilitation in Susanna happens

46 Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, “Between Ezra and Isaiah: Exclusion, Transformation, and Inclusion of the ‘Foreigner’ in Post-Exilic Biblical Theology,” in Ethnicity and the Bible, ed. Mark Brett (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 117–42, at 129. This would be a counterpart to the ethnic slur directed at the second elder, “Why is your seed twisted, like that of Sidon [Chanaan in Th] and not of Judah?” (56), making a distinction not within the present unit “Israel-and-Judah” but between that community and what lies outside it, in space just as in time. 47 In this I differ from Leisering, Susanna und der Sündenfall der Ältesten, for whom OG Susanna entirely overturns a fundamentally misogynistic metaphorical structure (206–11, 224–9). 48 Ellen F. Davis, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000). 49 Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion, chs 6 and 7; Patricia K. Tull, Remember the Former Things: The Recollection of Previous Texts in Second Isaiah (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997); Mark E. Biddle, “Lady Zion’s Alter Egos: Isaiah 47.1–15 and 57.6–13 as Structural Counterparts,” in New Visions of Isaiah, ed. Roy F. Melugin and Marvin A. Sweeney (Sheffield:  Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 124–39. See also Stiebert, Construction of Shame, 101, on how the restored Zion of Isa. 54 specifically turns back shame.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 21

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

22

22

Jennie Grillo

mainly at the level of imagination. In contrast to prophecy or lament, the new possibilities of Hellenistic fiction locate the events in an Exile that is already itself a faraway construction of long ago: the novella form creates a fresh set of removes for thinking about Judean identity through a cast of purely literary Judeans in another place and time. Rather than presenting a community purified by the Exile, then, the story of Susanna makes the Exile the catalyst for the purification of a metaphor.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 22

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

23

Chapter 2 T HE O NE S R ETURNING:  R U T H , N AOM I , A N D S O C IA L N E GOTIATION IN TH E P O ST- E XI LIC   P E RIOD Danna Nolan Fewell

Communal identity in the colony of Yehud is attracting a great deal of attention these days among biblical historians of the Persian and Hellenistic periods, with the issue of interethnic marriage providing a major discursive magnet. One of the critical tasks has been the categorization of biblical and extra-biblical sources in terms of their respective stances to this issue. A taxonomy seems to have emerged, with texts classified as advocating, vindicating, permitting, accepting conditionally, restricting, or expressing antagonism toward mixed marriage.1 Moreover, it has been noted that texts that restrict or prohibit such marriages share particular justifications: they devalue outsiders based upon moral deficiencies, the threat of apostasy, and cultic purity codes or some combination of these.2 These classifications suggest that a diversity of attitudes toward foreigners, as well as their underlying logics, must have existed in the ancient world. The critical exercise itself points to the growing recognition of how literary texts in general, but narratives most explicitly, are integral to the formation of communal identity and social problem solving. Many biblical narratives, however, are hardly univocal in offering singular political stances or social solutions, and biblical critics, whether historical, sociological, or literary, continue to struggle with how multi-vocality might have functioned in the ancient world. In what follows I offer a socio-narratological analysis3 1 Christian Frevel, “The Discourse on Intermarriage in the Hebrew Bible,” in Mixed Marriages:  Intermarriage and Group Identity in the Second Temple Period, ed. Christian Frevel (New York/London: T&T Clark, 2011), 1–14; 8. 2 Benedikt J. Conczorowski, “All the Same as Ezra? Conceptual Differences Between the Texts of Intermarriage in Genesis, Deuteronomy 7 and Ezra,” in Mixed Marriages:  Intermarriage and Group Identity in the Second Temple Period, ed. Christian Frevel (New York/London: T&T Clark, 2011), 89–108; 108. 3 Socio-narratology explores the sociality of narrative, in terms of both how stories are socially embedded and constructed and how stories function socially to reflect upon and to attempt to improve social life through both retrospective and prospective narration. See further, Arthur Frank, Letting Stories Breathe: A Socio-Narratology (Chicago: University

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 23

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

24

24

Danna Nolan Fewell

of a key, but often stereotyped, text in the mixed marriage debate: the book of Ruth. Long characterized as countering the restrictive reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah,4 the book of Ruth is usually cited, often in passing, as a self-evident example of a social stance open to the inclusion of foreigners.5 Even historians who detect in the book some ambivalence regarding mixed marriage conclude that the book’s predominant message is “pluralist” and favors “the assimilation of foreigners.”6 of Chicago Press, 2010), who draws heavily on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and Wayne Booth; Mark Currie, Postmodern Narrative Theory (Palgrave MacMillan 1998, 2011); Monika Fludernik, Towards a “Natural” Narratology (London/New  York:  Routledge, 1996); and David Herman, Story Logic:  Problems and Possibilities of Narrative (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 2002). For further reflections on this in relation to biblical narrative, see Danna Nolan Fewell, “The Work of Biblical Narrative,” in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Narrative, ed. Danna Nolan Fewell (Oxford University Press, 2016). 4 Building, it seems, on the early argument of John Dominic Crossan that the book of Ruth functions as a parable critiquing the social attitudes espoused in Ezra and Nehemiah, The Dark Interval:  Towards a Theology of Story (Niles, IL:  Argus Communications, 1975), 68–72. 5 The sentiments expressed by Ralf Rothenbusch are not uncommon: The fact that mixed marriages were not perceived as offensive in early post-exilic Judah is shown in the book of Ruth. The text deals with the situation in Palestine after the exile and it is hardly conceivable that it was written anywhere other than there. No polemic regarding the Moabite origin of Ruth is discernable. (“The Question of Mixed Marriages Between the Poles of Diaspora and Homeland:  Observations in Ezra-Nehemiah,” in Mixed Marriages:  Intermarriage and Group Identity in the Second Temple Period, ed. Christian Frevel [New York/London: T&T Clark, 2011], 60–77; 76.) He goes on to write: For this reason the book is not necessarily to be read as a plea in favor of mixed marriages. However, it is clear that they were not rejected as such in Judah. The marriage of the Judean Machlon from Bethlehem to Ruth, the Moabite woman, is in no way criticized or its legality put into question. In sharp contrast to the demand for divorce of mixed marriages in Ezra 9–10, it even claims the practice of the Levirate law for Ruth. The Judean Boaz fulfilled it and so Ruth was enrolled in the family tree of David (Ruth 4:13–23). (76) 6 Yonina Dor, “From the Well in Midian to the Baal of Peor:  Different Attitudes to Marriage of Israelites to Midianite Women,” in Mixed Marriages: Intermarriage and Group Identity in the Second Temple Period, ed. Christian Frevel (New York/London:  T&T Clark, 2011), 154–69; 155. Dor, following the work of Christiana van Houten (The Alien in Israelite Law [JSOTSup 107; Sheffield: JSOT, 1991]) writes: In the book of Ruth, Ruth’s positive personal qualities are emphasized, even though she is a Moabite: her faithfulness, her modesty, and her agreement to the purchase of

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 24

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

25

2. The Ones Returning

25

In short, the book of Ruth is granted a voice in the critical debate over communal boundaries in post-exilic Yehud, but the rich complexity of that voice has yet to be mined. Operating with a Bakhtinian notion of narrative that recognizes stories to be more dialogic and socially constructed than unidirectional and expressive of singular, clearly definable social stances, I focus on how the particular narratological choices made in the story of Ruth construct a discursive space that functions to invite ongoing deliberations of communal boundaries. Through its various narrative strategies, the book refuses to offer a “position paper” on this issue of insiders and outsiders, but instead creates a narrative arena for communal reflection and social negotiation about group boundaries in light of particular historical and social developments, namely the influx of immigrants “returning” from diaspora and the impact of this development in rural areas outside Jerusalem. As many commentators have noted, the book of Ruth devotes much initial attention to the motif of returning. The main plot is launched by women returning to a homeland. Ruth, a foreigner, “returns” to a place she has never been before. Naomi returns “empty,” with no resources to work the landholdings of her deceased husband. Both foreignness and survival drive the plot, placing the women at the mercy of an economic, and somewhat deified, “redeemer.” Moreover, the relationship between the two women is an ambivalent one, in which the body of one is used in various ways to sustain the wellbeing of the other. At the end of the story, the elder woman is “restored” to the community, while the younger one continues to function instrumentally, providing plot-resolving social linkages and reproductive gifts before disappearing into the background. Given the economic strains and social problems faced in post-exilic Yehud, particularly those of imperial annexation and immigration, we might wonder how the story is expressing and attempting to resolve communal anxieties regarding “ones returning” who bring

the family plot prove that she is worthy of joining the Israelite community. The birth of Oved, who becomes the grandfather of David, is the high point of the legitimating of marriage with a Moabite woman. Yet, besides the pluralism which is evident throughout the book of Ruth, there is also some criticism of her: the erotic story of nocturnal temptation on the threshing-floor is reminiscent of the sin of Ham who uncovered the nakedness of his father Noah (Gen. 9:21), and the rape of Lot by his daughters (Gen. 19:31–35). The worst blow to her standing is struck by her neighbors when they give a name to her new-born child—yeled ben lnaomi (Ruth 4:17)—and Naomi took steps to adopt him (Ruth 4:16) in order to Judaize King David’s ancestry, and thereby to neutralize his relationship with his Moabite biological ancestress. This is a separatist attitude that undermines the pluralist message which is dominant through the book of Ruth. (165) In what follows, I hope to show how these mixed representations are working on the social psyche.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 25

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

26

26

Danna Nolan Fewell

foreign family members into the community’s midst and make claims on its resources.7 My driving questions are these: If the story of Ruth is, indeed, about negotiating communal boundaries (and not simply imagining how easily they might be crossed), what particularities about people, space, and social conditions are given expression by this story and how might those relate, or not relate, to universal conclusions about insiders and outsiders? How, precisely, does the story of Ruth narratively construct its narrative space to accommodate communal deliberation? How do the imagined space, time, characters, and events in the story world relate to the material space, historical circumstances, people, and social conditions that contribute to the production of this story? And, finally, how does the story shape, alter communal visions of “how the world is, might be, or should be”?8

The road to survival The story begins “It was in the days when the judges judged . . . ”. As narratologist Monika Fludernik reminds us, “[W]hat we already know well does not have any

7 A few commentators have considered this connection to returning exiles. In her 2002 monograph Reading the Women of the Bible:  A New Interpretation of Their Stories, (New  York:  Schocken, 254–6), Tikva Frymer-Kensky had briefly suggested that, as a post-exilic production, the book of Ruth addresses the relationship between those returning from the Babylonian exile and those who had remained in the land. Returnees would have resonated with Naomi; foreign family members, also returning, would have seen themselves in the figure of Ruth; and the relationship of these women to the Bethlehemite villagers offers, in contrast to the more exclusive tendencies of Ezra and Nehemiah, a kind of allegorical ideal solution to how this social assimilation should take place. An expansion of this idea was, unfortunately, not forthcoming in her JPS Commentary on Ruth that had to be completed posthumously by Tamara Eskenazi. In a passing remark in her JPS Jewish Study Bible exposition, Adele Berlin also hints that the social dynamics between returnees and remainees could, at least in part, be driving the story’s rhetoric: “[T]he book may be read as promising that those who return from exile will be blessed, just as Naomi was when she returned from Moab to Bethlehem” (“Ruth” in The JPS Jewish Study Bible: Featuring The Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, [JPS, 2004], 1579). In a similar vein, Judy Fentress-Williams (Ruth [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2012], 63) also observes that the construction of Naomi’s situation in Ruth 1 could easily reflect the larger communal experience of exile and return: “She has returned to the land that is central to her identity but she is no longer the same; she has lost so much and what she has is foreign . . . Before she can rebuild, Naomi and the nation she represents must mourn what has been lost.” 8 The language of David Herman, “Stories as a Tool for Thinking,” in Narrative Theory and the Cognitive Sciences, ed. David Herman (Stanford, CA:  CSLI Publications, 2003), 163–92; 183–4.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 26

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

27

2. The Ones Returning

27

news value or interest to the reader or listener. It is therefore only logical that narrative mostly deals with the unfamiliar, the long ago, and far away; or with the dangerous, the secret, and the prohibited.”9 The “time of the judges” not only evokes an era of lawlessness, adventure, danger, even scandal but it also basically sets up a “narrative ambush” for the post-exilic audience by “pretend[ing] to escape present circumstances.”10 The “long ago and far away” story world is, in fact, a clever recontextualization of post-exilic experience. Moreover, returning to the days of the judges dramatizes that the past is not a “permanent landmark” set in stone; rather, it is a place that can be revisited, reconstructed, reimagined. If the past can be reimagined, then so can the present and the future. The problem initiating the plot follows immediately: a famine in the land. The report of famine has profound resonance for a community that probably would have experienced crop failure two out of every five years, and that would still be responsible for paying imperial taxes. The setting of Bethlehem is significant not only for the irony it creates in the story —the “house of bread” has no bread—and not only because it is reputed to be the birthplace of King David who will make his genealogical debut at the end of story but also because Bethlehem locates the community in question. It is not Jerusalem, the locus and focus of most other biblical texts dealing with the presence of foreigners in general and mixed marriages in particular. Consequently, the story’s major hurdles to cultural assimilation will not be issues of cultic purity as those relate to temple and holy city (as in the case of Ezra), nor will they reflect the political jockeying taking place in the provincial capital (as in the case of Nehemiah). Rather, Bethlehem represents the outlying agrarian culture, basically the communities responsible for producing the food that both maintains the unself-supporting priesthood and goes toward paying the king’s tax. When it comes to determining communal boundaries in a place like Bethlehem, the stakes are different: land, labor, population growth, the distribution of resources, as well as a demonstrated commitment to the community’s values and well-being take priority over cultic considerations or political positioning with the Persian government. In fact, in a place like Bethlehem, we may even detect a subtle critique of colonized life. Taking us back to the time of the judges and portraying that time as one of village autonomy may, in itself, offer a commentary on empire. The story’s later countering and subverting of the legal tradition (in ch. 4)  conspires with this setting to validate local autonomy over against imperially sanctioned rules of behavior. The name Elimelek, “my god is king,” signifies not simply theological devotion11 but political resistance in an imperial world. It may also signal a

9 Monika Fludernik, “Identity/alterity,” in The Cambridge Companion to Narrative, ed. David Herman (Cambridge University Press, 2007), 260–72; 264. 10 On this narrative strategy, see Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: University of California, 1984), 79. 11 Although the ambiguity here should not go unnoticed: Is “el” a generic signifier of divinity or a proper name (El)? Does this theophoric name encompass devotion to Yhwh,

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 27

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

28

28

Danna Nolan Fewell

profound disillusion with kingship in general, even that of David whose genealogical presence graces the end of the account. The migration elsewhere narrativizes the first spatial and cultural boundary to be crossed, both capturing the experience of those who may have voluntarily fled the Babylonian invasion, but also troping the experience of forced exile, since neither Naomi nor her sons appear to have much say in the matter. As mentioned earlier, the subsequent “returning” motif would also easily trigger a connection between the story world and the post-exilic context. Returnees would have undoubtedly brought people from other cultures who had married into their families, and personal loss and limited economic and social prospects in diaspora would have been a common motivation for returning. Our narrative does not speak of Babylonia directly, however, but of Moab as the family’s site of relocation. Home to the ethnically other, but genealogically related; the morally inferior, but sometimes politically dominant; subjects of both cultural contempt and political sympathy; a provincial competitor subject to similar climate trends, Moab’s ambivalence is caught in its designation: “tsadeh-Moab”: the “fields” of Moab. Or the “wilds” of Moab? A place of agricultural sustenance? Or a place of danger and risk? The gamble for survival in Moab is ultimately lost. As foreshadowed in the “gloom and doom” names of Mahlon (“sickness”) and Chilion (“destruction”), boundary crossing is fraught with risk. And we soon see that, for a widowed mother, life in diaspora is one of hardship, borne without the support of extended family. Even the sons’ “lifting” (rather than “taking”) Moabite wives may point to marriages with young girls (who today we would deem to be children) who come without economic resources or support of family alliances.12 This possibility may explain the later reference to their “mothers’ (rather than their fathers’) houses,” and may, in turn, affect our perception of Ruth’s determination to return with Naomi: if she has been a child-bride “lifted” from impoverished circumstances, then, for all practical purposes, Naomi has been her mother, and Ruth has little familial support to fall back on in Moab. While on the one hand, her devotion to her mother-in-law is admirable, on the other, it intimates dependency and a bold gamble for the sake of self-preservation. While the opening of the story promises, as a means of capturing the audience’s attention, a venture into the unfamiliar, it also dramatizes the common narrative allure that “[t]he excitement of penetrating into the unknown is fraught

or does it suggest a divergent theological position? Moreover, does it indicate an indigenous tie to land and deity that counters imperial imports? 12 Helpful discussions of this expression include Allen Guenther, “A Typology of Israelite Marriage:  Kinship, Socio-Economic, and Religious Factors,” JSOT 29 (2005):  387–407; Tamara Eskenazi, “The Missions of Ezra and Nehemiah,” Judah and the Judeans:  In the Persian Period, ed. O. Lipschits and M. Oeming (Winona Lake, IN:  Eisenbrauns, 2006), 509–29; Katherine E. Southwood, Ethnicity and the Mixed Marriage Crisis in Ezra 9–10: An Anthropological Approach (Oxford University Press, 2012), 165–8.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 28

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

29

2. The Ones Returning

29

with the dangers of incorporation and death.”13 Nearly the entire family is lost, literally, to the fields of Moab, presenting a community wrestling with group boundaries with an even more menacing world: over against the idea of admitting foreigners into the community’s midst stands the bleaker possibility of community members absorbed into foreign space. Thus the threat of absorption and loss into the larger, unboundaried world frames the question of what to do with “the ones returning.” The poignant, repeated, description of Naomi’s being “left over” (tesha’er) after the deaths of her husband and sons introduces the theme of the remnant, triggering consciousness of the ongoing tug-of-war over this label in post-exilic Yehud.14 Who, indeed, is the true remnant, of prophetic fame? The returning families of the Babylonian deportees? Or the descendants of those who had been left behind in Judah? Would the “remaining remnant” find themselves in sympathy with the remaindered Naomi? Or would they find offensive the co-option of the term in relation to a returnee? Would the remaindered Naomi invite a new conceptualization of what it means to be a remnant? The loss that haunts the story world is emotive: Personal stories have a way of affecting communal stories. The experiences and identities of individuals often challenge the ways in which communities view themselves.15 The depictions of Naomi and Ruth that follow in ch. 1 dramatize personal trauma and displacement. Enacted at a figurative crossroad between Moab and Judah, where bodies touch and separate, where the boundary respected by one is traversed by another, the dialogue between Naomi and her daughters-in-law bridges the narrative distance between community and story world, providing some access to characters’ inner lives.16 According to Tod Linafelt, the very fact that the dialogue is rendered in poetic verse intensifies the personal disclosures, heightening the emotion and credibility.17 Despite the adherence to protocol, the liberal sprinkling of hypothetical scenarios, and the manipulative rhetoric,18 the women’s speeches nevertheless reveal sorrow, passion, fear, and determination, offering a glimpse into their personal subjectivities.

13 Fludernik, “Identity/alterity,” 264. 14 See Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Exclusive Inclusivity:  Identity Conflicts between the Exiles and the People Who Remained (6th-5th Centuries BCE). (NY/London/Sydney/New Delhi: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013). 15 Barbara Johnstone, Stories, Community, and Place : Narratives From Middle America. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 126–7. 16 Currie, Postmodern Narrative Theory, 27. 17 Tod Linafelt, “Narrative and Poetic Art in the Book of Ruth,” Interpretation 64, no. 2 (2010):  118–29; see also his “Poetry and Biblical Narrative,” in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Narrative, ed. Danna Nolan Fewell (Oxford University Press, 2016). 18 On the rhetoric of this exchange, see Danna Nolan Fewell and David Miller Gunn, Compromising Redemption: Relating Characters in the Book of Ruth (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1990), 26–8; 72–6.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 29

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

30

30

Danna Nolan Fewell

In addition to affective proximity, the emotional exchange provides essential information for the audience’s consideration as they deliberate the issue of intermarriage:  The daughters-in-law, despite being Moabite, have shown such hesed to Naomi that Yhwh would be well-served to emulate it. The girls are both still young enough to marry again and produce children (while Naomi herself is not). There are no Moabite men who will be making claims on these two girls (either now or later). There is a potential threat of apostasy, signaled by Naomi’s admonition to return to the Moabite people and Moabite gods, but this is then offset to some extent by Ruth’s perhaps overly adamant response “your god [is] my god.” Naomi’s insistence that Yhwh has caused her bitter situation hints that she sees herself bearing the brunt of some sort of collective guilt, most likely related to the fraternizing with Moabites. At the same time, the extent of her tragedy is clear, even as she makes a brave attempt to live into a life very different from the one she may have initially imagined. Finally, Ruth’s ardent speech embracing place, people, deity, and most of all Naomi, communicates both the depth and the permanence of her commitment to Naomi’s community of origin. In other words, she has no intentions of ever leaving Bethlehem to return to Moab, a fact that may be deemed either a blessing or a curse. This litany of details constitutes a rich and varied pool of information for an audience to take into account as they contemplate their own community boundaries. These details are personal and specific. Some of them function to answer the community’s questions about returnees of dubious origin—questions about religious commitment, personal values, willingness to adapt (and adopt!), potential to contribute to the labor force and to population growth, and so on. Other details elicit empathy: the personal loss, the gender-specific vulnerability, the economic need, the idea of displacement, the courage to relocate despite hardship and risk, and the trust in the community of Bethlehem to offer a better, more secure future. These details do not, however, settle the question of how porous or rigid communal boundaries should be. There are also story elements that promote ambivalence: Upon Ruth’s declaration to return with her, Naomi “ceases to speak to her,” suggesting resignation, if not outright displeasure with Ruth’s decision. Upon their entry into Bethlehem, Naomi makes it clear that Ruth’s presence in no way ameliorates her sense of emptiness.19 The silence of the townswomen in regard to Ruth’s arrival suggests an unreadiness to respond to the presence of a foreigner, and even their questioning of Naomi’s identity (“Is this Naomi?”) may point to a tentativeness to accept a returning one back into their midst. Naomi’s name-changing tirade (“Don’t call me ‘Sweet;’ call me ‘Bitter’ ”) underscores how experience changes identity. Even those who once belonged to the community may now be suspect due to their transforming encounters with the world beyond the village gates. Can a community really afford to take in someone that Yhwh is treating with disdain? Could she, in fact, be bringing calamity with her? And does the Moabite girl, in the language of Genesis 19:19, personify “the evil that clings” to her? Finally, the

19 See Fewell and Gunn, Compromising Redemption, 32–4; 74–6.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 30

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

31

2. The Ones Returning

31

narrator’s summation at the end of the chapter, “And Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite, her daughter-in-law, with her, the one returning from the fields of Moab . . .,” while announcing that the two women have indeed crossed the first boundary into the community, also keeps Ruth’s foreignness in the foreground as an inescapable identity marker. The piling up of labels “Ruth the Moabite, the daughter-in-law, the one returning from the fields of Moab” shows her to be a body out of place, in need of explanation, definition, qualification.20 Consequently, the first narrative movement closes with lingering questions. What does it mean to have such ones returning? What demands will they make on the community’s economic stability, social life, theological understandings? Does the foreigner enable the former citizen’s return and survival? Will she be a benign, or even valuable, addition to village life? Does she bring contaminating disaster? The story, with its strategic ambiguity,21 accommodates a spectrum of communal attitudes in active dialogue.

Finding favor in the fields Focalizing identity markers frame yet another boundary crossing in the next episode. Chapter 2 opens with a narratorial aside: Naomi has a kinsman, on her husband’s side, an ‘ish gibbor chayil, a man of substance/property, from the family of Elimelek, and his name is Boaz. When “Ruth the Moabite,” who is identified as such even when speaking to her mother-in-law, ventures out to glean, she just so happens onto the field of Boaz who, we are told again, is a member of Elimelek’s extended family. This information, as well as Ruth’s Moabite label, is repeated yet again at the end of the chapter. For an audience wrestling with their own present social situation, the dichotomy of foreign and family is confronted head-on, with the extremes of Ruth the immigrant Moabite and Boaz the landholding Bethlehemite being mediated by Naomi and her dead husband Elimelek. This acknowledges several things: Those who had remained in the land are legitimate landowners. Those returning are related to those remaining by varying degrees of kinship which, in turn, positions some of those returning in the same landed class of those who had remained. This, on the one hand, insinuates some sort of obligation to “make room” for returnees. On the other hand, it also exposes an “in-between” space occupied by the foreign immigrant, who will not fit neatly into

20 See Catherine Emmott, “Constructing Social Space: Sociocognitive Factors in the Interpretation of Character Relations,” in Narrative Theory and the Cognitive Sciences, ed. David Herman (Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications, 2003), 295–321. Emmott’s study on referents exposes how pronouns are sufficient when the character is focalized as prominent, but descriptors and labels multiply when characters are less known and less central. 21 For another analysis of strategic ambiguity in Ruth, focused on issues of sexuality and desire, see Stephanie Day Powell, “Do Not Press Me to Leave You: Narrative Desire in the Book of Ruth,” Drew University Graduate Division of Religion dissertation, 2015.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 31

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

32

32

Danna Nolan Fewell

the social system and who will be pressured to “make do” in ways that stretch and transgress the social boundaries.22 As Naomi remains, for the remainder of the story, physically passive, but verbally directive in unidentified space, Ruth is constantly on the move, traversing public and private spaces, and using these to her own advantage. Throughout the main scene of ch. 2, as Ruth crosses the boundaries of public space, the theme of identity continues to play, both verbally and spatially. “Whose girl is this?” asks Boaz when he sees Ruth. The overseer redundantly replies, “She is the Moabite girl, the one returning with Naomi from the country of Moab . . .”. (We might well wonder, where else do Moabites come from?!) She is depicted, by the overseer and subsequently by Boaz himself (2:11), as an immigrant, someone out of place: She is a Moabite who should be in Moab, and yet here she is, uninvited and unexpected, both in Boaz’s field and in his field of vision. For Ruth’s part, this is not coincidental, since she sets out intentionally to find someone “in whose eyes I might find favor.” The overseer stumbles on, relaying her request to glean “among the sheaves after the reapers.” An appeal for favor well beyond typical gleaning practices, Ruth’s request represents, to use de Certeau’s language, a certain “poaching” on the space of others.23 Rather than requesting to join his labor force as any able-bodied young woman might do at harvest time, she asks, though unentitled, to glean immediately behind the reapers where the sheaves are being bound.24 In her exchange with the pious Boaz, she tests, if not transgresses, social boundaries as well, as she gently mocks his status and piety. By noon she is dining with the reapers, and eating from Boaz’s plate, all the while reminding both Boaz and the audience that she is a foreigner (nacriyah) and “not even one of the maidservants.” Her occupation of the reapers’ domain pays off abundantly, with more grain than any ordinary gleaner could possibly hope for, and probably more food than a day’s wage could purchase. While Boaz may attribute this success to Yhwh’s “paying a good wage” and cast her migratory initiative as “seeking refuge under Yhwh’s wings,” Ruth, of course, keeps the reason for her relocation to herself, but

22 On “making do,” see de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 29–42. 23 On “poaching” space, see de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 37–42. 24 The overseer’s speech is notoriously garbled. Its ambiguity, along with the proleptic summary in 2.3, has generated debate regarding whether Ruth is standing waiting for permission to glean or has already taken her place among the gleaners. If she is asking for special treatment, the former scenario makes the most sense, as the overseer does not appear to be authorized to grant her request. Moreover, it seems unlikely, given her intention to “find favor,” that she would settle for an overseer’s “favor” but would hold out for a more economically stable benefactor. It should also be noted that no other gleaners are actually mentioned. The pressures of harvest season would in actuality provide paid work for any able-bodied gleaner. Clearly Boaz has other young women in his employ, so why does Ruth not simply ask for a job? She seems to be asking for something more lucrative.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 32

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

33

2. The Ones Returning

33

makes it abundantly clear here that it is Boaz’s favor, and later in ch. 3, that it is Boaz’s wing that can create the space in which she can live. Both Ruth’s initiative and her labor in the fields testify to the contribution she is capable of making to a community dependent upon agriculture. The recent works of Athalya Brenner25 and Jennifer Koosed26 remind us how difficult, demanding, and dangerous this kind of subsistence labor can be. The fact that Ruth is, on behalf of Naomi and herself, willing and able to lay claim to this agricultural space and to the favor of a man of substance suggests that, despite her demur self-labeling of “foreigner,” she is fully prepared to carve out space for herself in the house of bread. On the other hand, she plays by different rules, pressing for unentitled favors that day laborers might resent. And as for Boaz, he, like the narrator, understands that personal stories challenge communal identity. “It has indeed been told to me (hugged huggad li),” he says to the modest Ruth, “of all that you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband. You left behind your father and mother and the land of your birth to come to a people you did not know before.” He seems to think this a remarkable narrative, reminiscent of Abraham‘s migration—another account possibly contemporary with the story’s audience and being circulated to convince further deportees to return from Babylonia. Ruth’s narrative, according to Boaz, inspires divine hospitality and protection, and changes the rules of engagement with newcomers in Boaz’s own fields.27 As the episode draws to a close, we hear Naomi blessing Boaz, describing either him or Yhwh—the syntax is not clear—as one not “forsaking hesed to the living or the dead.” She further explains to Ruth that the man “is close to us, one of our redeemers.” The label “redeemer,” as is commonly known, refers to the obligations of close male kin either to avenge a family victim of violence or to intervene in situations of economic hardship, by keeping family land and/or family members from falling into the hands of creditors. It has also been posited, based upon its usage in Job, that a redeemer was obliged to remember the dead and to keep the names of the dead from being forgotten.28 The practice, aimed at protecting or restoring social boundaries, appears to be rooted in antiquity, but the language of redemption noticeably escalates in exilic and post-exilic literature, primarily

25 Athalya Brenner, “From Ruth to the ‘Global Woman’:  Social and Legal Aspects,” Interpretation 64, no. 2 (April, 2010):  162–8; idem, “From Ruth to Foreign Workers in Contemporary Israel: A Case Study in the Interaction of Religion, Politics and the Economy,” in Secularism and Biblical Studies, ed. Roland Boer (London: Equinox, 2010), 178–91. 26 Jennifer L. Koosed, Gleaning Ruth: A Biblical Heroine and Her Afterlives (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2011). 27 On the potential danger for a stranger in the fields, see Fewell and Gunn, Compromising Redemption, 42–4; 76–7; 84–5; David Shepherd, “Violence in the Fields? Translating, Reading, and Revising in Ruth 2,” CBQ 63, no. 3 (2001): 444–63. 28 See Matthew J. Suriano, “Death, Disinheritance, and Job’s Kinsman-Redeemer,” JBL 129, no. 1 (2010): 49–66.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 33

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

34

34

Danna Nolan Fewell

occurring in the priestly writings, the latter parts of Isaiah, a few late psalms, and this particular text. What that suggests is that its usage in the book of Ruth is already laden with the theological metaphorization of Deutero-Isaiah which credits Yhwh with redemption, and casts redemption as the passage from exile to homeland. For members of an audience who might well associate themselves with the landowning, pious Boaz, or who might adhere to an ethic of imitating divine behavior, Naomi’s speech sends a strong message. Responsible action entails, first, continuing to show kindness to the living and the dead, that is, to the ones who have returned and to those who can never return, and second, redeeming as Yhwh redeems—restoring the returning ones to their homes.

Negotiating redemption It is indeed the idea of “home” that initiates the next episode. Naomi seeks for Ruth manoah, “rest,” “security,” “home.” As is often noted, Naomi’s concern for Ruth’s security masks a concern for her own, and she is not above using Ruth’s body as a down payment for a permanent place of residence. The plan involves Ruth’s poaching still more space from Boaz and the larger community and is even more dangerous than Ruth’s venturing solo into the harvest fields. This time her destination is the threshing floor, where the threshing of seed is likely taking place figuratively as well as literally, as workers occupy themselves between the evening and morning shifts with food, drink, sleep, and other pastimes. More to the point, and in keeping with the lax atmosphere associated with threshing, Ruth’s destination is the place of Boaz’s feet which she either uncovers, or where she uncovers herself.29 She risks numerous accusations—prostitution, promiscuity, entrapment—any of which can be easily tied, through allusion and stereotype, to her foreign identity. In fact, despite Naomi’s masterminding, Ruth’s behavior may, at least initially, confirm for an ancient Yehudian audience common suspicions about Moabite women:  they will get under your skirt as well as your skin. The extent of potential scandal can be seen in the secrecy of her arrival, in her early rising the following morning, and in Boaz’s concern that no one know of her nocturnal visit. But as the risk is high, so is the possible rate of return: manoah, home. And so the audience is not only titillated with a bit of erotic humor at the elite landowner’s expense but also left with a decision to make about whether Ruth’s scandalous actions are justified. As she insinuates herself into Boaz’s space, the question of identity surfaces again: “Who are you?” the man asks in a startled, perhaps drunken, stupor. “I am Ruth your handmaid” (note, not “Ruth the Moabite”). “Spread your skirt/wing over your handmaid,” she continues, “for you are a redeemer.” An invitation to cross a boundary if ever there was one! Nevertheless, as interpreters of this scene,

29 On the latter reading, see the discussion of Kirsten Nielsen, Ruth, OTL, trans. Edward Broadbridge (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox, 1997) 68–71, and the paintings of this scene by Marc Chagall.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 34

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

35

2. The Ones Returning

35

we are still in the dark in more ways than one. We cannot see precisely what is going on, nor can we fully parse the enigmatic exchange between the two characters. There appears to be general consensus that both Ruth’s behavior and word choices challenge Boaz’s earlier speech lauding the protective nature of Yhwh’s wings. But why she includes the language of redemption is less certain. Granted, she has heard Naomi call Boaz a redeemer in ch. 2, but that does not play into Naomi’s rationale at the beginning of ch. 3. Ruth employs the expression on her own initiative. Does she use the term in its technical, familial sense, signaling destitution and impending servitude? Is she asking him to make her his “handmaid” lest she become someone else’s on account of debt? Is she calling upon redemption as a theological metaphor? Is she somehow confusing it with levirate marriage? Is she hinting that he, as a redeemer, is obligated to ensure the dead are not forgotten? We cannot be sure. Nor does Boaz’s response clarify. He speaks evasively of this act of hesed being greater than any prior; he commends her for not turning to “choice” young men; he promises to do what she has asked of him; and he declares that the “whole gate of [his] people” knows that she is an ‘eshet chayil, a woman of worth. Or strength. Or character. Or substance.30 Or . . . property? We will return to this possibility momentarily. In the meantime, these loaded, ambiguous signifiers, redeemer, ‘eshet chayil, and hesed, flutter elusively in the night air, giving the community participating in the telling of this story, a wide range of interpretive possibilities with concomitant ethical ramifications. The climactic scene draws to a close with the foreign woman having inserted herself into the most private of communal spaces—the figurative bed of one of the community’s leading landowners. She emerges with both a promise of redemption and a load of highly symbolic seed, representing both food and future progeny, not simply for herself, but perhaps more importantly for the audience, to fill the emptiness of her mother-in-law, a daughter of Bethlehem. Upon her return from the threshing floor, Naomi asks her, “Who are you, my daughter?” An odd, seemingly ill-placed, question, and yet it encapsulates the social quandary being voiced in the narrative. Who, indeed, is Ruth after this cloaked (and uncloaking) venture under the skirt of darkness? How is she to be identified? And how should the community identify others like her? “Shivi biti” says Naomi. “Sit tight/stay here, my daughter.” An innocent instruction with loaded signifiers. Ha-shavah, the one returning, is told to shivi, to stay; and “my daughter” potentially now signifies more than a difference in age and status.

Securing public approval In ch. 4 the issue of property and redemption moves to the gate, the symbolic portal to the community. Contemporary readers might, at this point, feel ambushed

30 Based primarily on its usage in Proverbs 31:10, ‘eshet chayil is variously translated. See Fewell and Gunn, Compromising Redemption, 127–8 n. 40.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 35

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

36

36

Danna Nolan Fewell

by the narrative, having been encouraged to commiserate with these seemingly destitute widows, only to discover that they have had undisclosed economic resources all along. The ancient audience would have been, no doubt, less naïve about either the likelihood of the landholding or the asset it represents. Indeed, as we know, one of the problems faced in the early post-exilic period was one of land ownership. Elaborate genealogies and jubilee legislation attest to the controversy of returnees making claims on supposedly prior family landholdings. For a post-exilic community, Naomi’s return reflects their experience. There is some family land that might be claimed by returnees, but it has little value unless there are laborers to work it and resources to pay the laborers. Owning land, therefore, does not necessarily guarantee self-sustenance. Returnees, of once-elite families, may claim their land, and yet still be a burden on the community’s resources. As Boaz’s interchange at the gate makes clear, Naomi, as Elimelek’s childless widow, holds the rights to her husband’s inheritance. There are no immediate blood brothers, as the haggling over redemption shows. Should the land not be sold, it would, upon Naomi’s death, seemingly go to Ruth as the childless widow of Mahlon, Elimelek’s firstborn son.31 This would explain in part the initial textual problem in 4:5, where the first kethib reads, “On the day you acquire the field from the hand of Naomi and from Ruth the Moabite . . . .” Ruth, then, emerges as an’eshet chayil (a “woman of substance”) in the same register that Boaz is an ‘ish gibbor chayil (a “prominent man of substance”). Both are people of “property” even if it is a matter of degree. This would explain how the “whole gate of the people” can identify her as an’eshet chayil (3:11), despite her Moabite origins. This is social description, not moral evaluation. If Ruth is indeed a present or future property owner in Bethlehem, then we have a sharper sense of the communal anxiety over those returning. This is not simply about insiders and outsiders. Ruth is not merely a foreign woman who poaches space and finagles place, attempting through hard work, modesty, and seduction to endear herself to those around her; rather, she is a foreign woman who could one day lay legal claim to space in the house of bread. Here is the dilemma for the community both inside and outside the story world: How can the community live up to the ideals of “showing hesed to the living and the dead” and of redeeming as Yhwh redeems by bringing the returning ones

31 While it is commonly assumed that women in ancient Israel could not own property, the stories of the daughters of Zelophehad (Num. 27:1–11), Achsah (Josh. 15:18–19//Judg. 1:14–15), Abigail (1 Sam. 25), the woman of Shunem (2 Kgs 8), Job’s daughters (Job 42:15) as well as the ‘eshet chayil in Proverbs 31 attest to women owning property. See further S. J. Osgood, “Women and the Inheritance of Land in Early Israel,” Women in the Biblical Tradition, ed. G. J. Brooke (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1992), 45–7; Tamara Eskenazi and Tikva Frymer-Kensky, JPS Commentary on Ruth (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2011), xxviii–xxix; and Samuel L. Adams, Social and Economic Life in Second Temple Judea (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2014), 74–7.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 36

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

37

2. The Ones Returning

37

home, and at the same time, keep the land, its most important economic resource, within its control? The solving of this quandary seems to be what Ruth’s nocturnal overtures on the threshing floor and Boaz’s public performance at the gate make possible. As Koosed observes,32 Ruth, throughout the story, plays the role of a classic trickster. On the threshing floor, in true trickster fashion, Ruth offers at outrageous risk the key to cultural change, the gift of compromise—a gift that the community needs, whether it knows it or not.33 As de Certeau points out, trickery is the tactic of the weak, often the only option. By contrast, the powerful are too often “bound” by their “very visibility.” They may use force, but they can ill afford to “take chances with feints.”34 To Boaz Ruth offers the gift of trickery itself, the tactic that ensures that compromise gets a hearing. This is a gift that he both accepts and employs with aplomb at the city gate to effect a solution to the problem of “the ones returning,” a solution that works to everyone’s advantage—except, of course, the nearer kinsman’s. Here is the crux of the problem as it now stands in the story: If Boaz simply marries Ruth without bringing in the custom of redemption, he would surely be perceived as a land-grabber who exploits and exacerbates economic inequality, maybe even a particularly avaricious one if he is willing to marry a Moabite to expand his real estate holdings. He has shown himself to be a man with a reputation he is eager to protect. If there is no marriage, and only the land is redeemed, its proceeds would provide temporary financial relief for Naomi and Ruth, but the two women would, in effect, eventually be homeless once those funds were spent. Moreover, another redeemer holds the first right of purchase, and this “Mr. So-and-So,” while willing to buy the land, expresses no concern for the welfare of the two widows. In the scene at the gate, as forcefully argued by Fewell and Gunn,35 Boaz turns necessity into a virtue. By creating a public spectacle over which honor and shame hang like Damoclesian swords, the nearer redeemer is first pressured to say yes to redemption—since it is clearly the responsible thing to do, and refusal would permit Boaz to show himself to be the better man. But no sooner than he says yes, the kinsman is pressured to say no. Why? The answer turns on how one untangles the textual problems in 4:5. Is marriage to Ruth part of the deal or not? Yes, but only because Boaz makes it so. Is the nearer redeemer obligated to marry Ruth? No, and neither is Boaz—at least not according to any legislative tradition of which we are aware. In fact, adopting both kethivs in 4:5 and altering the punctuation only slightly yields a most comprehensible proposal. Boaz would, in effect, be saying to the kinsman: “In the day that you acquire the field from the hand of Naomi and from Ruth the Moabite, the 32 Gleaning Ruth, 5–6; 14–16; 75–7. 33 On the ability of tricksters to accomplish what cultures need, see Frank, Letting Stories Breathe, 45–6. 34 de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, 37. 35 Fewell and Gunn, Compromising Redemption, 58–62; 88–93.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 37

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

38

38

Danna Nolan Fewell

wife of the dead I acquire to raise up the name of the dead to his inheritance.” In other words, Boaz voluntarily takes on the responsibility of levirate marriage even though neither he nor the nearer kinsman is under any obligation to do so. The prospect of a child eventually coming along to claim the very property upon which the kinsman is about to expend good capital forces him, as Boaz knows it will, to renege. The kinsman suffers public humiliation, while Boaz comes off looking the hero. Boaz gets the farm; he gets the girl; he gets public acclaim; he is a redeemer writ large, restoring both the returning ones to the community and honoring those who can never return.

A story’s work is never done As for Ruth, she marries Boaz, has a son, and is never seen or heard again. Her offspring, like that of Rachel, Leah, and Tamar (three other notorious tricksters) is used to “build up the house of Israel.” The townswomen declare him to be Naomi’s son, Naomi’s redeemer, the restorer of Naomi’s old age. Naomi takes the child and becomes his nurse. He is given the name Obed, “servant,” or even “slave.” We are left wondering if his name, like Mahlon’s and Chilion’s, will be prophetic. The seeming adoption of Obed and the disappearance of Ruth indeed suggests a certain ambivalence about communal boundaries. If Naomi becomes Obed’s mother for all practical purposes, then the community will not have to concern itself with the worries of Nehemiah, whose response to mixed marriages was largely due to what mothers were and were not teaching their children. And yet, the women’s reminder to Naomi that her daughter-in-law who loves her is better to her than seven sons is perhaps not hyperbole. Ruth has tied land, family, and economic capital together in ways that a single son could never do. Her diminished presence in the final scenes of the book allow the audience to focus on the community’s transformed situation, without being unduly distracted by the foreigner who has made it all possible. All listeners become “witnesses this day” to the ways in which boundary crossings, carefully navigated, keep the world moving forward. By ending Ruth’s story here, the community avoids complicating their deliberation with what the future may hold, namely a foreign woman and her offspring possessing after the deaths of the elderly Boaz and Naomi, a doubly large estate, thus exacerbating the economic inequality already hinted at in Boaz’s fields.36 In conclusion: granted, the book of Ruth clearly invites a different set of perspectives on mixed marriage than either Ezra or Nehemiah, but its very particularities and multidimensional representations keep it from offering a definitive or universal pronouncement about insiders and outsiders, much less one in direct opposition to the ideologies espoused in those books. Unlike Ezra–Nehemiah, the

36 Such a doubly large estate, of course, by the story’s own logic would eventually fall into the hands of Jesse, the father of David, suggesting that “the man after God’s own heart” has a real estate legacy to commend him and fund his political efforts.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 38

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

39

2. The Ones Returning

39

story of Ruth is not a product of the Golah community but a product of “those who remained,” more specifically, those who remained outside of Jerusalem. The possibilities for assimilation created in this book reflects the social concerns and values of an agrarian community whose survival depends upon the successful management of land and resources. That, in turn, requires a strong sense of communal identity and responsibility. How can communal boundaries be crossed, and under what conditions? The “ones returning” more or less “empty-handed,” but with claims to land, are absorbed into the community through social negotiation, in this case, by matrimony, the creation of new lineage, and by reinterpreting tradition and custom. Those with proven kinship ties are accepted on condition that land resources are shared mutually by those returning and those who had remained, hence the need for the multiple strategies of marriage, redemption, and adoption. Those with more dubious connections are accepted on the conditions that they have no social, political, or economic allegiances to Diaspora communities, that they genuflect to the religious culture, that they remember their statuses as foreigners who have been economically and socially “redeemed,” and that they repress the values of their native culture when it comes to the rearing and educating of their children. At the same time, the ways in which they live by their wits, seizing opportunities under adverse circumstances, also commend them as scandalously admirable companions, especially for a community under empire that sees itself as an underdog. The children themselves become “servants,” perhaps indicating the social attitude toward those of mixed lineage, perhaps instructing a future wealthy landowner on the ways of humility, perhaps echoing the inclusive language of Deutero-Isaiah that all, of whatever ancestry, can become “servants” of Yhwh, perhaps soberly acknowledging that all, of whatever ancestry, are finally servants of the Empire, perhaps hinting, with the aid of the genealogical postscripts, that even small-town servants can give birth to kings. Thus, the Davidic tradition, so indispensable for political and priestly authority in post-exilic Jerusalem, is subtly annexed and claimed by the rural folk of the countryside.37 In the end, the disappearance of the enterprising Moabite seems to leave a rather large hole that is quickly stuffed with the women, men, and children of Bethlehem, past, present, and future. Weak spots in the social fabric have been reinforced, and as the concluding genealogies underscore, life goes on—beyond the final moments of the story, beyond the words on the page. But for members of the audience who may have identified with the figure of Ruth, the story’s ending is double-edged and ultimately unfinalized. The community inside the story world proclaims her “better than seven sons” and yet renders her silent. Has she simply served her purpose and consequently been absorbed into the community’s larger history, losing her subjectivity and alterity? Or have her ways of tactically navigating social space reshaped the community’s visions of “how the world is, might be, or should be”?38 The community

37 On the “annexing” of traditions, see Rom-Shiloni, Exclusive Inclusivity, 34–41. 38 Herman, “Stories as a Tool for Thinking,”183–4.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 39

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

40

40

Danna Nolan Fewell

outside the story world is still debating—and will continue to do so every time the book is opened and the story reveals itself to be the biggest trickster of all,39 transforming its roads, fields, threshing floor, and gate into spaces for ongoing reflection on who belongs there, why they belong, and under what conditions they might stay.40

39 On stories as tricksters, see Frank, Letting Stories Breathe, 45–70. 40 For further thoughts on how spatial considerations affect the moral agency of Ruth’s characters and how character choices illustrate Bakhtin’s concept of the “eventness of being” and consequently contribute to the book’s capacity for moral reflection, see Danna Nolan Fewell, “Space for Moral Agency in the Book of Ruth,” JSOT 40, no. 1 (2015): 79–96.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 40

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

41

Chapter 3 C HALLE NGE D B OUNDAR I E S :   G E N DE R A N D T H E O TH E R IN P E R IOD S OF  C RI SI S Lawrence M. Wills

The study of the period of the exile, or the forced migration of Judah, has been dramatically expanded in recent decades by cross-cultural and transhistorical studies, and here I turn to some ways in which the construction of gender and of the Other, studied cross-culturally and transhistorically, may be relevant to the reconstruction of this era. In times of political catastrophe such as the defeat of Judah and the forced migration of many of its citizens, one might assume either that texts would not comment on micro-boundary maintenance, or that such comments would seem trivial compared to the larger developments. But much modern social theory posits a connection between political and social boundaries on the one hand—the macro level—and bodily and gender boundaries on the other—the micro level. Mary Douglas is associated with the study of this relationship, and many scholars have applied this insight.1 Tracing the renegotiation of gender and other boundaries in the texts of this period remains a valuable way to “read” this period. Social theoretical approaches will be presented to allow for a means of comparing, first, gender with other boundary definitions, and second, this distinctive period with others. In my book, Not God’s People:  Insiders and Outsiders in the Biblical World, I tried to derive an approach to the process of constructing the Other in selected biblical texts from Genesis to the Acts of the Apostles.2 Many theorists treat issues of the Other, but generally with a specific engagement with one issue or method. 1 Mary Douglas, Natural Symbols:  Explorations in Cosmology (New  York:  Pantheon, 1970). A particularly brilliant and humorous application is Edmund Leach, “Anthropological Aspects of Language:  Animal Categories and Verbal Abuse,” in William Lessa and Evon Vogt, ed, Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), 153–65. 2 Lanham, MD:  Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. After I  wrote this book, Katherine E. Southwood published Ethnicity and the Mixed Marriage Crisis in Ezra 9–10:  An Anthropological Approach (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2012). Her anthropological approach to Ezra—Nehemiah provides rich detail about some of the issues raised here.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 41

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

42

42

Lawrence M. Wills

I wanted to integrate a number of perceptions of the Other onto one grid, much as Kimberlé Crenshaw had done with the concept of “intersectionality” for the modern social sciences, and very few scholars in biblical studies had tried that. Jonathan Z. Smith sometimes reflects on this, and Saul Olyan in Rites and Rank at times brings together multiple approaches to the Other. One scholar who tried to construct a single grid using three paradigms was Gerd Baumann, but although others were too specific for what I was looking for, his was too broad.3 One of my goals was to integrate different aspects of the Other: the external ethnic Other on the horizon, and also internal Others such as women, the ethnic Other among us, the different class as Other, people with different sexual practices or different abilities as Other, and so on. We must imagine a multilayer, threedimensional grid with interrelated levels. Academics embrace this intellectually, but the challenge is how to clarify the relations of the Other in a particular context, and how to communicate this to students or to a broader audience. In addition, it still remains a challenge as to how to discuss constructions of the Other crossculturally and transhistorically. These were the challenges that I wanted to address. The topic for this chapter is a subset of that project:  “Gender and the Other in Periods of Crisis.” The extreme constructions of gender in the prophets of the exile have been well studied by many others.4 What I was personally interested in,

3 Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex:  A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,” University of Chicago Legal Forum 140 (1989): 139–67; Smith, “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” in “To See Ourselves as Others See Us”: Christians, Jews, and “Others in Late Antiquity, ed. Jacob Neusner and Ernest S. Frerichs (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985), 3–48; Olyan, Rites and Rank:  Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 2000); Baumann, Contesting Culture: Discourses of Identity in Multi-Ethnic London (Cambridge and New York:  Cambridge University Press, 1996). See also Andre Gingrich, “Conceptualizing Identities:  Anthropological Alternatives to Essentializing Difference and Moralizing Othering,” in Grammars of Identity/Alterity:  A Structural Approach, ed. Andre Gingrich and Gerd Baumann (New  York and Oxford:  Berghahn, 2004), 3–17; Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, The Savage in Judaism:  An Anthropology of Israelite Religion and Ancient Judaism (Bloomington:  Indiana University Press, 1990); Regina Schwartz, The Curse of Cain:  The Violent Legacy of Monotheism (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1997); Robert L. Cohn and Laurence J. Silberstein, eds, The Other in Jewish Thought and History:  Constructions of Jewish Culture and Identity (New  York/London:  New  York University Press, 1994); Steven L. McKenzie, All God’s Children:  A Biblical Critique of Racism (Louisville, KY:  Westminster/John Knox, 1997); and E. Leigh Gibson and Shelly Matthews, eds, Violence in the New Testament (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2005). 4 See, for example, Gale A. Yee, Poor Banished Children of Eve: Woman as Evil in the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2003), 113–34; Angela Bauer, Gender in the Book of Jeremiah: A Feminist-Literary Reading (New York: Peter Lang, 1999). See also, for instance, T. M. Lemos, “The Emasculation of Exile: Hypermasculinity and Feminization in the Book of Ezekiel,” in Interpreting Exile: Displacement and Deportation in Biblical and

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 42

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

43

3. Challenged Boundaries

43

however, was a longitudinal study of the Other and identity in three phases over time: the exile, Ezra–Nehemiah, and the reconfiguring of the ideas of “exile” and “reconstruction” in the period after the Maccabean Revolt. That is, like ripples on a pond, the forced migration was being played and replayed, with Other, identity, and gender as recurring themes. To facilitate the perception and discussion of the Other, I propose eleven theorems on how group identity is often accomplished through the process of constructing the Other.5

Theorem 1: From Other to We. The construction of the Other serves to construct the We. Defining what the Other is also defines what we are not. They are barbarian, we are civilized; they are savage, we are humane; they are irrational, we are rational, and so on.

Theorem 2: From We to Other. In the same way, the construction of the We serves to construct the Other. We affirm the social practices that hold our society together, so the Other must be practicing their opposites, outrageous social practices and reversals of our practices that threaten to destroy social bonds.

Theorem 3: In reality, the Other is often very similar to the We. Viewed by an outside third party, the Other is often in reality so similar to the We as to be practically indistinguishable, but certain traits are magnified by the We in order to impose or even imagine a distinction, and to impose a moat between the two, what Freud referred to as the “narcissism of small differences.”6 The anxiety over the Other is often not in regard to the distant or exotic Other, but the near Other.

Modern Contexts, ed. Jacob Wright et al. (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 377–93. 5 In Not God’s People, 12–14, references were provided to various theorists for each theorem. The nine theorems there are expanded here with two additional ones. 6 Sigmund Freud, “Taboo of Virginity,” in The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (24 vols; London: Hogarth, 1957–74), 11.193–207; Smith, “What a Difference,” 46–7; idem, “Differential Equations,” 245. The point is pressed by other scholars as well:  Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay in Abjection (New York:  Columbia University Press,

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 43

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

44

44

Lawrence M. Wills

Theorem 4: The seductive power of the Other. The Other has the ability to corrupt or infect the We, and the We is very vulnerable. A common argument for imposing strict social, bodily, or gender boundaries around the We is that the Other threatens to invade or undermine the We. Despite the grotesque inhumanity of the Other (Theorems 1 and 2), the We imagines that it is in constant danger of being seduced by the Other. In Freud’s work, fear of the Other is often related to desire for the Other.

Theorem 5: The Other is distorted. The depiction of the Other is often monstrous, unreal, distorted, mythical, and taboo. In culture after culture, the same stereotyped list of traits is projected onto the Other: cannibalism; incest and other sexual perversions; murder and human sacrifice; secret reversals of our religious rites; savage customs that strike at the very notion of civilization. Further, the distorted construction of the Other often occurs in the absence of any real information.

Theorem 6: Internal Others. There are internal as well as external Others—and this is where gender is especially relevant as a category. The internal Other is often linked to the external Other. The external Other is that foreigner on the horizon who is always threatening to attack us. The internal Other, on the other hand, lives among us, and even intimates can be Other, such as people of the Other gender, of the Other sexual orientation, the Other class, the Other race, the Other religious practice. The internal Other is held in check by a domesticated social order, but if that order fails for one second, there is a danger that the internal Other will become the external Other, because they are linked. As a result, condemnation of the external Other is a way of controlling the internal Other, and vice versa. In reading ancient texts, it is often difficult to discern whether the main fear is of an

1982), 9; Cohn “Negotiating (with) the Nations: Ancestors and Identity in Genesis,” HTR 96 (2003):  149–66, at 149; idem, “The Second Coming of Moses:  Deuteronomy and the Construction of Israelite Identity,” in Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies; Division A:  The Bible and Its World, ed. Shmuel Ahituv et  al. (Jerusalem:  World Union of Jewish Studies, 1999), 62–73, at 66; Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (London:  Methuen, 1985), 150; Esther Benbassa and Jean-Christophe Attias, The Jew and the Other (Ithaca and London:  Cornell University Press, 2004), 3–4; David Frankfurter, Evil Incarnate:  Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Ritual Abuse in History (Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 2006); and Amartya Sen, Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (New York: Norton, 2006).

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 44

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

45

3. Challenged Boundaries

45

external or internal Other, regardless of which is being discussed, because they are linked; either can be a cipher for the other.7

Theorem 7: Ambiguous groups are reassigned: Those who in reality occupy the middle space between We and Other are often redefined either as an Other or as an adopted We. Everything found in the moat between We and Other must be cleared out and redefined as one or the other category. Some cases defy belief. In the segregated American South, an American with “one drop of Negro blood” was excluded from white hotels and restaurants, while Africans were occasionally served as visitors—the adopted We. In Nazi Germany, some German officers with Jewish ancestry were declared to be non-Jewish and redefined as Aryan. This was sometimes done by Adolf Hitler himself, with a certificate.8

Theorem 8: “Mythological” origins of practices are redefined. Ancient, native, or traditional practices may be redefined as new or foreign and associated with the Other, while an originally new or foreign practice may be redefined as ancient, native, and traditional, now associated with the We. In regard to Ezra–Nehemiah, for instance, the Judeans in exile may have absorbed new, foreign, Persian ideas of law and purity, and interpreted them as ancient and Israelite. The practices of the people of the land may have been ancient and Israelite, but reinterpreted as new and foreign.

Theorem 9: Eternal Other. The Other is viewed as having existed from time immemorial and continues to exist, and cannot be permanently extirpated. Although the Other may be defined as new, it is perceived as tapping into a primordial origin, an ancient evil. The Other has threatened in the ancient past and will continue to threaten again in the future. Heresies in Christianity, for

7 A good example of this is the possibility that the harshest condemnation of the nations in Deuteronomy 7—external Others—may have been composed at the same time and by the same party that imposed Josiah’s Reform—internal Others. There are other examples below. 8 Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 2004), 5, 9; Bryan Mark Rigg, Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2002).

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 45

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

46

46

Lawrence M. Wills example, have traditionally been traced back to the original arch-heretic, Simon Magus; in the modern world a major Nazi propaganda film was entitled “The Eternal Jew.”

Theorem 10: The Other is rarely invisible, but the Other’s experience is. The persons who are Other are usually very visible to the We, often physically close and even ubiquitous, not hidden from view, but how the Other experiences the world, including how the Other experiences the We, is invisible because it is strictly repressed.9

Theorem 11: Extreme behavior by one member of the Other is taken as representative of the entire group. If a member of the Other exhibits extreme or insane behavior, it is considered typical of the group as a whole, but if extreme or insane behavior is exhibited by a member of the We, it is considered an outlying aberration that does not reflect on the group at all.10

Examples from different historical eras It is clear how constructions of the Other cement the identity of the We. Consider Theorem 6: The internal Others of various kinds—women, other classes, people with different sexual practices, those with disabilities—are often linked to external Others. Putting aside some examples written in “large letters,” such as those in the sixth-century writing prophets, or Jezebel and this evil woman’s linkage to the foreign Other, we find that within Israelite law there are also everyday cases of linkage of internal and external Other. I begin with two examples, perhaps pre-exilic, which draw together different internal Others. Deuteronomy 23 begins: No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord. Those born of an illicit union—the mamzer—shall

9 Theorems 10 and 11 were not in my book, nor in my presentation at the Society of Biblical Literature session that provided the chapters of this book, but in the evening after this session Otto Maduro’s presidential address to the American Academy of Religion treated this theme. Maduro died soon after his address, and so adding this theorem is a fitting tribute to his life’s work. 10 This distinction became noticeable in recent public discourse in the United States when foreign extremist groups were considered much more indicative of their culture as a whole than were white Christian extremists.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 46

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

47

3. Challenged Boundaries

47

not be admitted to the assembly of the Lord. No Ammonite nor Moabite shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.

The first case mentioned here, one whose testicles are crushed, has a culturally defined disability, and disability is an internal Other. The second case, those born of an illicit union, have what we may call a genealogical disability, another internal Other. The third case, the exclusion of the Ammonite and Moabite, involves an external Other. But they are linked here, perhaps added into the text at different times, a linkage of Others by accretion. In Leviticus 18–20 there is also a linkage between internal and external Others. A  list of commands begins with external Others:  “Do not do as the Egyptians and the Canaanites do” (18:3). The text then treats a series of internal Others, among them the prohibition of various kinds of incest; the prohibition of sex with a menstruant; the prohibition of sex between males, or with an animal. This section then concludes: “By these practices the nations defiled themselves and God is casting them out” (18:24). Thus the external Others form an inclusio, and the internal Others are grouped in the middle and explicitly linked with the abominations of the nations. But, in accord with Theorem 7, the ambiguous middle categories must be swept out of the moat, in either direction, and reassigned. The ger or resident alien is an ambiguous Other drawn into the We: “You shall love the ger as yourself, for you were gerim in the land of Egypt” (Deut. 10:19). The gerim, then, become adopted We, although their status varies in different texts, texts that may develop over hundreds of years.11 People—often migrants—who find themselves in someone else’s moat are often swept out in one direction or the other, only to find themselves back in the moat a century later, perhaps to be swept out again in the opposite direction.

Ezra–Nehemiah Now we move forward to consider the Other in Ezra–Nehemiah. In Ezra–Nehemiah the Judeans who had been forced to migrate to Babylon are now returning. I assume, with many scholars, that the returnees, or golah community, took control of the temple and political administration in Jerusalem and defined all other Israelites as illegitimate—both those from the north and the Judeans who had remained on the land.12 11 Olyan, Rites and Rank, 68–9, 72–80. We may wonder if the gerim were sometimes swept out of the moat in the opposite direction and redefined as dangerous foreigners. On a related issue, the “empty men” (anashim reqim), see Gregory Mobley, The Empty Men: The Heroic Tradition of Ancient Israel (New York: Doubleday, 2005), esp. 36–8. 12 Sara Japhet, “People and Land in the Restoration Period,” in Das Land Israel in biblischer Zeit, ed. Georg Strecker (Göttingen:  Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983), 103–25, at 105; and other literature noted in Wills, Not God’s People, 58–74. Now see also Southwood, Ethnicity.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 47

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

48

48

Lawrence M. Wills

Table  3.1 Significant occurrences of terms for insiders and outsiders in sections of Ezra–Nehemiah Section of Ezra–Nehemiah

Terms for insiders

Terms for outsiders

Ezra 1–6

Israel golah (rarely) people of Judah Yehudayê, “Judeans” or “Jews” (in Aramaic sections only)

adversaries people of the land

Ezra Memoir

Israel golah (often) kol ha’am “all the people” qahal, “congregation” haredim, “quakers”

list of nations people of the land13 “to separate” (bdl) emphasized14

Nehemiah Memoir

Israel Judah Yehudim “Judeans” or “Jews”

goyim “nations” fictitious, prejudicial ethnonyms, e.g. Horonite, Ammonite

Ezra–Nehemiah circulated in the ancient period as one text, but along with many other scholars, I assume that it was composed of sources edited together, in some cases broken up and interwoven to create a whole. Ignoring for the moment some of the smaller sources, I would posit three larger sections of Ezra–Nehemiah, composed in different periods: 1. Ezra 1–6: first rebuilding under Jeshua and Zerubbabel 2. Ezra 7–10, Nehemiah 8–10: “Ezra Memoir” 3. Nehemiah 1–7, 11–13: “Nehemiah Memoir” With these sections in mind, I provide here a table of the different terms for insiders and outsiders, the We and the Other, in the three sections of Ezra–Nehemiah, reflecting three different periods in the ascendancy of the returnees party in Jerusalem. But were there also ambiguous people who were in the moat, some of whom were swept away as illegitimate and some accepted as “honorary returnees”? Ezra 3:7, for instance, mentions the craftsmen of Tyre and Sidon as an acceptable Other. Ironically, the craftsmen of Tyre and Sidon are from the same people who were historically called Canaanites, but now, in comparison to the “people of the land,”

13 Southwood, Ethnicity, 140–5. 14 Southwood, Ethnicity, 132–6.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 48

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

49

3. Challenged Boundaries

49

they are acceptable outsiders, just as they were to King Solomon in the building of the first temple (1 Kings 5). Ezra 4:1 says that adversaries of Judah and Benjamin opposed the returnees, the benei haggolah. These adversaries even ask to join them, but are rebuffed. Do we perceive here ambiguous people who are swept out of the moat as Other? Yet at the end of Ezra 1–6, at the first Passover celebrating the rebuilding of the temple, it is said: “The children of Israel who had returned from the exile ate of it, together with all who joined them in separating themselves from the uncleanness of the nations of the lands to worship the Lord God of Israel.” Although scholars often point out that only the returnees were considered legitimate citizens in the new regime, here it appears that a certain middle category is now swept into the We column, while those who asked to join were swept out as Other. The Nehemiah Memoir also sweeps out the middle by calling Sanballat, who is clearly an Israelite, a “Horonite” because he is from Beth Horon, and Tobiah an Ammonite, although many scholars now assume he was actually a Judean.15 They have been swept into the Other, while in the list of those rebuilding the wall in Nehemiah 3:7 there is a certain “Melatiah the Gibeonite” who has joined the Judeans. Interestingly, according to Joshua 9 the Gibeonites should have been an Other, but at that time were likely an ambiguous group swept out of the moat into the status of an adopted We. The process of how this Other was adopted is quite detailed. Melatiah evidently still enjoys “adopted We” status, but later, in Mishnah Yevamot 8:3, natinim are considered descendants of Gibeonites, and not allowed to marry a Jew. Once again, a group swept out of the moat in one direction as an adopted We may find itself back in the moat, now cleared out in the opposite direction. I turn now to the issue of gender. At Nehemiah 8:1 the whole people, kol-ha‘am, are assembled, and it is added, “men and women.” Jeremiah 44:24 had also mentioned “the people and all the women.” This passage from Nehemiah 8, usually attributed to the “Ezra Memoir,” reflects an idealized roll call of the populace, in which women are named as stakeholders. This practice has a history. Women, present all the time, had sometimes been brought out of the moat as a sort of adopted We in the naming of the people. At Deuteronomy 31:12, women are explicitly named as participants in the constitutional gathering of Israel, although in a similar passage in Exodus 19 they are not. Scholars have noted that in Deuteronomy there is a broadening of what might be called moral agency, and this includes the reminder that women are stakeholders and have a kind of agency as well. The Nehemiah Memoir section is generally more realistic and less idealizing than the rest of Ezra–Nehemiah, and is often interesting for the many little transparencies about everyday realities. At Nehemiah 5:1, part of the Nehemiah Memoir, there is a great outcry of “the people and their wives (or women) against

15 His name is Yahwistic (“Yah is my good”), and everything we know about the Tobiad family is that they were Judeans who traded freely across the eastern borders.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 49

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

50

50

Lawrence M. Wills

their Jewish (or Judean) kinfolk.” Also in the Nehemiah Memoir, at Nehemiah 12:43, in the celebration at the wall with sacrifices, women and children also rejoiced. Ambiguous middle groups have been swept out of the moat, one way or the other, and reassigned: Some wives are defined as non-Judean women and are expelled with their children, while what we might call the “real wives of Jerusalem,” and their children, are explicitly named side-by-side with their husbands to constitute a more perfect society. One obvious reason to mention the women—and children—explicitly as part of “the people” is to provide a sharper contrast with the illegitimate, expelled women and children.16

The Hasmonean period In many ways national identity is constructed by constructing gender. In Ezra–Nehemiah, the term Yehudi is used as an emphasized identity marker, not precisely the same thing as “Jew” in the modern category of “religion,” but as a suddenly heightened marker of ethnic identity, perhaps “Judean!”17 It also occurs at Zechariah 8. But if we jump forward to the period of about 125–100 BCE, fifty years after the Maccabean Revolt, the term is coupled with an emphasis on the “real women of Jerusalem.” We find ourselves in another identity moment that involves the use of Yehudi, or Greek Ioudaios, also connected with a form of idealized gender-“inclusivity.” Second Maccabees and Judith, likely written about 125–100 BCE, both conspicuously play on the meaning of this term. Second Maccabees literally invents the term “Judaism,” Ioudaismos, used here for the very first time, and contrasts this knowingly with another term that the author also invents for the first time, Hellenismos.18 And Judah the Maccabee in 2 Maccabees finds a female partner in the contemporary novella, Judith. Note first that the name of our heroine is Yehudit, or “Jewish woman,” the feminine form of Judah. The two texts are generally dated to the same period (turn of the second to first century BCE), and appear to be related as historical fiction is to history. An article by Deborah Gera is very instructive on the many parallels between Judith and Second Maccabees, and Cynthia Baker has illuminated the

16 Southwood, Ethnicity, 163–90. At 123–61, 215, she also describes social processes that may be called “ritualized ethnicity.” 17 On the heightened sense of identity in the Yehud- root in this period, see Lawrence M.  Wills, “Jew, Judean, Judaism in the Ancient Period:  An Alternative Argument,” JAJ, forthcoming. Note also Joseph Blenkinsopp, Judaism, The First Phase: The Place of Ezra and Nehemiah in the Origins of Judaism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 19–23. 18 Although Erich Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition (Cambridge, MA and London:  Harvard University Press, 1998), 3–4, minimizes this contrast, I give reasons in Not God’s People, 93–7, to suggest that the contrast is both intentional and important.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 50

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

51

3. Challenged Boundaries

51

term Yehudi and its feminine Yehudiyah.19 And like First Maccabees, Judith takes up older biblical images and emphasizes the threat to Israel from “the nations roundabout.”20 The Book of Judith emphasizes the motley nature of the varied nations that ally against Israel/Judah, and contrasts this with a very focused and unitary “Judith,” who exercises stern and even dominating control over the feckless male leaders of her town—compare the motley nature of the people of the land to the non-Judean women and children in Ezra–Nehemiah. Judith, in her seduction of an Assyrian general, is the flip side of the coin of the theme of prostitutes and nations that we see in Hosea, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah. At 9:12–13 she prays to God for the power to deceive—to seduce and treacherously assassinate Holofernes—and her success, played out in some detail and with a delicious irony, indicates that God participated in this activity. Judith, the fictitious twin sister of Judah the Maccabee, willfully exposes herself to the kind of condemnations that Ezekiel laid against women.

Conclusion Here I  have examined some issues of identity, gender, and constructions of the Other in two timeframes, about 400 BCE and about 125 BCE. The conclusion is that in both of these timeframes the definition of the Other in terms of gender can be likened or linked to notions of external Others, and this is a common human process cross-culturally and transhistorically.

19 Deborah Levine Gera, “Judah and Judith,” in Israel’s Land: Papers Presented to Israel Shatzman on His Jubilee, ed. Joseph Geiger, Hannah M. Cotton, and Guy D. Stiebel; Hebrew (Jerusalem:  The Open University of Israel and Israel Exploration Society, 2009), 25–38; Baker “When Jews were Women,” HR 45 (2005): 114–34; idem, “Imagined Households,” in Religious Society in Roman Palestine: Old Questions, New Approaches, ed. Douglas Edwards (New York: Routledge, 2004), 113–28. I have also benefited from conversations with Malka Simkovich on this topic. 20 Joshua 21:44, 23:1. See Seth Schwartz, “Israel and the Nations Roundabout:  1 Maccabees and the Hasmonean Expansion,” JJS 42, no. 1 (1991): 16–38.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 51

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

52

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 52

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

53

Chapter 4 S ISTE R S AVE U S:  T H E M AT RIA RC H S A S B R E ADWINNE R S AND T H E I R T H RE AT TO P ATR IARCH Y  IN TH E A NC E ST R A L N A R R AT I V E C. A. Strine

Introduction In an important article describing the shape of a sociology of involuntary migration,1 Stephen Castles observed that “[r]efugee movements are nothing new,” but rather, they are “as old as human history” and “[t]he imagery of flight and exile is to be found in the holy books of most religions and is part of the founding myths of countless nations.”2 One might conclude the presence of this observation in a sociology journal would mean many biblical scholars had applied it to the book of Genesis. That is not the case. Rather than constituting a banal remark, framing the book of Genesis from the perspective of not just migration but involuntary migration produces an unusual summary of the narrative contained in Genesis 12–36. The story begins with Abraham who migrates to Canaan, first through the choice of his father and then at the command of God. Immediately upon arrival (Gen. 12:10), famine forces Abraham and his family to flee to Egypt. Abraham eventually returns to Canaan, where his son Isaac too faces a famine (Gen. 26:1). Rather than leave Canaan, Isaac drifts within its boundaries, residing in various places to survive. Isaac’s son Jacob grows up in Canaan, but spends his early adulthood seeking asylum with his family in Haran to avoid the aggression of

1 Selecting the term involuntary migration rather than forced migration—the more frequent term in scholarly discourse and publication—foregrounds the migrant rather than the human or natural power that prompts the migration. This choice goes some (very limited) distance toward highlighting the agency that people retain in the midst of this experience. 2 Stephen Castles, “Towards a Sociology of Forced Migration and Social Transformation,” Sociology 37, no. 1 (2003): 17.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 53

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

54

54

C. A. Strine

his brother Esau.3 After 20 years, Jacob returns to Canaan to find a transformed, unrecognizable society, epitomized by the conciliatory attitude of Esau. The desire of Jacob’s brother to reconcile with him, not commit homicide, exemplifies Jacob’s reverse culture shock. Throughout, the patriarchs are called gēr, a Hebrew term that is translated “sojourner” that connotes transitory residence, difference from the host population, and limited legal protection. All this may be rephrased in terms employed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR): Abraham is an environmentally induced externally displaced person, Isaac is an environmentally induced internally displaced person, and Jacob is an asylum seeker who subsequently repatriates by choice. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all experience forced displacement in one fashion or another, though at each stage they exercise some agency over where to migrate to. In the terms of UNHCR, they are all self-settled involuntary migrants. Genesis does not merely offer a patriarchal narrative; rather, women play crucial roles and transform the story into an ancestral narrative that depicts the experiences of a whole family, not just three or four male figures.4 Such terminological specificity may be seen as unnecessary quibbling by some, but shorthand identifiers influence how readers interpret texts, thus they merit careful consideration. Demarcating Genesis 12–36, for example, as a patriarchal narrative can, and surely often does, obscure the importance of attending to the women characters and their experiences. This chapter focuses on three connected narratives related to the environmentally induced migrations of Abraham and Isaac, which are equally the involuntary journeys of Sarah and Rebekah. En route to Egypt, where they seek respite from the famine in Canaan, Abraham coaches his wife Sarah to identify herself as his sister, thus protecting him from any Egyptian who might consider murdering him to take this beautiful woman as their wife.5 The ruse is employed again when Abraham and Sarah sojourn in the vicinity of Gerar, where Abraham once more fears these outsiders might kill him to take Sarah for themselves. Like father, like son: when Isaac and Rebekah encounter a famine in Canaan and migrate to Gerar in order to survive it, they employ the same ruse for the same reasons. Adopting the categories of the UNHCR once more, Sarah and Rebekah are both environmentally induced involuntary migrants. Sarah is displaced externally the first time, internally the second. Rebekah experiences environmentally induced

3 Though well aware of the issues related to the naming of Jacob’s destination as Haran and Padan-aram, for the purposes of this essay it is neither necessary to discuss the source-critical questions nor to complicate the point by employing both terms. 4 On this, see the forthcoming work by Jonathan Kruschwitz, Interludes and Irony in the Ancestral Narrative. 5 When he first appears, Abraham is called Abram. His name is later changed to Abraham (Gen. 17:5). Sarah also undergoes a name change from Sarai to Sarah at the same time as Abraham (Gen. 17:15). For the sake of simplicity they are referred to as Abraham and Sarah throughout this chapter.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 54

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

55

4. Sister Save Us

55

internal displacement. In all three cases, circumstances beyond the control of the matriarchs compel the women to enter into a form of sex work to provide for their families.6 The message of these stories—and the larger narrative that surrounds them—connects inextricably with the experience of involuntary migration. Approached from this point of view, it is obvious that the commentator can and should employ the social scientific study of involuntary migration to interpret the texts. And yet, such an approach remains notably absent. What is more, these female characters demand special attention; failing to adopt such a gendered approach neither fully appreciates the texts themselves nor considers adequately the lived experience of involuntary migration. Therefore, this investigation will employ a hermeneutic informed by the lived experience of involuntary migration, the gendered nature of that experience, and the gendered authorship of Genesis to offer a fresh interpretation of these three familiar stories. Feminist scholars have championed the interpretive necessity of a gendered approach,7 so this chapter remains indebted to them and only aims to enhance research that has foregrounded the figures of Sarah and Rebekah in these stories by setting those insights alongside others that arise from employing the study of involuntary migration. The study of involuntary migration—known by some as refugee studies and others as forced migration studies—is young. Some trace its origin to the 1951 UN convention relating to the status of refugees,8 but a vast number place its birth in the early 1980s.9 Regardless of its age and genealogy, a tipping point has been reached in the discipline, signaling that the time is now ripe for employing its findings in other disciplines. Elizabeth Colson, for instance, observes that scholars “have acquired an ethnographic base sufficiently large so that we ought to be able to generalize about likely consequences of forced

6 For further discussion of sex work and the Hebrew Bible, see Nancy Nam Hoon Tan, “Hong Kong Sex Workers: Mothers Reading 1 Kgs 3:16–28,” in Gale A. Yee and John Y. H. Yieh, ed. Honouring the Past, Looking to the Future: Essays from the 2014 International Congress of Ethnic Chinese Biblical Scholars (Hong Kong:  Divinity School of Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2016), 157–78, and idem., “Breaking the Silence of the Dismissed Foreign Wives and Children,” in Lung Kwong Lo and Ying Zhang, ed. Crossing Textual Boundaries (Hong Kong:  Divinity School of Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010), 84–93. 7 For a current and succinct discussion of the state of Feminist biblical criticism, see Cheryl Exum, Fragmented Women:  Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical Narratives (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016), viii–xxi. 8 Richard Black, “Fifty Years of Refugee Studies: From Theory to Policy,” International Migration Review 35, no. 1 (2001); for the UN document see http://www.unhcr.org/ pages/49da0e466.html. 9 Dawn Chatty, “Anthropology and Forced Migration,” in The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, ed. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et al. (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2014), 74–85.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 55

10/19/2017 8:04:03 PM

56

56

C. A. Strine

uprooting and resettlement.”10 Caution, of course, remains the byword when pursuing such interdisciplinary applications for findings from the social sciences in Biblical Studies.11 Yet, with appropriate restraint, there exists substantial opportunities for this work to generate fresh insights. When the interpreter treats all the protagonists in the ancestral narrative—female and male—from the perspective of involuntary migration, the stories come to life in a way that they might have for an ancient community with the lived experience of involuntary migration. Extraordinarily difficult as it is to say anything about the environmentally induced experience of migration for Israel and Judah, there is no doubt that the invasions and deportations of 722, 592, and 586 BCE profoundly shaped the concerns of the Israelite and Judahite audiences who Genesis addresses. Whenever these texts were written, wherever they originated, the theme of involuntary migration foregrounded in the ancestral narrative spoke directly to the audience and its lived experience. To reap the benefit of this basic insight, this chapter proceeds in two steps. First, it investigates Genesis 12:10–20, 20:1–18, and 26:1–33 by employing relevant cross-cultural insights from involuntary migration to interpret the texts and outline the response to involuntary migration they advocate. Second, it reflects on how the gendered, male voice of the authors dictates the presentation of the stories.

Genesis: A family on the move The ancestral narrative begins with Abraham, who is already married to Sarah when he is introduced in Genesis 11:27. Yhwh commands Abraham to go to Canaan, “the land that I  will show you” (Gen. 12:1). Abraham moves in stages from north to south until he encounters a famine, which prompts him to go “down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe” (Gen. 12:10). (a) Genesis 12:10–20 This environmentally induced migration puts Abraham into contact with an imperial power that he does not trust. His suspicion manifests in a request that his wife Sarah identify herself as his sister.

10 Elizabeth Colson, “Forced Migration and the Anthropological Response,” Journal of Refugee Studies 16 (2003):  3. It is important to note that she continues to observe that one must still recognize “that human beings are creative and can come up with surprising, never before imagined, solutions.” 11 A helpful discussion of this issue is Philip Esler, “Social-Scientific Models in Biblical Interpretation,” in Ancient Israel: The Old Testament in its Social Context, ed. Philip Esler (Philadelphia, PA.: Fortress Press, 2006), 3–14.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 56

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

57

4. Sister Save Us

57

As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife [Sarah], “I know what a beautiful woman you are.” If the Egyptians see you, and think, “She is his wife,” they will kill me and let you live. Please say that you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that I may remain alive thanks to you. (Gen. 12:11–13)

Suspicion is a common experience for involuntary migrants such that “the importance migrants give to issues of trust and reciprocity” writes Colson, stands at “the forefront in refugee research.”12 The ruse Abraham suggests serves to protect his life, at least initially. The ploy creates time to evaluate the situation. Such caution permeates the lives of involuntary migrants, who know that “[t]rust rests on reciprocity . . . it requires action and response and some possibility of sanctioning breaches of expectations.”13 Daniel Smith-Christopher, building on Susan Niditch’s work on these stories,14 argues that trickster narratives like this one contribute to a “subcultural ethics” that emerges from the social circumstances of exilic subordination. Tricksters extol the subaltern’s ability to successfully navigate problematic circumstances and a willingness to use truth and falsehood for survival.15 Phrased in the words of contemporary involuntary migrants, Barbara Harrell-Bond and Eftihia Voutira quote one of their involuntary migrant sources opining that “[t]o be a refugee means to learn to lie.”16 Necessity, not deficient morality, drives dishonesty; deceptive actions like the matriarch-sister ruse furnish an opportunity to evaluate the character of the unknown host population. Indeed, misdirection constitutes one of the few survival mechanisms available to involuntary migrants when they arrive in a new place. Abraham and Sarah, furthermore, devise a ploy that proactively exploits a potential support system. The plan requires that they blur the lines of their marital relationship, but Barbara Harrell-Bond outlines similar behavior among Ugandan asylum seekers in Sudan who found an “extra-marital sex life [financially] advantageous to the household.”17 Harrell-Bond’s finding highlights an

12 Colson, “Anthropological Response,” 5. 13 Colson, “Anthropological Response,” 5. 14 Susan Niditch, A Prelude to Biblical Folklore:  Underdogs and Tricksters (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 23–69. 15 Daniel Smith-Christopher, Biblical Theology of Exile (Minneapolis, MN:  Augsburg Fortress, 2002), 167. 16 Eftihia Voutira and Barbara E. Harrell-Bond, “In Search of the Locus of Trust: The Social World of the Refugee Camp,” in Mistrusting Refugees, ed. E. V. Daniel and J. C. Knudsen (Berkley : University of California Press, 1995), 216. 17 Barbara E. Harrell-Bond, Imposing Aid:  Emergency Assistance to Refugees (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1986), 119–20, 149–50, 328. The situation faced by female involuntary migrants varies widely, of course. For further discussion about the female experience of involuntary migration and how Harrell-Bond’s findings compare to

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 57

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

58

58

C. A. Strine

aspect of all three stories generally overlooked by biblical scholars:  economic provision.18 Harrell-Bond’s research about the financial benefit of women’s sex work elucidates the narrator’s statement that “because of [Sarah], it went well” for Abraham, who acquires “sheep, oxen, asses, male and female slaves, female asses, and camels” (Gen. 12:16). Just as contemporary involuntary migrant communities may turn a blind eye to a female member who engages in sex trade to obtain the financial resources they need to survive,19 so also do Abraham and Sarah employ this strategy. Even though the magnitude of wealth Abraham and Sarah accrue from Pharaoh suggests it is a gross exaggeration of the real economic power a woman like Sarah might possess, that only underscores the point: Abraham’s and Sarah’s ploy results in economic provision for the family. Their experience, as presented in Gen. 12:10–20, parallels other involuntary migrants, albeit in ways culturally relevant to the ancient Near East. (b) Genesis 20:1–18 The theme of wealth gained runs through all three matriarch/sister stories. In Genesis 20:1–18, the narrator describes Abraham and Sarah as sojourners in Gerar. Though the precise location of Gerar remains elusive, the text depicts it as within the borders of Canaan, probably on the edge of Philistine territory. The move to Gerar—announced without background or motivation—again places Abraham and Sarah among a group of outsiders who present a threat to their independent identity and their ability to live peacefully in Canaan. As the story unfolds, without explanation or justification Abraham declares to Abimelech, the king of Gerar, that Sarah is his sister. Claus Westermann notes that this statement “hangs completely in the air,” and without the prior knowledge from

other situations, see, inter alia:  Jesse Newman, “Narrating Displacement:  Oral Histories of Sri Lankan Women,” Refugee Studies Centre Working Papers 15 (2003):  1–59; Peter Mwangi Kagwanja, “Ethnicity, Gender, and Violence in Kenya,” Forced Migration Review 9 (2000): 22–5; Karen Jacobsen, “Livelihoods and Forced Migration,” in The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, ed. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 99–111, with extensive bibliography; and Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, “Gender and Forced Migration,” in The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, ed. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et  al. (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2014), 395–408, again with helpful bibliography. 18 Although Niditch, Underdogs and Tricksters, 23, and Sarah Shectman, Women in the Pentateuch: A Feminist and Source-Critical Analysis (Sheffield:  Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009), 79, for instance, observe that this theme occurs, neither explores its interpretative significance. 19 Harrell-Bond, Imposing Aid, 149.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 58

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

59

4. Sister Save Us

59

the narrative in Genesis 12:10–20 it would “have no meaning at all.”20 The narrator, in this way, invites the audience to recall the story of Abraham and Sarah fleeing famine in Egypt. Operating on the knowledge provided by Abraham’s statement, Abimelech brings Sarah “to him,” a vague statement heavy with euphemism. Yet, Abimelech “did not draw near to her,” for God preempts further error by giving Abimelech a dream that uncovers the scheme: “God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, ‘You are to die because of the woman that you have taken, for she is a married woman’ ” (20:3). Abimelech protests, maintaining his innocence; God yields, but instructs the Philistine king to ask Abraham to pray for him to be spared. Abimelech, understandably incensed, confronts Abraham, who admits his deception (20:11–13). “I thought,” said Abraham, “surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife. And besides, she is in truth my sister, my father’s daughter though not my mother’s; and she became my wife. So when God made me wander from my father’s house, I said to her, ‘Let this be the kindness that you shall do me: whatever place we come to, say there of me: He is my brother.’ ”21

Enigmatic though it remains, Abraham’s response to Abimelech offers the only explicit context for the sojourn in Gerar: Elohim caused Abraham to wander from his father’s house (‫)התעו אתי אלהים מבית אבי‬. Though it differs sharply from fleeing famine and is filled with self-justification, Abraham’s statement frames the migration to Gerar as involuntary. Whatever the reason for Abraham and Sarah being in Gerar, as a result of their deceptive act Abimelech gives Abraham sheep, oxen, and male and female slaves. Sarah herself receives 1,000 pieces of silver from Abimelech, which the king gives to Abraham to symbolize Sarah’s innocence. While Sarah Shectman remarks that this episode “has no connection to the wife-sister story,” and Niditch omits this pericope too,22 the context provided by both Harrell-Bond’s research and the role of wealth accumulation in Genesis 12:10–20 argues otherwise. Deception has once again been a proactive, financially productive response to the experience of involuntary migration. Note that two key themes from Genesis 12:10–20 recur. First, disguising the true relationship between Abraham and Sarah provides them information about whether Abimelech can or cannot be trusted. When Abimelech’s actions suggest he represents an honest partner, Abraham and Sarah engage differently

20 Claus Westermann, Genesis 12–36:  A Commentary, trans. John J. Scullion S.  J. (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1985), 320. 21 Emphasis added. 22 Niditch, Underdogs and Tricksters, 50–1.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 59

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

60

60

C. A. Strine

with him. Honesty and trust replace deception and suspicion. Newfound trust, achieved through this incident, underpins Abimelech’s offer to Abraham to “settle where you please” in his land (v. 15). Confident that the people of Gerar do not present a clear and present danger, Abraham and Sarah accept this invitation. Second, the substantial sum Abimelech bestows on Abraham and Sarah underscores the financial benefit accrued from the mere possibility of Sarah’s sexual availability. Just as with Genesis 12:10–20, the patriarch and matriarch emerge as shrewd involuntary migrants willing to use the potential benefits of sex work to obtain the financial resources they need to survive their predicament. Financial provision vindicates initial dishonesty. (c) Genesis 26:1–33 Genesis 24 turns attention to Abraham’s son Isaac, namely, to his marriage to Rebekah. Genesis 25 recounts the birth of their two sons, Esau and Jacob, and then ch. 26 returns to the theme of living among the unfamiliar Other. Isaac encounters a famine “besides the former famine that occurred in the days of Abraham” (Gen. 26:1). Not only does this announcement allude to Genesis 12:10–20, when Yhwh prohibits Isaac from fleeing to Egypt and commands him to stay in Gerar but the text also evokes the story of Genesis 20:1–18. Isaac struggles with the same fears as Abraham: “When the men of the place asked him about his wife, he said, ‘She is my sister,’ for he was afraid to say ‘my wife,’ thinking, ‘The men of the place might kill me on account of Rebekah, for she is beautiful’ ” (Gen. 26:7). Unlike Genesis 12 and 20, where Pharaoh and Abimelech take Sarah into their household, Genesis 26 does not specify that transfer. Rather, the scheme unravels sometime later when Abimelech, King of Gerar, sees “Isaac fondling his wife Rebekah” (Gen. 26:8), revealing the truth of their relationship. Equally incensed with Isaac as he was with Abraham, Abimelech confronts Isaac (26:9–11). The patriarch justifies his behavior just like Abraham: “because I thought I might lose my life on account of her” (26:9b). In this case, Isaac receives a declaration of protection from Abimelech, though not an immediate increase in wealth. However, the theme of economic prosperity appears forthwith: the verse immediately following Abimelech’s statement that Isaac should not be threatened by the people informs the audience that “Isaac sowed in that land and reaped a hundredfold the same year” (26:12). Lest anyone miss the point, the narrator continues, observing that “the man grew richer and richer until he was very wealthy . . . so that the Philistines envied him” (26:13, 24b). Yet again, the experience of involuntary migration leads to testing the trustworthiness of an unfamiliar foreign host, which results in increased wealth for the ancestral family. But, Genesis 26 delves further into this issue. One of Isaac’s subsequent actions is to open a well, indeed one Abraham had dug before him. Genesis 26:19–22 states:

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 60

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

61

4. Sister Save Us

61

But when Isaac’s servants, digging in the wadi, found there a well of spring water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, “The water is ours.” He named that well Esek, because they contended with him. And when they dug another well, they disputed over that one also; so he named it Sitnah. He moved from there and dug yet another well, and they did not quarrel over it; so he called it Rehoboth, saying, “Now at last Yhwh has granted us ample space to increase in the land.”

This episode reflects a difference in attitude between the political elite and the general population of the host: though Isaac is granted the right to reside without harm by the local authority, a level of skepticism and resistance exists among the general population. Isaac and Rebekah assume a subordinated position relative to the power that grants that status and a marginalized status with respect to the host population among whom they live. When Isaac accepts permission to remain from the local authority, that authority gains a level of dominance over him that precludes asserting independence in some ways. When something between animosity and frustration emerges among the people that now surround them, Isaac and Rebekah possess limited options for resistance. The narrative does not present Isaac as an equal to the people of Gerar. Approaching the text with the study of involuntary migration in mind, this feature of the narrative is hardly surprising. Asylum seekers in the United Kingdom, for instance, do not choose where they live, cannot work legally, and face the constant threat of deportation. Even after receiving refugee status, involuntary migrants remain at the mercy of the government, frequently residing on time limited and revocable visas. To say the least, some sections of the general public perceive asylum seekers and refugees with disdain. Without uncritically applying modern circumstances to the ancient context, it is possible to see the dynamic that crosses cultures: the authority granting protection to the asylum seeker possesses tremendous power over them, and their “foreign” identity can produce an attitude of dislike for them among the host population. So long as the threat of expulsion exists, so does an asymmetric power relationship. So long as their difference from the host population remains evident, so too does the threat of hostility from this Other. It is hardly surprising, then, that on two occasions Isaac moves away when the men of Gerar claim ownership over the wells dug by Isaac’s servants. Observe, furthermore, that Isaac does not even contest this issue with the men of Gerar. His acquiescence is extraordinary, especially compared with his willingness to lie about his marital status to the King. Neither Isaac nor Rebekah countenance deception or resistance; circumscribed in their autonomy because they depend on Abimelech’s protection, devoid of options for challenging the men of Gerar’s claims, circumstances restrict their options. Moving on is less a choice than it is a requirement. Only when Abimelech, the trustworthy foreign authority who provides protection for the ancestral family, comes to Isaac at Beersheba and expresses the willingness to negotiate an agreement regarding his residence does the conflict dissipate (Gen. 26:26–33). The exchange of oaths and banquet of confirmation conclude

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 61

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

62

62

C. A. Strine

the story, effectively transforming Isaac from a refugee in Abimelech’s territory to something like a “documented” resident. So that the second theme does not escape notice, recall that the increase in Isaac’s wealth prompts this entire dispute. When Abimelech authorizes Isaac to find a residence in the land of Gerar, great economic gain for Isaac and Rebekah ensues. In the series of conflicts over the wells that follows, this economic issue drives the action. Indeed, the narrator remarks (Gen. 26:13–18): [T]he man grew richer and richer until he was very wealthy: he acquired flocks and herds, and a large household, so that the Philistines envied him. And the Philistines stopped up all the wells which his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, filling them with earth. And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Go away from us, for you have become far too big for us.” So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the wadi of Gerar, where he settled. Isaac dug anew the wells which had been dug in the days of his father Abraham.

This story, like its companions in Genesis 12 and 20, begins with the experience of involuntary migration, explores how to test the trustworthiness of a foreign host that is largely unknown, and ends by addressing the power of a female’s sexual availability to obtain financial resources for the ancestral family. These stories all teach the audience about the benefits that result from proactive efforts to employ deception and female sexual availability in order to navigate the predicament of involuntary migration.

Gendered narration Bearing in mind the preceding exegesis, informed by not just the study of involuntary migration but the gendered, female experience of it, it is now possible to reflect on how the gendered, male voice of the Hebrew Bible’s authors shapes these stories. Despite the central role Sarah and Rebekah play in all three vignettes, it is essential to remember a male voice tells these stories and depicts their experiences. During the so-called second wave of Feminism, many biblical scholars pointed out that the ancient societies that produced the Hebrew Bible were patriarchal and that the royal functionaries, scribes, and priests who likely wrote and preserved the texts were all male as well. This is the case even in the instances when female characters dominate. For instance, David Clines insightfully elucidates this dynamic in his discussion of the Song of Songs. Though no other text in the Hebrew Bible, bar the book of Ruth, implies that a woman might have such a significant level of agency in society, the Song of Songs remains a thoroughly male text. Clines remarks: Even feminist critics sometimes ignore the fact that what we have here in this book is not a woman, not the voice of a woman, not a woman’s poem, not a

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 62

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

63

4. Sister Save Us

63

portrayal of female experience from a woman’s perspective, but always and only what a man imagines for a woman, his construction of femininity.23

Failing to recognize this gendered nature obscures many of the messages in the text, not to mention how it fails to understand how the interactions it portrays may—or may not—relate to ancient experience. What is true for Song of Songs is also true of the matriarch/sister stories, and, therefore, any attempt to engage them productively needs to do whatever possible to navigate this dynamic and identify its influence on the texts. Cheryl Exum has written perhaps the seminal study of these stories from a Feminist perspective. The question that frames her investigation is, “[S]ince Genesis is the product of a patriarchal worldview, in what ways do these stories of Israel’s mothers serve male interests?” In the first chapter Exum dedicates to this study, she focuses on the matriarchs as mothers, vessels in the maintenance of the ancestral line. “Their importance cannot be underestimated,” Exum observes about these mothers, “but it cannot be fully acknowledged by a text in which the significant features are the fathers.”24 Exum then narrows the area of study to Genesis 12, 20, and 26, what she calls the “endangered ancestress” stories. Her approach is psychoanalytic and literary in nature, leading her to argue that the three stories seek to outline a moral position about the possibility of a woman’s sexual knowledge of another man that moves from an external imposition of this authority to an internal commitment to it.25 Exum concludes: If the danger in these stories is women’s sexuality and women’s sexual knowledge, who or what is in danger? To the question, “Who or what is afraid of the women’s sexual knowledge?”, the answer is, “Patriarchy”.

Exum’s conclusions may be extended and further supported from another angle, specifically, one that foregrounds the female experience of involuntary migration. Whereas Exum’s approach builds upon the possibility of “the narrator’s intrapsychic conflict”26 as the motive for exploring the question of women’s sexual knowledge and morality, the present analysis grounds itself in the cross-cultural and cross-temporal need for involuntary migrants to evaluate unfamiliar Others. Not only does this approach complement Exum’s findings but it also embeds the rationale for crafting these stories within an ancient experience common to both Israel and Judah that, in all likelihood, presented a clear and immediate threat to

23 David J. A. Clines, “Why Is There a Song of Songs and What Does It Do to You If You Read It?” in Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible, ed. David J. A. Clines (JSOTSup, 205; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 94–121. 24 Exum, Fragmented Women, 114. 25 Exum, Fragmented Women, 115–33. 26 Exum, Fragmented Women, 120.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 63

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

64

64

C. A. Strine

patriarchal power. Exum envisages “unthinkable and unacknowledged sexual fantasies”27 as the complex psychological motivation for the tales; it is hard to deny the possibility of this motivation but it is also equally hard to demonstrate its presence. The line of argument advanced here requires a visceral concern that if the sexual availability of a matriarch becomes a viable means to provide financially for the community, then the role of patriarch as communal authority stands at great risk. This dilemma lies both on the surface of the three matriarch-sister stories and also in the lived experience of Israelite and Judahite involuntary migrants. The masculine voices that mediate Genesis 12, 20, and 26,28 depict the patriarchs as the protagonists. Self-assured and clever, Abraham and Isaac navigate their predicaments with aplomb. Yet, Harrell-Bond’s research with contemporary involuntary migrants suggests this presentation masks both the dissonance associated with blurring marital bonds in this way and the female agency created by the experience. “Husbands may be fully aware of their wives’ extra-marital affairs,” writes Harrell-Bond, “but since women may earn soap or sugar for the family, they cannot afford to object.”29 Exum’s analysis accounts for the first of those concerns, but it does not contemplate the ramifications of the second. In a similar fashion, by highlighting the agency and cunning of the patriarchs, both Niditch and Smith-Christopher astutely observe the ways in which they extol the subaltern’s ability to successfully resist the power of an imperial Other. And yet, neither Niditch nor Smith-Christopher explore the gendered nature of this “subaltern ethics”:  the matriarchs, as female members of the community, constitute the “resource” that makes it possible for the disempowered community to construct the deception at the heart of all three stories. This makes the strategy a sort of double subaltern approach: at the first level, the stories advocate the power of a disempowered community, but there is a second level in which all three stories—wittingly or unwittingly—promote the potential economic power of women, the subaltern gender within that community. When one scratches at the masculine surface of these stories by utilizing what the study of involuntary migration tells us about the experience as an interpretative heuristic,30 the problems of consistently advocating patriarchy come into sharper focus. Note that the masculine narrators of these stories fail to mention the obvious danger to their own authority that follows from the lesson that the texts substantiate: female sexual availability provides a real, immediate, powerful means for financially supporting the involuntary migrant community. The economic

27 Exum, Fragmented Women, 120. 28 Although it is not a topic of concern here, the evidence does indicate that these three stories did not all come from a single author. Niditch, Underdogs and Tricksters, 61–6, provides a helpful discussion of the issue. 29 Harrell-Bond, Imposing Aid, 149. 30 On this approach, see Esler, “Ancient Israel:  The Old Testament in Its Social Context,” 3–14.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 64

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

65

4. Sister Save Us

65

challenge to patriarchy remains unspoken, and in its place one finds the (inconsistent) fear of physical violence from the Outsider.31 Perhaps this is a strategy to distract the audience from the threat to patriarchy by ardently directing everyone toward another anxiety inducing issue. That remains a topic for conjecture. Far less speculative, insofar as the community embraces the basic lesson of the stories concerning female earning capacity, it will also gain unsettling knowledge that its female members could gain a level of power that patriarchy cannot tolerate. The shape of these stories—with the patriarchs as dynamic protagonists—likely arises from the desire of their male authors to celebrate the ability of the subaltern, involuntary migrant community to survive, even thrive, in difficult circumstances by their own agency while simultaneously seeking to avoid the destabilizing social ramifications of the strategy. These men felt compelled to depict this possible response to involuntary migrations in a way they hoped would reinforce, rather than threaten, the patriarchal norms of their society. A certain amount of moral ambiguity and anxiety regarding the nature of marital bounds could not be eliminated—this is what Exum’s analysis underscores. However, other troubling issues also resisted omission, namely, the precedent that a matriarch might be a successful, independent breadwinner for the community. Finally, it is worth stressing what the masculine voice never attempts to displace: the deep seated desire of involuntary migrants to provide for themselves. It is surely significant that this desire remains. Indeed, in each story, the wealth the ancestors of Israel gain comes from their dishonest ingenuity and their own agricultural labor. Elsewhere, the Hebrew Bible positively advocates social care for the displaced and marginalized (e.g., Deut 10:16–19), but in those cases the texts speak from a posture of power. Such expressions of generosity arise when the authors envision themselves as the host society, not the involuntary migrant outsider. When the involuntary migrants’ voice speaks – as it does in the ancestral narrative of Genesis – rather than ask for such social care it champions independent, proactive use of whatever resources the community possesses. The matriarch-sister stories affirm the desire and the capacity of the involuntary migrant to be self-sufficient. In its masculinized presentation, the ancestral narrative obviates some of the challenges to this strategy, but it does not exclude all of them. Reading beyond the masculine facade of the texts, striving to recover the perspective of the female involuntary migrant within them, enables the interpreter to go some (limited) distance toward appreciating this lived experience more comprehensively.

Conclusion: Full exposure “Feminist biblical criticism,” as Exum herself describes it, “aims both to expose strategies by which women’s subordination is inscribed in and justified by texts

31 Niditch, Underdogs and Tricksters, 54.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 65

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

66

66

C. A. Strine

and to highlight the difficulties these texts have in maintaining their ideology.”32 In this essay, the social scientific study of involuntary migration has served to illumine two coordinated themes in the matriarch-sister stories that allow for new insights into the role of the female characters in these stories and the ways the male authors of those stories presented them. First, close reading of the texts informed by the study of involuntary migration highlighted that these three stories begin with an instance of involuntary migration, explore the need to determine whether a foreign host could or could not be trusted, and address the capacity for the sexual availability of a matriarch to obtain financial resources for the ancestral family. These three themes are far from being just literary fiction, but are ancient Near Eastern descriptions of an experience common among involuntary migrant communities. Second, the ethnographic basis for this insight suggested these themes produce a challenging situation for the male authority figures in the involuntary migrant community. Faced with the problematic choice between financial provision and maintaining marital fidelity, involuntary migrants often ignore the moral vagaries of female members engaging in sex work so that the family might obtain the economic resources it requires. Absent from the surface of the matriarch-sister stories, this dilemma comes to the fore when the interpreter employs findings about the female and male experience of this situation. Thus emerges the third point:  combining this work with Feminist interpretation, the evidence indicates the male authors of these stories attempted to obscure these implications as much as possible in order to protect male hegemony. Competing with and, in places, overriding that intention, these male authors also wanted to advocate the ingenuity and self-sufficiency of involuntary migrants. When exposed to a reading informed by the study of involuntary migration and Feminist criticism, these texts tell a story about resilience, self-sufficiency, and the capacity to navigate the immense challenges of involuntary migration that resided with the women of the ancient world, just as it does today.

32 Exum, Fragmented Women, viii–ix.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 66

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

67

Chapter 5 G ENDE R AND S UB JE CTI V I T Y I N J E RE M IA H  4 4 Carolyn J. Sharp

The analysis of Judean constructions of gender in the exilic and post-exilic periods faces enormous challenges. In a study of the thoroughly androcentric texts of the biblical prophetic corpus, scholars must work deftly at the nexus of several lines of inquiry. Interpretation of material finds, literary-critical analysis of relevant texts, cultural analysis of the ancient social landscape, and alertness to contextual norms and assumptions influencing the contemporary interpreter:  all these are essential to shed light on the ways in which gender was constructed by Judean scribes. By way of prolegomena, I begin with a definitional note and three methodological observations about challenges confronting our attempts to theorize gender in ancient Israel and Judah.

Prolegomena First, I offer a definitional consideration regarding the term “gender.” I understand gender to be not a natural biological property of bodies, but a matrix of fluid cultural formations adopted, refused, and altered in endless combinations by individuals and groups. Gender is constituted by culturally contextual appropriations of, and subversions of, identity, associated with sexed bodies whose social power is configured through relationship (including the relationality of declining to be in relation). Gender is enacted along a spectrum that includes not only performances of masculine and feminine, but also transgender, genderqueer, agender, two-spirit, third-gender, and other gender-nonconforming ways of living in community.1 Now, the first methodological challenge. Material culture analyzed within historical-positivist frameworks can give us only crude and limited material with 1 I find important Joan Wallach Scott’s point, made so many years ago, “We need a refusal of the fixed and permanent quality of the binary opposition, a genuine historicization and deconstruction of the terms of sexual difference,” in “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” in Feminist Epistemologies, Thinking Gender, ed. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (New York: Routledge, 1993), 165.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 67

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

68

68

Carolyn J. Sharp

which to work as we seek to construct nuanced understandings of gender in ancient Israelite (Judean) social formations. There are scholars who thrill to think about fertility figurines, cake molds, amulets, spindles and loom weights, pondering what such finds might signify about the household economic and ritual praxes with which women were engaged in ancient Israel. I cheerfully concede that these things are important. Due to the work of scholars such as Carol Meyers and Susan Ackerman,2 it is now widely accepted that women in ancient Israel enjoyed significant social power in the domestic arena and that political power in the public arena should not be considered to have been entirely separable from the exercise of leadership in, and collaboration among, households. Carol Meyers’s exemplary work of “thick description” in her 2009 article, “In the Household and Beyond: The Social World of Israelite Women,” should be required reading for biblical scholars and students interested in historical work at the intersection of comparative ethnoarchaeology and gender. We could note the fine work of Cynthia Chapman and T.  M. Lemos as well. Chapman has worked on gendered language in narratives of warfare, analyzed sexualized dimensions of depictions of warriors in Assyrian reliefs, and argued in anthropological terms for breast-milk as a “kinship-forging substance.”3 Lemos has used a social-anthropological framework to consider the 2 See Carol L. Meyers, “Was Ancient Israel a Patriarchal Society?,” JBL 133 (2014): 8–27; Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012, a reworking of her 1988 Discovering Eve with the same publisher); “In the Household and Beyond: The Social World of Israelite Women,” ST 63 (2009): 19–41; “Contesting the Notion of Patriarchy:  Anthropology and the Theorizing of Gender in Ancient Israel,” in A Question of Sex? Gender and Difference in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond, HBM 14, ed. Deborah W. Rooke (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2007), 83–105; and Households and Holiness:  The Religious Culture of Israelite Women (Minneapolis:  Fortress, 2005). Meyers has argued that because women are portrayed favorably in some Hebrew Bible texts and enjoyed economic power forged at the level of activities centered on the domestic arena, and because public and private spheres were not separated in any absolute way, therefore Israelite society was not as fully patriarchal at every level as has been assumed by feminist scholars. This position underestimates the epistemological distortions and psychosocial harm that patriarchal power relations perform and (re)produce at many levels of theopolitical formation, affecting everything from individuals’ understandings of their own subjectivity, bodies, and voice to a community’s cultural imagery for representing and responding to configurations of its social body, its theological conceptions, and its engagements of other people groups. The fine work of Susan Ackerman is more nuanced but not dissimilar in method; see her “Household Religion, Family Religion, and Women’s Religion in Ancient Israel,” in Household and Family Religion in Antiquity, ed. John Bodel and Saul M. Olyan (Oxford: Blackwell, 2008), 127–58; “Digging Up Deborah: Recent Hebrew Bible Scholarship on Gender and the Contribution of Archaeology,” NEA 66 (2003): 172–84; Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel, ABRL (New York: Doubleday, 1998). 3 See Cynthia R. Chapman, “Sculpted Warriors:  Sexuality and the Sacred in the Depiction of Warfare in the Assyrian Palace Reliefs and in Ezekiel 23:14–17,” in The Aesthetics of Violence in the Prophets, LHBOTS 517, ed. Julia M. O’Brien and Chris Franke

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 68

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

69

5. Gender and Subjectivity in Jeremiah 44

69

economic subordination of women in ancient Israel and to examine hierarchies of masculinity in Ezekiel.4 The high quality of these contributions, however, does not constitute the norm. I  remain concerned about the pervasiveness of a simplistic understanding of patriarchy, not only in mainstream biblical studies—where patriarchal and misogynist formations go largely uninterrogated—but also in historicist feminist biblical scholarship. Complex indeed are the performances of patriarchy by means of its many interlocking systems of domination, its discursive hierarchies, and its distorted ideation concerning all subjects whether masculine or feminine, indigenous or outsider, not to mention its regular suppression of sexual minorities and gender-nonconforming individuals. I  share Esther Fuchs’s disquiet regarding what has been termed the “neoliberal turn” in feminist biblical scholarship, which relies on recuperative strategies that reassert the (underestimated) power and importance of women as women.5 Theorist Elizabeth Grosz outlines two arenas of feminist inquiry that are relevant here: scholarship “focusing on woman or femininity as knowable objects”—the mode of historical-positivist feminist inquiry that seeks “to supplement existing knowledge”—and the sort of scholarly endeavors that “take woman as the subject of knowledges.”6 The skewing of archaeological remains to the monumental, public, and enduring, combined with the skewing of ancient Israel’s texts toward the androcentric, means that we have few discernible

(New York and London:  T&T Clark, 2010), 1–17; “ ‘Oh that You Were Like a Brother to Me, One Who had Nursed at My Mother’s Breasts’:  Breast-Milk as a Kinship-Forging Substance,” JHS 12 (2012): 1–41. 4 See T. M. Lemos, “Were Israelite Women Chattel? Shedding New Light on an Old Question,” in Worship, Women, and War:  Essays in Honor of Susan Niditch, BJS 357, ed. John J. Collins, T. M. Lemos, and Saul M. Olyan (Providence, RI:  Brown University Press, 2015), 227–41; “ ‘They Have Become Women’: Judean Diaspora and Postcolonial Theories of Gender and Migration,” in Social Theory and the Study of Israelite Religion:  Essays in Retrospect and Prospect, RBS 71, ed. Saul M. Olyan (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), 81–109. In the 2012 piece, Lemos calls for a more “sophisticated empiricism” within positivist biblical research (84). 5 See Esther Fuchs, “Reclaiming the Hebrew Bible for Women: The Neoliberal Turn in Contemporary Feminist Scholarship,” JFSR 24 (2008): 45–65. 6 Elizabeth Grosz, “Bodies and Knowledges:  Feminism and the Crisis of Reason,” in Feminist Epistemologies, Thinking Gender, ed. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (New York: Routledge, 1993), 206 n. 1. Emphasis original. Grosz critiques the kinds of feminist retrieval that do not reconfigure epistemological paradigms more fundamentally. She argues that feminist work “does not merely involve adding a neglected ‘object’ to knowledges that are already more or less methodologically complete . . . It involves a more thorough questioning of the theoretical frameworks and intellectual ideals governing knowledges,” for androcentric and phallocentric modes of knowing “have not just ‘forgotten’ women. Their amnesia is strategic and serves to ensure the patriarchal foundations of knowledges”; such paradigms “must be submitted to a thorough and critical overhaul” (206).

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 69

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

70

70

Carolyn J. Sharp

traces regarding women as the subjects of ancient cultural and theological knowledges. Given that women in ancient Israel could not serve as priests and did not normally function as monarchs, soldiers, or scribes, material traces of their social commitments, theological ideation, and communal leadership or local, transient initiatives are now almost entirely lost. Speculation, no matter how erudite, cannot compensate for the loss. A second methodological challenge: biblical prophetic texts such as Jeremiah do not address very much of what a contemporary scholar might wish to know about gender identities that are not masculine. Gender is not explicitly theorized in biblical literature. What those texts understand of gender identity must be inferred from what is narrated there as story, what is practiced as discursive utterance, and what is not said—what is inarticulable, what is ignored, what may be being suppressed. Given the absence of overt engagement of the subject of gender as such in the ancient texts, sophisticated ideological-critical awareness is crucial for sound interpretation. Within the Hebrew Bible, there are few instances of attention to women’s and gender-nonconforming individuals’ political and social agency, spiritual development, and family history. Almost everything has to be inferred from narrowly framed perceptions of women’s bodies and social agency, usually deployed with regard to a single event with important implications for male protagonists (we may think of Dinah, Jael, Jephthah’s daughter, the Levite’s concubine). Apart from halakhic texts governing purity regulations, bodily states and emissions, conditions of disability, and sexual behaviors, actual physical bodies as such are not often the topic of discussion in biblical texts. Further, the absence of women in the Latter Prophets is thunderous. A  rich area of inquiry has to do with the metaphorization of bodies as standing for something else in the prophetic corpus.7 But analysis of such discourse must be alert to the profound distortions of such metaphorization. Hosea’s allegory of marriage and Ezekiel’s florid depictions of his people as nymphomaniacal and adulterous women have almost nothing to do with real women in those ancient communities,

7 Feminist literature on aspects of metaphorization of the female in Hebrew Bible texts is too vast to list even representative lines of inquiry here. The interested reader might consult the following recent works and their bibliographies:  Claudia V. Camp, Wise, Strange and Holy: The Strange Woman and the Making of the Bible, JSOTSup 320/Gender, Culture, Theory 9 (Sheffield:  Sheffield Academic Press, 2000); Christl M. Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion: Gender, Space, and the Sacred in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008); Julia M. O’Brien, Challenging Prophetic Metaphor:  Theology and Ideology in the Prophets (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox, 2008); L. Juliana M. Claassens, Mourner, Mother, Midwife:  Reimagining God’s Presence in the Old Testament (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox, 2013). Pertinent to the study of Jeremiah is Angela Bauer’s monograph, Gender in the Book of Jeremiah: A Feminist-Literary Reading, SBL 5 (New York: Peter Lang, 1999). It is worth noting that some reception-history works treating female biblical characters (Jezebel, Ruth, Esther, and so on) do get at the gender constructions produced by the relevant communities of reception.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 70

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

71

5. Gender and Subjectivity in Jeremiah 44

71

and probably little to do even with actual Judean sex workers of the time. These texts perform the distortions of a phallocentric cultural framework that trades on particular constructions of women’s bodies and a sexualized notion of the purity of the social corpus in ways intended to manipulate implied male addressees and male subjects. Given our limited corpus of texts and the pervasive distortions evident in them, I find it difficult to get deep traction on how Judeans engaged abstract notions of political power, cultural agency, and theological meaning in terms of gender. I am just not as excited these days as I was in my undergraduate years about the fact that there may have been a few female scribes in ancient Mesopotamia or that goddess worship may have been a widespread popular praxis. Texts are my passion, and the textual evidence we have is heavily deformed by phallocentric ideologies and androcentric assumptions, including in such beloved “feminist classics” as the books of Ruth and Esther. Those are artful and even brilliant texts; as a literary critic I am fascinated by them. But studying gender by means of them is a fraught and frustrating enterprise. Third in my prolegomena: the gains made in theorizing gender in disciplines outside of biblical studies are not yet widely reflected in biblical scholarship. Many major commentaries say almost nothing about gender in Jeremiah 44. The conclusion is inescapable that the institutional locations and publishing cultures within which biblical scholars work still support the idea that sound exegesis can proceed without examining ways in which social identity and power are configured through gender. One may be heartened by an increasing number of new projects specifically on women and gender, and a few more works on masculinity studies are emerging.8 But clearly, normative exegetical work and historicist biblical scholarship are still quite free to ignore gender as an analytical category. Consideration of gender 8 Reviewing a collection entitled Men, Masculinities and Social Theory, one notes that in essays completed by 1989, masculinity studies had already been well underway in other scholarly fields. But in biblical studies, this arena of study has been taken up by only a handful of scholars. The notorious ten-year gap in biblical scholars’ attention to methodological developments in the humanities is more like a 25-year gap when it comes to addressing androcentrism and masculinity. See, for example, Michael Kimmel, “After Fifteen Years: The Impact of the Sociology of Masculinity on the Masculinity of Sociology,” in Men, Masculinities & Social Theory, Problems of Modern European Thought, ed. Jeff Hearn and David Morgan (London: Unwin Hyman, 1990), 93–109. One may celebrate the existence of a few resources focused on masculinity in the Hebrew Bible while lamenting the lack of sustained attention to method in this area and the uneven quality of some published work on the subject. Volumes include Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond, Bible in the Modern World 33, ed. Ovidiu Creangă (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010)  and Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded, HBM, ed. Ovidiu Creangă and Peter-Ben Smit (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2014). Some Hebrew Bible collections focused on queer hermeneutics address masculinity; relevant works include Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship, SemeiaSt 67, ed. Teresa J. Hornsby and Ken Stone (Atlanta:  Society of Biblical Literature, 2011); Deryn Guest, Beyond Feminist Biblical Studies, Bible in the Modern World 47, (Sheffield:  Sheffield Phoenix, 2012); and Teresa J.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 71

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

72

72

Carolyn J. Sharp

in anthropological, social, political, and literary terms should be required of those training in historical methods even if they would rather not read Judith Butler. But far too often in biblical studies, gender is still treated as a “special interest,” a topic peripheral to the field. Given these conditions within the politics of scholarship, what might be said about gender and subjectivity in Jeremiah 44?

Traditional readings of Jeremiah 44 In this narrative, Judean women in Egypt are excoriated for leading their diaspora compatriots in idolatrous worship of other gods. They are vilified for baking cakes for the Queen of Heaven and pouring out libations to her in open defiance of Torah stipulations; they show no remorse. One can summarize swiftly what mainstream commentaries say about gender in this passage. First, we hear that Judean women had a significant role in household-centered activities, including baking and cult-related practices. Second, we are told that archaeological finds have substantiated the ancient praxis of offering cakes to the Queen of Heaven; current debate concerning the identity of that deity centers on Astarte or Ishtar as the most likely. Third, we learn that verbs and levels of discourse in Jeremiah 44 show an awkward mix of masculine and feminine speakers and addressees, with redaction possibly obscuring what had been an earlier textual focus on the women alone.9 Those three points tend to be chiefly what one sees about gender in mainstream commentaries on this passage. Jack Lundbom and Terence Fretheim do consider gender at somewhat more length. Regarding the prophet’s citing of the crimes “of the kings of Judah, of their wives” in 44:9, Lundbom rearticulates a heavily ideological Deuteronomistic view almost as if it were verifiable in scholarly terms: “The wives of Solomon, for example, were great patrons of idolatry . . .”10 Fretheim notes the focus on the role of the women in Jeremiah 44 and suggests that the “inclusion of both male and female” may have been intended to exemplify the pervasiveness of sin throughout in the Egyptian diaspora community.11 Articles and monographs have addressed other aspects in more detail; one may trace contours of the contemporary scholarly discussion going back to Susan Ackerman’s 1989 essay, “ ‘And

Hornsby and Deryn Guest, Transgender, Intersex, and Biblical Interpretation, SemeiaSt 83 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016). 9 The response to Jeremiah in the final form of the text comes—initially—from the men and the women, the entire assembly, “all the people who lived in Pathros in the land of Egypt.” But in diachronic terms, this may originally have been narrated as speech by the women alone, because the first common plural, “we,” continues throughout the speech with no marked change of speaker even when in v. 17, “our husbands” is used, which makes clear that only the women have been speaking. Also relevant: the verbs in v. 25 are in the feminine plural although men are named in the compound subject. 10 Jack R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 37–52, AB 21C (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 159. 11 Terence E. Fretheim, Jeremiah, SHBC (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2002), 565–6.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 72

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

73

5. Gender and Subjectivity in Jeremiah 44

73

the Women Knead Dough’: The Worship of the Queen of Heaven in Sixth-Century Judah.”12 But commentaries are the widest-reaching form of scholarship we produce in this guild, and I find concerning the near-total absence in major commentaries of any sustained reflection on how gender is working in this passage. How might we get deeper traction on gender here? The women are ventriloquized as hyperbolically rebellious subjects in this text. Is there a way to understand Jeremiah’s gendered invective of shame in the context of internecine conflicts about Judeans’ experience of military invasion, famine, pervasive loss of life, the destabilization of social infrastructures normally critical for Judah’s public life, the violent expropriation of Judean economic resources, and the trauma of dislocation and loss on a massive scale?

Method and gender in Jeremiah 44 To consider gender through the plot and discourse of Jeremiah 44, I will utilize two conceptual axes that have proved to be vibrant sites of inquiry in gender studies in recent decades. The first axis has to do with the body and epistemology: I will probe ways in which lived experience, individual and corporate, in material contexts relates to what can be known via Jeremiah 44 and what one may claim as viable and authoritative knowledge. The second axis has to do with memory and dissensus:  I will consider ways in which the contestations arising from various subjects’ competing experiences as remembered history are configured as “Other” in ways that can be either harmful or productive. Cultural and political philosopher Ewa Ziarek defines “dissensus” as “the irreducible dimension of antagonism and power in discourse, embodiment, and democratic politics.”13 Obviously I am engaging the politics of an ancient community that had nothing to do with modern democratic polity. But I find Ziarek’s work catalytic for the theorizing of conflict in Jeremiah 44, a text animated by fierce discursive antagonisms regarding how Jeremiah and the Judean women in diaspora know what they purport to know in their bodies and how they engage the difference produced between official Israelite theopraxis and indigenous neo-Canaanite religiosity in the diaspora context. I want to be clear: rather than focusing on “women as characters” in this narrative, I am taking the body and epistemology, on the one hand, and memory and dissensus, on the other, as lived dimensions of experience highly relevant to gender. First, I  consider epistemologies related to gender:  knowledges that are embodied. Gender is not a neutral identity marker to be “discovered” in texts

12 Susan Ackerman, “‘And the Women Knead Dough’: The Worship of the Queen of Heaven in Sixth-Century Judah,” in Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel, ed. Peggy L. Day (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1989), 109–24. 13 Ewa Płonowska Ziarek, An Ethics of Dissensus:  Postmodernity, Feminism, and the Politics of Radical Democracy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 1.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 73

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

74

74

Carolyn J. Sharp

and artifacts excavated by disinterested observers. In every instance, who we are in our bodies affects what we construe as viable knowledges, even for those who claim neutrality. As Lorraine Code says, “hidden subjectivities produce . . . epistemologies”;14 this is assuredly the case for those promoting an idealized empiricist historical positivism of the sort still regnant in Western biblical scholarship. Dominant among those hidden subjectivities in the Western guild to this day is an essentialist binary understanding of gender that sees the naming of gender as a “women’s issue,” and gender studies in the history of ancient Israel, then, to be mostly about recovering what men thought and think about women, the latter marked as “other” from the normative male subject. Gender is a complex set of performances produced in light of the lived experiences of individuals and groups who may be unaware of, or may mask, the social conditions that affect their ideation of gender, or who, conversely, may seek to interrogate the particularity of their epistemological assumptions and claims. Analysis of epistemologies is vital for understanding the plot of Jeremiah, for the authority of the poetic and prosaic discourses of the book relies on the prophet’s claim to know the purposes of God in the political and cultural circumstances of his people. Elizabeth Grosz insists that “the body is . . . an inadequately acknowledged condition of knowledges.”15 She argues that the body should be “understood as a surface of social inscription and as the locus of lived experience,”16 both dimensions that are important for reading bodies in Jeremiah 44. What she says of epistemology generally may be applied to theological knowledge in our biblical text. Grosz writes, “Knowledges require the interaction of power and bodies . . . Bodies are [therefore] essential to accounts of power and critiques of knowledge,” as a kind of liminal space situated “between a psychic or lived interiority and a more sociopolitical exteriority.”17 So in Jeremiah 44, of which bodies are we speaking? Surely the bodies of ancient Judeans at war, under siege, captured, and relegated to captivity in a foreign land. And since gender is one of the dimensions of lived experience through which Judeans as sinful miscreants are interpellated as the object of the prophet’s scorn, it is relevant to inquire into what Jeremiah says otherwise about female bodies. Jeremiah utters the bodies of his compatriots as starved and dehydrated through the deprivations of siege, as maimed, slaughtered, and left unburied. But women’s bodies in Jeremiah fare even worse than male bodies. Female bodies have a prior history, per Jeremiah, of playing the whore under every green tree (Jer. 2:20, 3:6) and seeking sex clients by the roadside (3:2). They are degenerate and stained with guilt (2:22), feverishly in heat and sexually uncontrollable, draped in crimson and

14 Lorraine Code, “Taking Subjectivity into Account,” in Feminist Epistemologies, Thinking Gender, ed. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (New York: Routledge, 1993), 19. 15 Grosz, “Bodies and Knowledges,” 187. 16 Grosz, “Bodies and Knowledges,” 188. 17 Grosz, “Bodies and Knowledges,” 196. For what I  characterize as liminal space, Grosz offers “hinge,” “threshold.”

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 74

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

75

5. Gender and Subjectivity in Jeremiah 44

75

gold as signs of their wanton self-absorption. Within personified Zion’s body are wickedness, violence, sickness, wounds (6:7). I wish to propose a post-exilic Judean subject constituted by the clash of differing epistemologies in the intersubjective space narrated between Jeremiah and the diaspora women in Egypt. Working within feminist standpoint theory, Sandra Harding says that “the subjects/agents of knowledge for feminist standpoint theory are multiple, heterogeneous, and contradictory or incoherent, not unitary, homogeneous, and coherent as they are for empiricist epistemology.”18 I find important this notion that knowledges and subjectivities are produced—made and unmade; fluidly constructed and deconstructed—in the heterogeneous spaces of difference lived in and through community. Congenial here would be Walter Brueggemann’s testimony-and-countertestimony model for understanding ancient Israel’s dialogical claims about theology and politics.19 We can draw out implications for subjectivity of this countertestimony model. If we assert, with Lynn Hankinson Nelson, that “it is communities that construct and acquire knowledge,” that in fact communities are “the primary epistemological agents,”20 then we can move past the relative dearth of women as unitary subjects of knowledge in the Hebrew Bible, even acknowledging that the implied audience of so many of our texts was male and the primary narratological actors are male. This is my first claim:  a reading of Jeremiah 44 can plausibly read the exilic or post-exilic subject as a liminal (male) subject produced by the intersubjective clash between the prophet and female opponents within the diaspora community. The Judean diaspora subject is constructed in this conflicted text by the clash between the solitary prophet and his androcentric theology, on the one hand, and the community of women on whose bodies has been inscribed the failure of that theology, on the other. The brutal internecine shaming and polemical execration performed by Deutero-Jeremianic prose texts is evidence that this contestation had not been settled even by the time the later Masoretic expansionist text of Jeremiah was completed. The scribal community that preserved the text of Jeremiah sides with the solitary and privileged knower, the prophet. And this prophet constructs community—not only the Egyptian diaspora, but also all of the Israelites he terms “stubborn” over many generations—in ways that robustly seek to disenfranchise other knowers in his community. But our text has preserved a narrative of contestations in which other epistemologies are claimed and lived in other bodies, including female bodies. Indeed, it may be said that the book of Jeremiah was composed in its entirety to take up the insistent theological problem

18 Sandra Harding, “Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology:  What Is ‘Strong Objectivity’?,” in Feminist Epistemologies, Thinking Gender, ed. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (New York: Routledge, 1993), 65. 19 Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012). 20 Lynn Hankinson Nelson, “Epistemological Communities,” in Feminist Epistemologies, Thinking Gender, ed. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (New York: Routledge, 1993), 123.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 75

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

76

76

Carolyn J. Sharp

of the broken and deprived body—the body of the prophet and the bodies of the destroyed and dispersed community of Judah, including its women. The women insist that Jeremiah and by extension his priestly establishment have, to borrow the phrase of Helen Longino, “neglected contradictory empirical information,”21 and the women refuse this subjugation of their ways of knowing. Jeremiah the prophet may dismiss their points, but Jeremiah the book cannot ignore their discourse. My second analytical axis involves memory and dissensus. What do the Judean women in the Egyptian diaspora remember? What does Jeremiah’s God remember? How does gender play into their constructions of history? Jeremiah offers a blistering critique of every generation of Judeans for stubborn faithlessness, configuring the past of his community in the most unfavorable light possible. There is no mention here of the faith of Abraham, the tenacity of Jacob, the loyalty of David, or the wisdom of Solomon. In the prophet’s diatribe, the determinative factor in the trauma experienced by these survivors of the Babylonian onslaught has been the “wicked deeds [‫רעות‬, rā’ȏt] of your ancestors, of the kings of Judah, of their wives, and your [that is, the diaspora Judean males’] wicked deeds and those of your wives” (44:9). Thus Jeremiah frames the distant past in abstractions related to theological sinfulness. “Have you forgotten?” the prophet rages. The women respond with a concrete memory of the immediate past that honors the suffering experienced in their bodies and the bodies of their loved ones. The women indict the Lord for dereliction of his duty of sovereign care with regard to their families: “We used to have plenty of food,” they say, “and things were good for us, and we suffered no harm. But from the time we ceased making offerings to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out libations to her, we have lacked everything and are being finished off [or we are being ended] by the sword and by famine” (44:17–18). This is what rebellion looks like. It is also what critical interrogation of orthodox theology looks like in times of crisis. This story dramatizes one of the chief problems with which the book of Jeremiah wrestles. The claim to memory is a claim to power, and there is no resolving the clash of these competing memories. Ewa Ziarek invites us to move beyond weak claims about the “universality of moral law”22 to an ethics that is not complicit in patterns of domination, an ethics in which those who have been traumatized get to “signify their damages” even when the terms of adjudication will never be agreed upon.23 The embodied relation 21 Helen Longino, “Subjects, Power and Knowledge: Description and Prescription in Feminist Philosophies of Science,” in Feminist Epistemologies, Thinking Gender, ed. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (New York: Routledge, 1993), 105. 22 Ziarek argues forcefully that a “radical sense of responsibility” is called for that is “emancipated from the universality of moral law” (Ethics of Dissensus, 100), given that normative discourse inevitably risks reproducing dynamics of hegemony. 23 Ziarek avers that the ethical community “bears an obligation to respond to and intervene in the erased conflicts in which victims cannot signify their damages” (Ethics of Dissensus, 92–3). Honoring this obligation results in an “infinite pursuit of justice” (116) that may never be resolvable. And certainly, ancient wrongs done to Judean women’s subjectivity by androcentric prophesying are no longer remediable. But this is nevertheless the

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 76

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

77

5. Gender and Subjectivity in Jeremiah 44

77

to the Other takes primacy in the ethical encounter, however “anarchic and asymmetrical” that relation may be,24 and even when that relation is marked by “irreducible antagonism(s),”25 as was certainly the case with the official relation between orthodox Yahwism and indigenous Canaanite and Egyptian religious praxes. Yet acts of prophetic memory, including visioning the future, constitute acts of relational power as well, and the book of Jeremiah most definitely will not give that up. Thus my second claim: theological knowledge in mt Jeremiah is a cultural formation marked by an irresolvable tension between diverse subjects’ embodied truths and the prophetic proclamation of a horizon beyond the present moment. Finally, the discursive narration in Jeremiah 44 must yield to the intractability of its contestations. No one can win, notwithstanding the significant theopolitical advantage that the prophet (or persona) Jeremiah is accorded by his characterization in the book that bears his name. “All the remnant of Judah, who have come to the land of Egypt to settle, shall know whose words will stand, mine or theirs!” thunders the prophet (44:28). But how will they know? The difference in perspective cannot be resolved—not within the plot, and not by the meta-narratology of the book of Jeremiah. The desperate prophet offers a sign (‫)זות־לכם האות‬, a metonym designed to prove the dominance of the prophetic word in this dispute. The sign is the future defeat of Pharaoh Hophra. This is ironic indeed, for Jeremiah has spoken into this conflictual scene precisely the hegemony of Egypt (and its gods) that he seeks to suppress. The poet Gregory Orr observes, Story aspires to act through to resolution . . . But often the action of story arrives at a dead end and cannot deliver on its promise to resolve conflicts. It is then that symbol appears spontaneously to incarnate those contradictions or conflicts in a single object.26

In the very sign that seeks to secure the prophetic word, the Deutero-Jeremianic narration here yields to dissensus. The subjectivity of the Judean women stands, distorted though it be, ranted against and excommunicated with all of the power Jeremiah can muster. The diaspora in Egypt was not blotted out. The alterity at the heart of Judean diaspora subjectivity remains unresolved, to be inscribed on new bodies and new texts. An immigrant arriving in Bethlehem will have something to “say” with her Moabite body in the ironizing memory of the Davidic line that is the book of Ruth. Foreign women and children will have

path that ethical feminist response must take. The requisite ethical posture is one that honors alterity without setting normative limits, instead freely “[assuming] an infinite responsibility for violence and the oppression of others” (219). 24 See Ziarek, Ethics of Dissensus, 77. 25 On this, see Ziarek, Ethics of Dissensus, 9, 124, and 219. 26 Gregory Orr, Poetry as Survival, The Life of Poetry: Poets on Their Art and Craft (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2002), 103.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 77

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

78

78

Carolyn J. Sharp

something to “say” as their bodies are ejected violently from the plot of Ezra–Nehemiah, for the traces of their subjectivity can never be (textually) erased. Ziarek remarks that a Foucauldian “notion of embodiment as the materialization of power makes it impossible to conceive of either ethics or democratic politics transcending racial and sexed bodies.”27 The same might be said of ancient androcentric theopolitics. Try as it might—and it has tried mightily in the Deuteronomistic History, in Ezekiel, in Deutero-Jeremiah—such a politics cannot transcend its own materiality. It cannot finally expel the recalcitrant “female” body it has rendered in such abject terms. Jeremiah will continue to speak, rearticulating the old contestations through the prophet’s stentorian proclamations and the book’s textual disruptions alike. Bodies and epistemologies, competing memories and dissensus: along such axes as these, our analysis of gender in the post-exilic period may have material with which to work after all.

27 Ziarek, Ethics of Dissensus, 23.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 78

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

79

Chapter 6 F A M ILIAL I DE NTIT Y AND C ON FLIC T T H ROU GH F ORCE D M IGR AT ION I N I S A IA H 4 9 : 1 4 –6 6 : 2 4 Mark J. Boda

Critical scholarship has traditionally divided Isaiah 40–66 into two literary sections, with chs 40–55 often connected with or identified as Deutero-Isaiah and chs 56–66 connected with or identified as Trito-Isaiah.1 Isaiah 40–55 in turn has been divided further by distinguishing between chs 40–48 and chs 49–55, with chs 40–48 reflecting a phase before hopes connected with Cyrus were dashed.2 Some have noted the presence of two laments in chs 40–55 as key structural signals in the corpus, the first in 40:27 in the mouth of Jacob/Israel (“My way is hidden from Yahweh; my cause is disregarded by my God”) and the second in 49:14 in the mouth of Jerusalem/Zion (“Yahweh has forsaken me. The Lord has forgotten me”).3 Further evidence for the importance of these laments as literary signals can be culled from a careful analysis of the dominant audience addressed within the sections following these laments, as seen in Table 6.1.4 1 See John Goldingay, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 56–66 (ICC; London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 1. 2 See, e.g., Joseph Blenkinsopp, “Second Isaiah – Prophet of Universalism,” JSOT 41 (1988):  83–103. Others who see a distinction between chs 40–48 and 49–55 include, e.g., John Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40–66 (NICOT; Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 1997), 305; John Goldingay, Isaiah (NIBC; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2001), 285; Shalom M. Paul, Isaiah 40–66: Translation and Commentary (ECC; Grand Rapids, MI:  Eerdmans, 2012), 6–7. 3 For example, Claus Westermann, Isaiah 40–66: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM Press, 1969), 218–19; Klaus Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah:  A Commentary on Isaiah 40–55 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis, MN:  Fortress Press, 2001), 82, 319; Paul D. Hanson, Isaiah 40–66 (Interpretation; Louisville, KY:  John Knox, 1995), 30, 35, 133; Oswalt, Isaiah 40–66, 303; Goldingay, Isaiah, 285. For a lyric analysis of these communal speeches embedded within the deity’s speech, see Katie M. Heffelfinger, I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes: Lyric Cohesion and Conflict in Second Isaiah (BIS; Leiden: Brill, 2011), 95. 4 Reproduced with revisions from Mark J. Boda, “Walking in the Light of Yahweh: Zion and the Empires in the Book of Isaiah,” in Empire in the New Testament, ed. Stanley E.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 79

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

80

80

Mark J. Boda

Table 6.1 Address and Reference to Israel/Jacob and Jerusalem/Zion in Isaiah 40–55 Addressed directly or speaks

Referred to

Israel

40:27; 41:8, 14; 42:6 (servant; cf. 41:8); 43:1, 22; 44:1, 6, 21; 45:4; 46:3; 48:1, 12; 49:3 (by servant)

41:16, 17, 20; 42:24; 43:3, 14, 15, 28; 44:5, 6, 23; 45:3, 11, 15, 17, 25; 46:13; 47:4; 48:2, 17; 49:5, 6, 7; 52:12; 54:5; 55:5 (cf. 56:8; 60:9, 14; 63:7, 16)

Jacob

40:27; 41:8, 14; 43:1, 22; 44:1, 2, 21; 45:19; 46:3; 48:1, 12

41:21; 42:24; 43:28; 44:5, 23; 45:4; 48:20; 49:5, 6, 26 (cf. 58:1, 14; 59:20; 60:16; 65:9)

Jerusalem

40:2, 9; 51:17; 52:1, 2, 9 (cf. 62:6)

41:27; 44:26, 28 (cf. 62:1, 7; 64:10; 65:18, 19; 66:10, 13, 20)

Zion

40:9; 49:14; 51:16; 52:1, 2, 7 (cf. 60:14; 62:11)

40:9; 41:27; 46:13; 51:3, 11; 52:8 (cf. 59:20; 61:3; 62:1, 11; 64:10; 66:8)

Of course, there are other audiences in chs 40–55, including “coastlands” (41:1) and “islands” (49:1); “Cyrus his anointed” (45:1); “fugitives of the nations” (45:20); “all the ends of the earth” (45:22); “transgressors” (46:8); the “stubborn-minded” (46:12); “virgin daughter of Babylon” and “the Chaldeans” (47:1); “heavens,” “earth,” and “mountains” (49:13); unnamed children of a mother (50:1); “you who pursue righteousness” (51:1); “my people/my nation” (51:4); “you who know righteousness” (51:7); “arm of Yahweh” (51:9); “you who carry the vessels of Yahweh” (52:11); “barren one” (54:1); and “everyone who thirsts” and “you who have no money” (55:1).5 However, the two which dominate these sections are Israel/Jacob and Jerusalem/Zion. It is instructive that, in the section following the lament of Israel/Jacob of 40:27 (40:28–49:13), Israel/Jacob is addressed whereas Jerusalem/ Zion is not, while in the section following the lament of Jerusalem/Zion in 49:14 (49:15–54:17), Jerusalem/Zion is addressed whereas Israel/Jacob is not. In both sections the entity which is not addressed is mentioned, showing their intertwined relationship and destiny. The overall logic appears to be that the servant, who is closely related to Israel/Jacob, is raised up in 40:27–49:13 and becomes key to

Porter and Cynthia Long Westfall (MNTS; Eugene, OR:  Wipf & Stock, 2010), 68. For this shift and the common rhetoric of lament between Jacob/Israel and Jerusalem/Zion, cf. Jim W. Adams, The Performative Nature and Function of Isaiah 40–55 (LHBOTS; London and New  York:  T&T Clark, 2006), 103, 113. See further data in Patricia Tull Willey, Remembering the Former Things: The Recollection of Previous Texts in Second Isaiah (SBLDS; Atlanta:  Scholars Press, 1997), 179–81, which takes into account the modulation between second-person masculine singular in chs 40–45, 48 and second-person feminine singular in chs 40, 47, 49–52, 54, as well as second-person masculine singular throughout the entire corpus. 5 Isaiah 41:27 cites a speech by Yahweh to Jerusalem/Zion, but this is a reference to an earlier time. The barren one of Isa. 54:1 is most likely Jerusalem/Zion.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 80

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

81

6. Familial Identity and Conflict

81

Yahweh’s response to the lament of Jerusalem/Zion in 49:14–54:17. Chapter 55 is a final exhortation that brings closure to the section.6 While most would distinguish Isaiah 56–66 from Isaiah 40–55 on structural and thematic grounds, nearly all see at the center of Isaiah 56–66 a core that resonates strongly with Isaiah 40–55, that is, chs 60–62.7 These three chapters contain a central testimony from the servant figure who is focused on the renewal of Zion (ch. 61), surrounded by two promissory addresses to Zion (chs 60, 62). The message of chs 60–62 is more closely allied with that of the second half of chs 40–55 (49:14–54:17), as servant and Jerusalem/Zion are intertwined. It is then not surprising that Jerusalem/Zion (and again not Israel/Jacob) is addressed in this central core of chs 60–62, highlighting the close affinity between Isaiah 49:14–54:17 and chs 60–62.8 This affinity between Isaiah 49:14–54:17 and chs 60–62 is strengthened by taking a closer look at the imagery of family within these sections. While Isaiah 40:27–49:13 does use family imagery at times, it is nearly always focused on the conception and birth of Israel/Jacob/servant. Yahweh is identified as father and mother (45:10–11; cf. 42:14; 46:3–4), but there is also human parentage for these figures, as seen in the references to an unidentified female womb or Judah’s male “waters” (44:2, 24; 48:1, 8; 49:1, 5). Isaiah 43:5–6 refers to the

6 Contra Heffelfinger, the shift in ch. 55 away from the focus on the servant and Zion to seek to persuade the audience to respond is precisely the kind of departure “from the pattern of the whole sequence” which would “produce closure” (Heffelfinger, I Am Large, 131). For Isaiah 55 as epilogue and 40:1–11 as prologue to Isaiah 40–55, see Reinoud Oosting, The Role of Zion/Jerusalem in Isaiah 40–55: A Corpus-Linguistic Approach (SSN; Leiden:  Brill, 2013), 226. 7 Walter Brueggemann notes, “These poems have most in common with Isaiah 40–55” (Isaiah 40–66 [WBC; Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Knox, 1998], 165; see also p. 203). Goldingay sees these chapters as “in part inspired by the recollection of passages from Isaiah 40–55” (Isaiah 56–66, 293). Cf. Westermann, Isaiah 40–66, 296; W. A. M. Beuken, “Servant and Herald of Good Tidings: Isaiah 61 as an Interpretation of Isaiah 40–55,” in The Book of Isaiah—Le Livre d’Isaie: Les Oracles et Leurs Relecteurs: Unité et Complexité de l’Ouvrage, ed. Jacques Vermeylen (BETL; Louvain:  Leuven University Press, 1989), 411–42; Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 56–66: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries; New  York:  Doubleday, 2003), 38–39; Jacob Stromberg, Isaiah after Exile: The Author of Third Isaiah as Reader and Redactor of the Book (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 11–13. See also the cautions of Goldingay, Isaiah 56–66, 6. On the key message of Isaiah 60–62, which summarizes the hopes of the book as a whole, see Ronald E. Clements, “Isaiah: A Book without an Ending?” JSOT 97 (2002): 109–26. 8 Paul, e.g., divides Isaiah 40–66 into two parts:  chs 40–48 (prophecies delivered in Babylonia) and chs 49–66 (prophecies delivered in Jerusalem) (Isaiah 40–66, 11). A similar approach is taken by Menahem Haran, Between Rishonot (Former Prophecies) and Hadashot (New Prophecies):  A Literary-Historical Study of Prophecies in Isaiah 40–48 (Jerusalem: Magnes/Hebrew University Press, 1963), 73–96.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 81

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

82

82

Mark J. Boda

offspring of both Yahweh and Jacob/Israel (43:5, 6). A passing reference is made to the loss of children and widowhood in the prophecy against Babylon in 47:9. Once one passes into Isaiah 49:14–54:17, however, the family imagery increases considerably, especially in the complexity of the frames employed.9 This trend continues into Isaiah 56–66, especially in chs 60–62, but as we will soon see also in 66:7–14, a passage often treated as closely related to chs 60–62 and in turn chs 40–55.10 In this chapter I  will first explore the family imagery employed throughout Isaiah 49:14–66:24. This exploration will highlight the complex and at times shocking nature of the family frame that is employed throughout these texts. Following this, I will then present key trends within modern sociological research on gender, family, and migration that may provide reasons for the imagery encountered in Isaiah. This exercise, admittedly heuristic, may provide insight into the negotiation of identity for both deity and people in the midst or wake of the exilic experience of the 6th Century BCE.

Family imagery in Isaiah 49:14–66:24 The complexity of the family imagery in 49:14–66:24 is evident from the outset of Yahweh’s response to Zion’s cry in 49:14. Yahweh answers with a self-depiction as a woman with a nursing child (49:15).11 While Zion is clearly identified as a feminine figure in the verses to follow (see 49:16–26),12 Yahweh here draws an 9 As Oswalt, Isaiah 40–66, 305. Cf. Heffelfinger, who notes especially the complexity of the mirror passages 49:14–23 and 54:1–14, which shift the treatment of mother Zion and her children “from cryptic promises to ‘bring your seed’ from far away in 43:5 to full blown descriptions of mother Zion’s reaction to the overwhelming return of children whom she does not recall bearing” (I Am Large, 160). 10 See the discussion and bibliography in Stromberg, Isaiah after Exile, 57–59. This stream of research highlights the connection between chs 60–62 and 66:7–14, even if, as Stromberg and others argue, it is part of the key redactional bracket around chs 56–66. In this alternative view, the family imagery is found at the center and the periphery of this literary corpus. 11 Following, e.g., Hanne Loland, Silent or Salient Gender:  The Interpretation of Gendered God-Language in the Hebrew Bible, Exemplified in Isaiah 42, 46, and 49 (FAT; Tübingen:  Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 161–92. Contra, e.g., Oswalt, who unnecessarily emphasizes the following contrastive statement by Yahweh (Isaiah 40–66, 305 n. 71), and Sarah J. Dille, who attributes v.  15a to Zion (Mixing Metaphors:  God as Mother and Father in Deutero-Isaiah [LHBOTS; London: T&T Clark, 2004], 141). 12 For Christopher R. Seitz, the reference to “son of her womb” is made “without causing undue strain on the other images of wife and mother,” even though he admits “the oddity of gender associations” (Zion’s Final Destiny: The Development of the Book of Isaiah—A Reassessment of Isaiah 36–39 [Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1991], 203–4).

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 82

10/19/2017 8:04:04 PM

83

6. Familial Identity and Conflict

83

analogy wherein he is the mother and Zion is “the son of her womb,”13 reversing the dominant genders associated with the deity and the city.14 In what follows, Zion is depicted as bride (49:18), but this imagery is swallowed up in the image of mother since the returnees (soon identified as her children) are likened to her bridal ornaments.15 The maternal focus, however, emphasizes her bereavement which, by her own testimony, cast her in a state of virtual barrenness. Zion discovers her children alive, delivered to her by the nations and their royal houses who will also serve as guardians and wet nurses (49:20–23). It appears, then, that Yahweh is suggesting that Zion as mother has forgotten her children (concluding she was bereaved and thus barren),16 while Yahweh as mother has not forgotten either her or her children. While 49:15–26 addresses the second of the two accusations of Zion in 49:14 (“Yahweh has forgotten me”), 50:1–3 shifts the focus to the first of the two accusations: “Yahweh has forsaken me.”17 The verb ‫ עזב‬in 49:14, here rendered as “forsaken,” is most likely an allusion to marital abandonment,18 and this more

13 “Can a woman forget her nursing child, and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you” (Isa. 49:15). 14 A trend already displayed earlier in Isaiah 40–66, that is, 42:14; 46:13–14. Cf. Loland, Silent or Salient Gender. 15 The intense debate over whether Zion’s lament in 49:14 triggers a marital frame and thus conflicts with the parental frame of 49:15 is unnecessary as 49:15 begins Yahweh’s answer to Zion’s accusation of divine amnesia (the second concern of Zion in 49:14) while 50:1–3 begins Yahweh’s answer to Zion’s accusation of divine marital abandonment (the first concern of Zion in 49:14). The bridal marital imagery of v. 18 thus prepares the way for the marital frame in 50:1–3. 16 Heffelfinger similarly notes, “Zion herself is likely implied in the rhetorical question about the possibility of a woman forgetting her newborn,” confirmed in the citation of Zion’s speech in v. 21 (I Am Large, 236). This is contra Oosting, who argues that Zion here is not depicted as a mother, based on her self-identification as barren (The Role of Zion/ Jerusalem, 126–8). 17 Contra John Goldingay, The Message of Isaiah 40–55:  A Literary-Theological Commentary (London: T&T Clark, 2005), 385–6. Brueggemann sees 49:15–26 as responding to both of Zion’s concerns (Isaiah 40–66, 116). According to Heffelfinger, “Abandonment was the very thing that Zion accused Yhwh of in her opening complaint” (I Am Large, 243). Heffelfinger identifies 49:14–50:3 as a single unit based on the consistent voicing of Yahweh, but R. Abma highlights the key shift in addressee from Zion to her children in Bonds of Love:  Methodic Studies of Prophetic Texts with Marriage Imagery (Isaiah 50:1–3 and 54:1–10, Hosea 1–3, Jeremiah 2–3)(SSN; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1999), 63–4. Cf. Oswalt, Isaiah 40–66, 317. 18 John J. Schmitt, “The Motherhood of God and Zion as Mother,” Revue Biblique 92 (1985): 561–62; Christl Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion: Gender, Space, and the Sacred in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), 164. Maier notes the appearance of ‫ עֲזוּבָה‬in Isa. 54:6; 60:15; and 62:4. The word “abandoned” belongs to the divorce sector (cf.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 83

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

84

84

Mark J. Boda

serious charge is handled with some forcefulness in 50:1. In contrast to 49:15–26, Yahweh does not address Zion directly, speaking instead to a masculine plural audience which is identified as the children of mother Zion. Isaiah 50:1 suggests that Yahweh has been accused of divorcing his wife and then selling her children to creditors. Yahweh’s demand for written proof of a divorce19 can be understood in two ways. First, it may be a question intended to reveal that no document was ever made, suggesting that Yahweh did not follow through with the proceedings and so never legally divorced Zion.20 If this is the case, then, since Yahweh does admit that he sent Zion away, one has to make a distinction between the act of “sending away” and the writing of the divorce document. Deuteronomy 24:1–4, however, describes both of these actions as coincident and makes no distinction between them. This makes a second option more attractive: that Yahweh calls for the divorce document as evidence pointing to the real reason for the divorce, which is the iniquities/transgressions of the children themselves.21 The accent in the response thus shifts in two respects from that in Zion’s accusations: it switches from the idea that a divine initiative lies behind the present situation to the recognition of this situation as a matter of fact, and it shifts from a focus on the responsibility of Yahweh to the responsibility of the children.22 It is important to note that Zion is not accused of wrongdoing, a feature also of the further development of the divine argument in ch. 54 (see below). The prophetic speech which follows in

Gen. 29:31; Deut. 21:15–17; 24:3; Judg. 14:16; 2 Sam. 13:15; Jer. 12:8; Prov. 30:23; Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah, 443, esp. n. 323). Dille, in contrast, links “abandonment” here to the city-lament theme of divine abandonment (Mixing Metaphors, 140). 19 Abma notes that the phrase ‫“( ֵספֶר ְכ ִּריתוּת‬certificate of divorce”) occurs only in Deut. 24:1–3, Jer. 3:8 and here in Isa. 50:1, “each time in the context of a divorce procedure.” Furthermore, in all of these cases when the verb ‫( שׁלח‬piel) “occurs in the context of male–female relations, it does not have a positive connotation but signifies that a man dismisses a woman, resigns his responsibility for her and ends the relationship with its inherent protection. The term then has the underlying meaning ‘to divorce’ ” (Bonds of Love, 71). Cf. Deut. 22:19, 29; Jer. 3:1; Mal. 2:16; Dille, Mixing Metaphors, 153. 20 Tull Willey, Remembering the Former Things, 202; Brueggemann, Isaiah 40–66, 120; Dille, Mixing Metaphors, 162–3; Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion, 174. Cf. Abma, Bonds of Love, 84: “[A]lthough the situation seems equivalent to divorce . . . the ties between God and Zion are not annulled . . . The denial of the existence of such a document is a forceful and clear symbol for the idea that the relationship between Yhwh and Zion cannot be equaled to a definite divorce, although it may seem so.” Cf. also Baltzer, who sees here a woman “in a wretched position between marriage and divorce” (Deutero-Isaiah, 321). 21 Oswalt, Isaiah 40–66, 318; Hanson, Isaiah 40–66, 137. Gary A. Anderson appears to see unpaid debts in the reference to the children’s sins. The slavery is thus due to the children’s financial issues, not Yahweh’s (Sin: A History [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009], 48–9). 22 Abma, Bonds of Love, 73. Yahweh’s culpability is downplayed by the use of the passive forms of the verbs ‫( מכר‬to sell) and ‫( שׁלח‬to send away).

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 84

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

85

6. Familial Identity and Conflict

85

50:2–3 brings to the fore an issue that will also reappear in ch. 54, that is, the role of a kinsman redeemer in the children’s (and by extension the mother’s) situation. Yahweh declares that he found no “man” (23(‫ אִישׁ‬before mentioning his ability to accomplish “redemption” (24,(‫ ְפּדוּת‬suggesting a reference to the male kin responsible to care for an abandoned woman and her children—a role that Yahweh himself will assume in this instance. There is a tension here that will arise again in ch. 54, where Yahweh will self-identify not only as the male head of the family (husband/ father) but also as the kinsman redeemer. Family imagery appears again in Isaiah 51:17–23, where Jerusalem is depicted as a drunkard reeling from the wrathful cup that Yahweh had given her. Jerusalem’s sons, whom she bore and reared, are unable to assist her (51:18) because they have fainted and died in her streets (51:20). Yahweh, however, wrests the cup from her hand, putting it in the hands of her tormentors to reverse Jerusalem’s fate. While Isaiah 50:1–3 indirectly addresses the first part of Zion’s lament in 49:14, Isaiah 54 directly responds to her cry and employs extensive family imagery. The imagery used in 54:1–3 depicts Zion as a barren woman, one who has not given birth and who will now have more numerous children than the married woman.25 Most contrast the feminine image of 54:1–3 with that in 54:4–8,26 seeing the

23 Whether v. 2a is the speech of Zion (Dille, Mixing Metaphors, 153) or Yahweh does not change the interpretation here. 24 While there is a preference for using ‫ גאל‬for redemption in Deutero-Isaiah over cognates of ‫פדה‬, a text like Isa. 51:10b–11 shows their close connection; cf. Martien A. Halvorson-Taylor, Enduring Exile: The Metaphorization of Exile in the Hebrew Bible (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 112–17. See also Meindert Dijkstra’s superb review, “Yhwh as Israel’s Gō’ēl: Second Isaiah’s Perspective on Reconciliation and Restitution,” ZABR 5 (1999): 247. The close connection between a cognate of ‫ )פדה ) ְפּדוּת‬in 50:2 and the crisis over debt-slavery in 50:1 suggest that the cognate of ‫ פדה‬has been employed for the more limited context of kin relations associated with ‫ ;גאל‬cf. Abma, Bonds of Love, 76–7. For another approach see Dille, Mixing Metaphors, 169–70. 25 That Zion is the referent of the woman in ch. 54 is widely accepted; cf. Katheryn Pfisterer Darr, Isaiah’s Vision and the Family of God (LCBI; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 177; Goldingay, The Message of Isaiah 40–55, 521; Heffelfinger, I Am Large, 260; Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, For the Comfort of Zion: The Geographical and Theological Location of Isaiah 40–55 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 301; Oosting, The Role of Zion/Jerusalem, 58. 26 For example, W. A. M. Beuken, “Isaiah LIV: The Multiple Identity of the Person Addressed,” in Language and Meaning: Studies in Hebrew Language and Biblical Exegesis—Papers Read at the Joint British-Dutch Old Testament Conference, London, 1973 (OTS; Leiden: Brill, 1974), 29–70; Hanson, Isaiah 40–66, 169; Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah (OTL: Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 427–29. Heffelfinger rejects any integrated frame here, claiming that the “poem does not present a single consistent metaphor for Zion’s anguish” and instead concluding that “multiple metaphors for feminine shame are paratactically juxtaposed and piled upon another.” This is odd, since she provides some of the best evidence for integrating the two images in 54:1–3 and 54:4–8 with her translation

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 85

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

86

86

Mark J. Boda

former as a barren woman and the latter as a widowed woman. However, these two women are not as distinct as this traditional view suggests.27 First, the woman in 54:1–3 is contrasted with a “married woman” (54:1), akin to the woman in 54:4–8 (54:6–7). Second, the designation for the woman in 54:1–3 is ‫שׁוֹ ֵממָה‬, a term that can be translated as “abandoned” in light of its use to describe Tamar after Amnon abandoned her in 2 Sam 13:20.28 Thus, the women in 54:1–3 and 54:4–8 are both women bereft of a male partner.29 Isaiah 54:4 pictures the woman as widowed early in her married life,30 an experience that leaves her humiliated, disgraced, and shamed within her social context.31 The connection between the widowed woman’s state and the honor/shame nexus possibly suggests that 54:4–8 provides a further explanation of the social status of the woman who was thought to have been abandoned in 54:1.32 But then, in Isaiah 54:5, Yahweh presents himself as her

of ‫ שׁוֹ ֵממָה‬as “abandoned” within the marriage frame. For her the distinct images are “the barren woman, the widowed woman, and the abandoned woman” (I Am Large, 259–60). 27 Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion, 174. 28 John F.  A. Sawyer, “Daughter of Zion and Servant of the Lord in Isaiah:  A Comparison,” JSOT 44 (1989): 95. See also S. L. Stassen, “Marriage (and Related) Metaphors in Isaiah 54:1–17,” JS 6 (1994): 62. 29 With Heffelfinger, I Am Large, 255; contra Tiemeyer, Comfort of Zion, 302. Notice similarly how the use of ‫ש ָממָה‬ ׁ ְ in 62:4, which could be repointed as ‫שׁוֹ ֵממָה‬, is paralleling ‫עֲזוּבָה‬ and contrasting a word from the root ‫( בעל‬to marry). 30 Thus, there is no need to distinguish between an image of a young and old wife, nor on this basis to see different stages of Israel’s/Judah’s history (monarchy versus exile). See a review of such attempts in Abma, Bonds of Love, 98. There is also no need to see these, as Abma does, as distinct images (premarital v. postmarital status) that are parallel in their shared “absence of a spouse,” since a young woman can be widowed (Abma, Bonds of Love, 98). Similar to Abma is Oswalt, Isaiah 40–66, 418. 31 For the shame related to barrenness and widowhood, see Victor H. Matthews and Don C. Benjamin, Social World of Ancient Israel 1250–587 BCE (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993), 22–31, 132–3. There is no connection between shame and sinful behavior here; see Westermann, Isaiah 40–66, 273; Halvorson-Taylor, Enduring Exile, 117. Heffelfinger notes the creative interplay of the homonymic ‫( עֲלוּ ַמי ְִך‬your youth) and ‫( אַ ְלמְנוּתַ י ְִך‬your widowhood) as well as the homonymic ‫( עֲזוּבָה‬abandoned) and ‫( עֲצוּבַת‬grieved) (I Am Large, 262). 32 Although it may be that the term used here (‫ אַ ְל ָמנָה‬/‫ )אַ ְלמָנוּת‬has a more general sense of “a formerly married woman who has lost her male protector and provider” and thus may “not necessarily refer to a woman whose husband is deceased,” Dille, however, inaccurately draws on Chayim Cohen, who treats ‫ אַ ְל ָמנָה‬/‫ אַ ְלמָנוּת‬as a term for a special subset of women with deceased husbands (those with no means of support) (Dille, Mixing Metaphors, 136; Chayim Cohen, “The ‘Widowed’ City,” JANESCU 5 [1973]: 75–81). Better is the work of Stassen, who points to 2 Sam 20:3 where women abandoned by a living husband are identified as in the state of ‫“( אַ ְלמְנוּת‬Marriage (and Related) Metaphors,” 65). See also John Rook, who, drawing on Genesis 38, 2 Sam 13:13, and 2 Sam 20:3 concludes, “A woman becomes an ’almanah, not when her husband dies, but when she has no male guardian from the kin

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 86

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

87

6. Familial Identity and Conflict

87

husband. This is shocking at first, since the husband had abandoned this wife and/ or was considered to have died prematurely. The following line, however, clarifies the situation, as Yahweh identifies himself as this woman’s kinsman redeemer who comes to remove the shame of widowhood.33 The image world continues to develop as we move into 54:6. Jerusalem/Zion is still presented in the role of young wife, but now she is compared to a young wife with a “grieved spirit” as a result of having been abandoned.34 Lest we think that this grief is only akin to that of an abandoned woman, we then hear the shocking words in vv. 7–8 that Yahweh is actually the husband who forsook Jerusalem/Zion in a moment of rage, hiding his face from her for what he considers “a moment.”35 The closing words of v. 8 (“Yahweh, your redeemer” [‫)]גּ ֹ ֲאלְֵך יהוה‬, however, are a reminder that Yahweh is functioning now in the role of kinsman redeemer.36 Isaiah 54:1–8 thus presents a series of images related to a disgraced woman who has experienced intense pain and shame due to her state without child and husband. The presentation reveals that this woman has been abandoned prior to bearing children and, shockingly, the husband who abandoned her was none other than Yahweh, even though he arrives in the guise of a kinsman redeemer. This is thus a second stage in the response of Yahweh to the initial accusation of Zion in 49:14: “You have forsaken me.”37 In the first stage of 50:1, Yahweh speaks only to the children, tracing the pain of their mother Zion to their iniquities/transgressions and denying that he was responsible for the children’s sale to creditors, even though he had abandoned them.38 In this second stage, however, Yahweh admits

group to look out for her interests” (“Making Widows: The Patriarchal Guardian at Work,” BTB 27 [1997]: 10); cf. David Daube, “Absalom and the Ideal King,” VT 48 (1998): 325. 33 See Oswalt, Isaiah 40–66, 419; Abma, Bonds of Love, 99; Sarah Dille, “Honor Restored: Honor, Shame and God as Redeeming Kinsman in Second Isaiah,” in Relating to the Text: Interdisciplinary and Form-Critical Insights on the Bible, ed. Timothy Sandoval and Carleen Mandolfo (London: T&T Clark International, 2003), 246; Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion, 174; Halvorson-Taylor, Enduring Exile, 116–17. While Matthews and Benjamin point to the prohibitions of Lev. 18:16 and 20:20 to claim that the kinsman redeemer (legal guardian) “did not marry the mother of the household” and “simply carried out the physical and economic commitments which her husband had failed to complete before his death” (Social World, 113), Deut. 24:5 clearly uses marital language: ‫שׁה‬ ּ ָ ‫וּ ְל ָקחָהּ לוֹ ְל ִא‬ (see Gen. 25:20). 34 Again reflecting the marital abandonment motif in 49:14; 60:15; 62:4; Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion, 164. 35 Contra Oswalt, who states, “The bride has been rejected, and the fault is all her own” (Isaiah 40–66, 421). 36 Stassen, “Marriage (and Related) Metaphors,” 67. 37 Tull Willey, Remembering the Former Things, 232. 38 Because of this, I do not see tension between the divine response in 49:15–23, which focused on whether God had forgotten Zion, as do for instance Tull Willey (Remembering the Former Things, 234) and Heffelfinger (I Am Large, 266). There is a contrast, however,

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 87

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

88

88

Mark J. Boda

that he did forsake Zion but has come to make things right.39 This is an admission of the kind of abandonment expressed by Zion in her lament in 49:14. In both texts we have noted language associated with the social situation of familial redemption, and in both Yahweh is clearly identified as both the original husband and the kinsman redeemer. This is most likely related to the legal challenge of a husband remarrying an original partner after a divorce (Deut. 24:1–4; Jer. 3:1).40 Yahweh must then function as kinsman redeemer, a role that is key to the larger presentation of the deity throughout Isaiah 40–55.41 Moving now into chs 60–62, that core of Isaiah 56–66, we encounter family imagery in 60:3–4 as Zion’s sons and daughters are brought from afar, carried and cared for by those royal guardians/wet nurses who are drawn to the light of Zion (cf. 49:22–23). The arrival of Zion’s children is again mentioned in 60:9. Reference to being “forsaken and hated” (‫שׂנוּאָה‬ ְ ‫ )עֲזוּבָה וּ‬in Isaiah 60:15 brings to the surface once again the painful estrangement, expressed first in the accusation of abandonment in Zion’s lament in 49:14 then considered again in Yahweh’s denial of divorce in 50:1 before the admission of abandonment in 54:4–8.42 Isaiah 60:16 shifts the imagery from Zion as wife to Zion as child suckling at the breast. While it is quite unmarked for a child to suckle the breast, drawing nourishment from the mother, one does not expect that the parent will be ‫ ְמ ָלכִים‬, male sovereigns. It is interesting to watch the translations deal with this image, sometimes opting for the generic “royal breasts” (e.g., NIV) and actually eradicating all tension between real and metaphorical worlds. Commentators cannot avoid some response, on the one hand calling this “strange,”43 “the curious picture,”‘44 or “the apparent incongruity,”45 or between the accusation against the children as the cause of abandonment in 50:1, which is not mentioned in ch. 54. 39 Heffelfinger notes when contrasting ch. 54 with 49:14–23 that “here [ch.  54], all vestiges of the indictment disappear. Yhwh no longer responds to Zion’s accusations, nor attempts to justify God-self ” (I Am Large, 253). 40 The law denies remarriage if the woman has married another man. No explicit mention is made in Isaiah of a marriage to another man, but it is probably assumed as other deities. 41 The depiction of Yahweh as ‫ גֹּאֵל‬throughout Isaiah 40–66 has been explored by Dijkstra, “Yhwh as Israel’s Gō’ēl”; Dille, “Honor Restored”; and Halvorson-Taylor, Enduring Exile, 107–49, esp. 108. See Abma, Bonds of Love, 100, for the potential difficulties of this imagery in this passage, even though she does not seek to integrate the various images as I am proposing. 42 Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion, 164. 43 Darr, Isaiah’s Vision, 195. Darr notes the tension between having both sons and God as bridegroom but does not make any mention of the oddity of sons marrying their mother. 44 Ivan D. Friesen, Isaiah (BCBC; Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 2009), 382. 45 Carl Wilhelm Eduard Nägelsbach, The Prophet Isaiah: An Exegetical and Doctrinal Commentary, trans. Samuel T. Lowrie and Dunlop Moore (LCHS; London:  Charles Scribner, 1871), 651. This prompted the translator Dunlop Moore to comment, “The language used forces us to interpret the whole prophecy allegorically.”

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 88

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

89

6. Familial Identity and Conflict

89

on the other hand emphasizing that “this figure of speech makes little sense and its nonliteral meaning is obvious since real babies do not nurse from the breasts of kings (males).”46 Whybray quickly shifts the conversation to the literal, noting how this image is used “to express the idea that Zion will drain the foreign nations of their wealth.”47 The address to Jerusalem/Zion in ch. 62 also employs family imagery. Isaiah 62:4–5 again echoes the earlier marital estrangement (“You will no longer be called Forsaken [‫]עֲזוּבָה‬, and your land will no longer be called Desolate [48,(“[‫שׁ ָממָה‬ ְ but it makes clear that this will be rectified through the new names of Hephzibah (“My Delight Is in Her”) and Beulah (“Married”).49 It may be significant that Beulah (“Married”) is only associated with “your land” rather than with Zion herself, since v. 5a then goes on to declare: “A young man marries a virgin, your sons will marry you.” However, v. 5b then proceeds to compare God’s rejoicing over Zion to that of a bridegroom over a bride. Most of this address is sociologically unmarked: the image of a young man marrying a young woman, a bridegroom rejoicing over a bride, and Yahweh as the groom with Jerusalem/Zion as the bride. In the midst of this scene, however, we find an image that is sociologically marked, not only in the fact that Jerusalem/Zion will be married to multiple men, but even more markedly that she will marry her sons. Childs calls this image “especially puzzling” and Andersen calls it “incongruous,” while Goldingay sees the metaphor “breaking down.”50 Of course, the editors of BHS try to remove this imagistic markedness by repointing to ‫“( ָבּנָי ְִך‬your sons”) to ‫“( בֹּנָי ְִך‬your builder”) as the one whom Zion will marry, but the ancient versions do not provide any support for this text critical move.51 The final familial passage comes in the concluding section of the book of Isaiah (66:7–13), a passage that has been associated with chs 60–62 (see above). Birthing is related to both land and Zion, a development that revisits the promises in Isaiah 62:4–5 wherein land and Zion are depicted in the initial marriage phase. Here Zion gives birth to the land and nation, and God is depicted as a midwife helping to deliver the children safely (66:9).52 The address to the nation and nations is not

46 Gary V. Smith, Isaiah 40–66 (NAC; Nashville, TN.: Broadman & Holman, 2009), 621. 47 R. Norman Whybray, Isaiah 40–66 (NCB; Greenwood, SC: Attic, 1975), 236. 48 Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion, 164; Goldingay, Isaiah 56–66, 335. 49 The imagery of the crown, as well, may be related to the marital field. See T. David Andersen, “Renaming and Wedding Imagery in Isaiah 62,” Bib 67 (1986):  75–80; Childs, Isaiah, 512. 50 Childs, Isaiah, 512; Andersen, “Renaming,” 79; Goldingay, Isaiah 56–66, 337. 51 The reading “sons” is backed up by Old Greek (OG) (οἱ υἱοί σου), although the shock of the image of sons and mother marrying is lessened by the use of the verb κατοικέω (to dwell). The OG strategy influences commentators like Oswalt, who appeals to “the basic sense” of the word ‫ בעל‬as not “to marry” but “to possess,” in his opinion placing “the priority of relationship in the concept” (Isaiah 40–66, 581). 52 Maier, Daughter Zion, Mother Zion, 202.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 89

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

90

90

Mark J. Boda

only to rejoice for the new mother but also to find nourishment from Jerusalem/ Zion as her children, satiated by her breasts (vv. 10–12). The satisfaction is related to comfort,53 a comfort that is traced to Yahweh himself who again self-identifies as a mother (v. 13) alongside mother Zion.54 This quick review of the imagery of family throughout Isaiah 49:14–66:24 has revealed its complexity. Throughout we have observed: 1. relational tension between members of the family (esp. husband/wife; parent/ child); 2. diversity of relational roles played by various members of the family (parent, child, spouse); and 3. diversity of gender roles filled by various members of the family. The main focus of the relational tension is placed on the relationship between husband Yahweh and his wife Zion. The tension is noted in the opening word of Zion’s lament in 49:14 (‫ ֲעזָ ַבנִי‬, “he has forsaken me”). Although avoided initially (49:15–26), the lament is finally broached in 50:1 in response to Zion’s children, which invokes the certificate of divorce to place the blame on to the rebellious children of the marriage. Yahweh’s recognition of abandonment is clear in 54:4–8, as Yahweh takes responsibility for his wife as grieved in spirit, rejected, and forsaken in what was “a brief moment . . . in an outburst of anger . . . for a moment” (54:7–8). The memory of this relational pain does not disappear with this climactic admission in ch. 54, as we discover in the reference to Zion being “forsaken and hated” in 60:15 and “forsaken” in 62:4. But Yahweh continues to speak tenderly to Zion as was the original intent in the commissioning of 40:2, promising to gather her “with great compassion” (54:7) and “everlasting steadfast love” (54:8), to make her “an everlasting pride, a joy from generation to generation” (60:15), and the focus of delight (62:4) and joy (62:5). The familial imagery throughout Isaiah 49:14–66:24 also depicts diversity in the relational roles played by Zion and Yahweh. Even though there is diversity in the parental imagery (whether Yahweh is father [50:1; cf. 43:6] or mother [49:15; 66:13; cf. 42:14; 46:3–4]), Yahweh is always depicted as a male spouse of Zion (50:1). Zion, however, has far greater diversity in roles, ranging from child to parent to spouse, often juxtaposed in the same passage. Isaiah 49:15–26 depicts Zion

53 Goldingay writes, “Whereas ‘comfort’ is usually something Zion receives from Yhwh rather than something it gives, here the imagery of motherhood suggests that Zion is the giver of comfort” (Isaiah 56–66, 498). 54 While Brueggemann notes that “[t]he imagery suggests that Yahweh is the birth-mother, the one who suckles and satisfies and comforts the newborn” (Isaiah 40–66, 256), Oswalt treats this image as that of “a mother comforting a grown son,” thus contrasting the earlier maternal images for Zion. He bases this on the use of the term ‫ אִישׁ‬for the child, which is problematic in light of Eve’s declaration at the birth of Cain in Gen. 4:1: ‫ָקנִיתִ י‬ ‫“( אִישׁ ֶאת־יהוה‬I have acquired a man-child with the help of Yahweh”) (Isaiah 40–66, 678–9).

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 90

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

91

6. Familial Identity and Conflict

91

as a child (“the son of her womb” [49:15]), but then as a spouse with emphasis on parenting (children as bridal jewels [49:18]; mother of lost children, sons, daughters [49:20–23]), even though the nations will serve as guardians/wet nurses for her children (49:23). Isaiah 54 presents Zion as a barren and abandoned woman, considered widowed at an early age. Isaiah 60 identifies Zion as parent of sons and daughters (vv. 4, 9), then shifts to Zion as estranged spouse (v. 15),55 and then to Zion as suckling child (v. 16). Finally, Isaiah 62 casts Zion at first as a forsaken spouse, and then as a young bride (vv. 4–5). This passage provides the most shocking images of relational roles:  first the husband responsible for forsaking Zion as wife declares his delight and joy for her as his bride, and second, her sons marry their mother Zion as a virgin (v. 5). Not only do we see here multiple males involved with one bride (Yahweh, sons)—something not seen anywhere else in the Hebrew tradition—but we also see a man remarrying his former wife, something which may be prohibited (Deut. 24:1–4) but justified by the man assuming the identity of kinsman redeemer. Additionally, we find a son marrying his mother, something which is prohibited (Lev. 18:6–7; cf. Lev. 20:11; Deut. 27:20). Finally, the familial imagery throughout Isaiah 49:14–66:24 depicts diversity in terms of gender roles. Yahweh is identified as both male and female in 49:15–50:1, first as a nursing mother who has given birth to a son (49:15; cf. 66:13) and second as a father of children (50:1). While Zion is often associated with the female gender, as seen in her depictions as daughter, mother, and wife, the opening response of Yahweh to Zion uses a male association: “the son of her womb” (49:15). Even those drawn into the family depiction as guardians/wet nurses are given atypical gender roles, as seen in Zion suckling at the breasts of male kings (60:16). One may explain some of these features of the familial imagery in Isaiah 49:14–66:24 as related to the creative use of images.56 For example, while the mixed metaphor is frowned upon in modern literary technique, one should not impose such restrictions on ancient literature (or possibly modern!), and one may take each metaphor as distinct rather than as a single, carefully constructed frame. One may also protest that it is the deeper principle underlying the metaphor that should be our focus, such that sons marrying their mother is merely an image that speaks to the passion of the people for their city, a passion for which legal precision is not necessary. But the entailments attached to these images should not so easily be ignored, and there are enough examples throughout these chapters that should make us pause and be shocked by the imagistic worlds that have been created.57

55 Although no spouse is explicitly identified, broader developments suggest it is Yahweh. 56 As Tull Willey suggests, “Inconsistency and paradox help make the characters interesting and ‘round’ as opposed to predictable and ‘flat’ ” (Remembering the Former Things, 178). 57 Seitz notes how “[t]he metaphors swim into one another” in Isaiah 40–55, also highlighting the “oddity of gender associations” (Zion’s Final Destiny, 203–4). For more integrative frame approaches to the familial imagery in Isaiah, see the studies of Halvorson-Taylor,

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 91

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

92

92

Mark J. Boda

If my approach can be embraced, then we must begin by accepting and experiencing the shock of these images, which are designed to influence us rhetorically.58 However, it may be helpful to ask what has motivated those responsible for Isaiah 49:14–66:24 to produce a familial depiction as shocking as the one we have highlighted above. In what follows, I want to quickly investigate the integration of feminist and gender studies with the field of migration research as (at least) a heuristic tool to suggest a sociological reason for the literary evidence highlighted above.

Gender, family and migration research A helpful starting point is Nawyn’s 2010 summary of the history of “the integration of gender analysis in migration studies,” which divides this history into four phases:59 1. gender as an individual, static category determined at birth (1970s–early 1980s); 2. a shift from studying women to studying gender as a system of relations (mid to late 1980s); 3. a shift to examining gender as a constitutive element of immigration;60 4. a shift to gender relations theory: how gender relations change due to migration.61

especially on the role of the ‫גֹּאֵל‬, though she admits challenges to the presentation of Zion and her children (Enduring Exile, 107–49, esp. 118 and 118 n. 25); Darr, Isaiah’s Vision; and Gregory Lee Cuéllar, Voices of Marginality: Exile and Return in Second Isaiah 40–55 and the Mexican Immigrant Experience (AUS Series VII, Theology and Religion; New York: Peter Lang, 2008). As Cuéllar notes in his comments on Isa. 50:1–3, “the exile represents an intense family affair of abandonment, sin and betrayal” (79). 58 As per the wise reminder of Goldingay, “[Exegesis] must not hasten simply to decode the metaphor and then look past it to its presumed referent” (The Message of Isaiah 40–55, 521) and so, in the words of Darr, miss the “power, pathos, and joy” (Isaiah’s Vision, 177–8). See Halvorson-Taylor, Enduring Exile, 17–21, for an excellent review of recent study of metaphor that has placed greater emphasis on the vehicle (metaphor) rather than on the tenor (referent). 59 Stephanie J. Nawyn, “Gender and Migration:  Integrating Feminist Theory into Migration Studies,” Sociology Compass 4 (2010): 750–1. 60 Noting especially Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, ed., Gender and U.S. Immigration: Contemporary Trends (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003). 61 Noting especially Raewyn Connell, Gender and Power:  Society, the Person, and Sexual Politics (Stanford, CA:  Stanford University Press, 1987); Raewyn Connell, Gender (Polity Short Introductions; Oxford:  Polity, 2002). Cf. Raewyn Connell, Gender in World Perspective, 2nd ed. (Polity Short Introductions; Cambridge: Polity, 2009).

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 92

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

93

6. Familial Identity and Conflict

93

Certainly one cannot underestimate the importance of feminist studies to these shifts in migration studies. Pedraza, writing 25 years ago, spoke of the total neglect of the role of women within migration studies until recently, “despite the overwhelming presence of women in migration flows.” She attributes this to “the pervasive assumption that the international migrant is a young, economically motivated male” which “overshadowed the reality of migration streams that were dominated by women.”62 Hoeder attributes the invisibility of women to the fact that “[s]tatistics on crossings of inter-national borders were collected by nation-state apparatuses, a gendered construction in itself: male officials socialized in gendered societies counted men and labeled women and children as ‘dependents.’ ”63 Nawyn reminds us: What feminist migration scholars have made clear is that gender is more than an individual-level binary category ascribed at birth. In fact, some feminist scholars would argue that gender is not an individual characteristic at all. It is, rather, a system of power relations that permeates every aspect of the migration experience.64

Nawyn’s conclusion echoes that of the earlier Donato et al., who concluded: Migrants often become particularly aware of the relational and contextual nature of gender as they attempt to fulfill expectations of identity and behavior that may differ sharply in the several places they live.65

It is this contrast in expectations that lies behind the conflict Nawyn notes in an earlier article. According to Nawyn, one key contribution of feminist migration scholarship has been the way it has “uncovered the conflict and tension within migrant households emerging from gendered power relations.” In her work and that of her colleagues, she analyzes “migration through a critical household lens, one which does not assume that households are homogenous institutions but rather are diverse and contested and that both women and men migrate within a context of household relations.”66 Thus, “households should not be treated as homogeneous units focused on a collective good, but rather contested social

62 Silvia Pedraza, “Women and Migration: The Social Consequences of Gender,” ARS 17 (1991): 303–4. 63 Dirk Hoeder, “Migration Research in Global Perspective:  Recent Developments,” Sozial Geschichte Online 9 (2012): 68. 64 Nawyn, “Gender and Migration,” 760. 65 Katharine M. Donato et  al., “A Glass Half Full? Gender in Migration Studies,” International Migration Review 40 (2006): 6. 66 Stephanie J. Nawyn et al., “Gender in Motion: How Gender Precipitates International Migration,” in Perceiving Gender Locally, Globally, and Intersectionally, ed. Vasilikie P. Demos and Marcia Texler Segal (AGR; Bingley : Emerald Jai, 2009), 177.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 93

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

94

94

Mark J. Boda

spaces in which power differentials are constantly being affirmed, challenged, and renegotiated.”67 This focus on familial tension, which has arisen from greater attention to gender dynamics within migration, was noted by Pedraza many years before. Pedraza notes the way that attention to women and gender in relation to migration has provided insight into the inner dynamics of families, with consideration of the decision-making and gender relations that create “enormous interpersonal conflict.”68 The movement between host and homelands creates the conditions for significant tension within families.69 Specific elements of the gender dynamics in migration are laid out by Nawyn. Nawyn speaks of the power of “normative gendered expectations,” which determine the “social networks to which genders have access” but also limit women’s willingness to challenge male dominance because the mother’s authority is interlinked with that of the father.70 Nawyn also notes how transnational parenting shapes the identity of women and men, as well as the relationship between parent and child of those in the home country. Finally, Nawyn notes the importance of recent studies on the gender identity of immigrant children.71 Herrara’s more recent study provides further insights.72 In the section on “Rethinking Family and Gender through Transnational Migrations,” she notes the “distinct subjectivity and awareness of being a family across national borders” in the contemporary experience of migration.73 Thus, “[p]hysical proximity is no longer a prerequisite for family formation or maintenance,” and she notes how “the study of gender and the family has been reinvigorated by examining the changes and continuities in the makeup and reproduction of family bonds within the migration experience.”74 Her examples range from the examination of the connections migrant mothers preserved with their children to tracking the way “migrant men do not reproduce well-established masculine identities, but that there are new identities that emerge in response to new situations and to changes in the position and identities of their spouses in the place of origin.”75 Herrara also provides exposure to studies of the “migrant-daughter/parent relationship,” which offers new insights into the relational dynamics between generations within migrant families.76

67 Nawyn et al., “Gender in Motion,” 195. 68 Pedraza, “Women and Migration,” 309. 69 Pedraza, “Women and Migration,” 320. 70 Nawyn, “Gender and Migration,” 755. 71 Nawyn, “Gender and Migration,” 756. 72 Gioconda Herrera, “Gender and International Migration:  Contributions and Cross-Fertilizations,” ARS 39 (2013): 471–89. 73 Herrera, “Gender and International Migration,” 479. 74 Herrera, “Gender and International Migration,” 479. 75 Herrera, “Gender and International Migration,” 481. 76 Herrera, “Gender and International Migration,” 480–1.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 94

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

95

6. Familial Identity and Conflict

95

This admittedly quick review of perspectives from the study of gender in migration reveals a rich scholarly legacy that is now gaining increasing momentum. By giving attention to gender, the relational dynamics and identity shifts within the family unit have come more clearly into view, and these modern reflections on human social experience have at least a heuristic value for shaping our reading and rereading of biblical texts arising from communities that have experienced migration.

Migration and Isaiah 49:14–66:24 Returning now to Isaiah, there is clear evidence in the familial depictions of Isaiah 49:14–66:24 that this family is being treated as migrants.77 The children are seen as coming from distant lands (43:6; 49:22; 60:3–4, 9),78 and in 49:21 Yahweh gives voice to the feminine Jerusalem/Zion who is surprised at the appearance of children, since she was bereft of them, barren, an exile (‫)גֹּלָה‬, and one put away and left alone.79 Similar is 52:2, where Jerusalem and Daughter Zion are identified as ‫שּבִי‬ ְׁ and ‫ש ִביָּה‬ ׁ ְ . The second is a hapax legomenon, but the first is one of the most common terms for those carried away into captivity in exile.80 One may also discern this exilic motif in relation to Jerusalem/Zion in Isaiah 54:7, where Yahweh promises to “gather” (‫ ) ִקבֵּץ‬her.81 What is clear from the familial imagery throughout 77 See, e.g., John J. Ahn, Exile as Forced Migrations:  A Sociological, Literary, and Theological Approach on the Displacement and Resettlement of the Southern Kingdom of Judah (BZAW; Berlin:  De Gruyter, 2010), 159–222; Halvorson-Taylor, Enduring Exile, 107–49. I am not concerned here with the question of the geographic location of the writer or audience(s) of Isaiah 40–66, but rather with the employment of imagery. Migrant identity may relate to a past or present experience of migration. 78 The lack of specificity of “their port of departure” (Tiemeyer, Comfort of Zion, 290–2) does not detract from this as evidence of migratory imagery. In addition, the use of ‫( שׁאר‬niphal) should not be placed in tension with ‫גֹּלָה‬. The scene may just as easily be that of a family that has been separated from one another in a forced migration; cf. Dille, Mixing Metaphors, 145. 79 Contra Dalit Rom-Shiloni, Exclusive Inclusivity: Identity Conflicts between the Exiles and the People Who Remained (6th–5th Centuries BCE) (LHBOTS; London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 107. OG does not have ‫ְסוּרה‬ ָ֗ ‫“( גּ ָֹל֣ה ו‬an exile and one put away”), but this is probably due to jumping from ‫ וּדָ ה‬to ‫וּרה‬ ָ . Possibly ‫סוּרה‬ ָ (“one put away”) and ‫ׁאַרתִּ י‬ ְ ‫ש‬ ְ ִ‫“( נ‬I was left alone”) refer to marital estrangement/abandonment; cf. Dille, Mixing Metaphors, 142, 144. 80 Contra Rom-Shiloni, Exclusive Inclusivity, 113–14; Oosting, The Role of Zion/ Jerusalem, 160. Notice the parallel appearance of ‫שּבִי‬ ׁ ְ and ‫ש ְבי ָה‬ ׁ ִ in Jer. 48:46; possibly here ‫שּבִי‬ ׁ ְ is an adverbial accusative, the reversal of Lam. 1:5 in which ‫שּבִי‬ ׁ ְ occurs without a preposition in the description of going (‫ )הלך‬into captivity. 81 Contra Tiemeyer, who connects this to mother bird imagery (Comfort of Zion, 303). Other instances of this migratory dimension of Jerusalem/Zion include Jer. 30:17; Micah 4:10; Zech. 2:11[7]; Lam. 4:22.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 95

10/20/2017 5:43:34 PM

96

96

Mark J. Boda

Isaiah 49:14–66:24 is that Jerusalem/Zion is the constant throughout the familial depictions, relating to Yahweh (as husband, mother, kinsman redeemer), children, and wet nurses/guardians. This exilic/migration imagery for Zion, however, contrasts the dominant stationary urban imagery within chs 40–66.82 Jerusalem/Zion as urban space is depicted in two fundamental ways: both as physical space, focusing on its walls, gates, battlements and foundations and referring to its physical ruins (44:26, 28; 49:19; 50:3; 51:19; 54:11–12; 60:10, 11, 18; 61:4; 62:4, 6, 10), as well as demographic space, focusing on its inhabitants whether people, sentries, administrators, or animals (44:26; 51:3, 16, 19; 52:7–8; 60:6–7, 10, 17, 21; 62:6, 8; 65:19–21, 25). This urban imagery reminds the audience of the settledness of Jerusalem/Zion, placing the accent on the city of Jerusalem/Zion as the civic entity in the former kingdom of Judah. This evidence suggests that there is a blending of both static urban and dynamic migratory imagery for the family unit in Isaiah 40–66,83 and in this way, we see how Zion has been employed to address the importance of both homeland and hostland for migratory communities who experience conflict between Jerusalem/ Zion as the physical urban center in the homeland but also Jerusalem/Zion as the migratory community in the hostland.84 Jerusalem/Zion bridges the two worlds and possibly communities, with identity as both stationary and migratory. Jerusalem/Zion indeed has the credentials for all communities who had survived the aftermath of the destruction of Jerusalem.85

82 A feature articulated well by Tiemeyer, Comfort of Zion, 251–310:  “These descriptions of the physical city are often combined with elements denoting her human population” (309). 83 Contra Oosting, who argues for a distinction between Zion (“emphasis on the return of the Babylonian exiles”) and Jerusalem (“focuses on the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem”) (The Role of Zion/Jerusalem, 242). Cf. Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, “Review of Reinoud Oosting: The Role of Zion/Jerusalem in Isaiah 40–55: A Corpus Linguistic Approach,” JHS 13 (2013). 84 For basic orientation to the broader field of migration/diasporic studies, see William Safran, “Diasporas in Modern Societies:  Myths of Homeland and Return,” Diaspora:  A Journal of Transnational Studies 1 (1991):  83–99; Rogers Brubaker, “The ‘Diaspora’ Diaspora,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 28 (2005):  1–19; Bed Prasad Giri, “Diasporic Postcolonialism and Its Antinomies,” Diaspora:  A Journal of Transnational Studies 14 (2005):  215–35; and esp. Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas: An Introduction, 2nd edn (Global Diasporas; New York: Routledge, 2008), 1–19. I have provided my own review of this stream of research and its implications for reading biblical texts in Mark J. Boda, “Identity in Diaspora:  Reading Daniel, Ezra–Nehemiah, Esther as Diasporic Narratives,” in Rejection: God’s Refugees in Biblical and Contemporary Perspective, ed. Stanley E. Porter (MNTS; Eugene, OR: Eerdmans, 2015), 1–26. 85 This bridging role can also be discerned in the Book of the Twelve, where Jerusalem/ Zion is identified as both the city in the land as well as having experienced the exile;

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 96

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

97

6. Familial Identity and Conflict

97

This explains why Jerusalem/Zion plays such a key role in the familial imagery found in Isaiah 40–66:  the migratory experience underlies this reflection. Returning to the evidence related to gender and family relationships in the migratory experience, one finds possible reasons for the complex and shocking literary presentation of family relationships in Isaiah 40–66. The portrayal of Jerusalem/Zion as daughter, wife, and mother, of course, is not odd, and we have been taught to carefully reflect on the various images as discrete units, taking seriously their relevant entailments. But the constant imagistic modulation between these various identities as one progresses through Isaiah 49:14–66:24 creates a literary experience that is strikingly similar to the gender identity trend highlighted in migratory studies. There is renegotiation of gender for the migratory person, and this gender renegotiation is not only related to contrastive gender roles between homeland and hostland cultures, but also to recalibration and renegotiation of gender roles for family relationships between homeland and hostland cultures. Thus, not surprisingly, we encounter this female figure who is depicted as daughter in one place, wife in another, and mother in still another, and this in general creates a sense of the psychological and sociological conflictedness of the migratory experience. As reviewed above, modern migration research on gender has shown us that family relationships undergo considerable stress during the migration experience, and this is relevant for the relationship between spouses as well as between parents and children. Migration alone entails considerable stress with the loss of a stable home and demands to recreate a new home in a new environment. But added to this are the cultural shifts that accompany such physical shifts, and with them the necessity to renegotiate family structures and expectations. It is not surprising, then, to find familial tension and abandonment issues arising from shifts in relational roles. One key dimension of the shift in relational roles is connected to challenges to gender understanding and shifts in gender expectations. Yahweh is presented as mother and father, but also as a kinsman redeemer for an abandoned woman who is then revealed as the original husband. In the confusing and disruptive world of migration, one is also not surprised to see the shocking imagery of sons marrying a mother and male kings breastfeeding a female child. In seeking to answer why such familial imagery was used, Sara Dille focuses on the experiential rather than conceptual potential of this imagery for a community that had experienced forced migration: We can imagine that this was a traumatic experience of disruption and discontinuity. The people were wrenched from their homeland, their own families, their history, and their hopes and expectations for the future. The language of family

compare Micah 4, Zeph. 3, Zech. 2, Zech. 9:9–10; cf. Mark J. Boda, “Babylon in the Book of the Twelve,” HeBAI 3 (2014): 225–48. This is evident also in the book of Lamentations as we compare Lam. 4:11 with 4:22.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 97

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

98

98

Mark J. Boda is the language of rootedness, of past and future, of identity and belonging, and the language of home.86

While this description carries much truth, displaying sensitivity to the disruptive power of migration, I am convinced that there must be more to the “experiential” than this positive dimension if we are to account for the evidence of markedness within the social world of the family pictured within these texts. There is no way to assure the validity of this connection between migration and familial dynamics in Isaiah 49:14–66:24, but it does provide a new lens for investigating these texts and possible ways forward in our understanding of the relationship between text and society. If this connection can be sustained, it also reveals a possible reason for a key shift in the presentation of the deity within the Hebrew Bible, since we find in Isaiah 49:14–66:24 some of the most important expressions of the feminine for God in the Hebrew tradition as mined by superb academic works in recent decades.87 The emergence of God as both father and mother appears to me to be “marked” within the sociological context of ancient Israel and Judah,88 and it is the “experiential” dynamics typical of the migratory experience that make sense of this. This suggests the creative and powerful potential of the painful exilic experience, which opened the way for new expressions of the identity of the deity but also of the identity of the community and its relationship to their deity.

86 Dille, Mixing Metaphors, 176–7. So also Abma, who sees the marital images of Isaiah 50 and 54 as functioning “within a context of comfort and reassurance. The accent lies on the affection of Yhwh for Zion and on the revitalizing power of this love for Zion” (Bonds of Love, 109). Heffelfinger identifies familial imagery as “an element of the comfort tonality in which the metaphor of marriage between Yhwh and Zion and of abundant offspring dominates” (I Am Large, 233). However, the familial imagery in migration contexts is not always a source of “comfort” as one might usually expect in peaceful times, as recognized by Heffelfinger as she highlights ways in which the text “subvert[s] that tonality” (I Am Large, 234). See further Brueggemann, Isaiah 40–66, 154, for an approach that highlights the painful dimension of these images and texts; similarly, Cuéllar notes that “even in the surprise discovery [of children in Isa. 49:20–21] there is loss . . . those who are separated at forced migration lose the opportunity that a normal mother would experience . . . to raise the child” (Voices of Marginality). 87 For example, Abma, Bonds of Love; Dille, Mixing Metaphors; Loland, Silent or Salient Gender. 88 As Heffelfinger notes on 49:15, “Yhwh, who elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible is almost universally described via masculine images, explicitly takes up a specifically feminine partner for comparison” (I Am Large, 233).

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 98

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

99

Chapter 7 S LEEPING WITH THE E NE M Y? R E A DI NG E ST H E R A N D J UDITH AS C OM FORT   W OM E N Daniel L. Smith-Christopher

On using modern case studies In discussing elements of her reading methodology, Alice Bach points out: Within the process of reading either literary or visual narratives, we do not respond passively to characters as they have been presented within the story, but rather our own baggage, including previously encountered and absorbed stories, interacts with the characters, even appropriates them.1

In clear agreement with Bach’s observation, my own methodology is to approach the reading of biblical texts from a perspective that is quite intentionally informed by more recent social and historical cases, the points of comparison of which are suggested by elements of the chosen biblical text itself. The hope is that an analysis of contemporary issues will be suggestive in raising new questions to inform an exegesis of the biblical text. I strongly resist the tendency to call this approach “comparative,” because this is not a process that involves passive observations about how “this is a bit like that.” Nor is this an example of “history of exegesis” since I am not primarily interested here in how the book of Esther has been read in different historical contexts over the centuries. I propose, rather, that it is possible to supplement one’s exegetical work with an analysis of other cases suggested by themes and events in the text itself, as a part of otherwise more familiar historical-critical and textual analysis. In response to the constant warning that any kind of contemporary references risk a forced comparison, I  would answer with Bach that a bias-free reading is impossible. Bias is always a part of one’s reading of ancient texts, so one might as well be intentional and forthright about supplementing, and perhaps even better informing, the unavoidable biases. This way, at least, some presuppositions are opened up for critique and analysis. 1 Alice Bach, Women, Seduction, and Betrayal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 25.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 99

in

Biblical

Narrative

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

100

100

Daniel-Christopher

Reading Esther in contemporary analysis of gender issues: Esther as comfort woman Any reading of Esther raises issues of sexual or gendered politics, given the situation of biblical women in an arguably pervasively patriarchal context. Further articulations of sexual politics must also be considered in the particular case of Esther, because the story additionally focuses on women who are in a subordinated minority population. Furthermore, Esther concerns women who have been forcibly removed from their homelands and must, therefore, also navigate the issues of survival while living in the midst of a foreign, militarily and economically dominant imperial context. I refer here to “women” in the plural because we have no basis for assuming that the writer, or early readers, would have concluded that no other minority women under Persian domination were part of the sweep of potential comfort women to the emperor featured in the opening chapters of the story. Indeed, the exaggerations of numbers in the book as a whole would suggest otherwise (banquets lasting 180 days, 1:4; elaborate settings, vs. 5–9; 9:16 states 75,000 “enemies” of Jews killed, etc.). Along with such other fictionalized Persian and Hellenistic period works such as Daniel, Tobit, and the Joseph narratives (which have been clearly reworked, if not actually written, in the post-exilic context), Esther has often been called a “diaspora story.”2 However, having stated this similarity, Bach also notably warned in the previously cited work that “the reader interested in challenging established assumptions needs to resist genre stereotyping as it leads to one-note readings, and intellectual inertia.”3 To better articulate, and then examine, some of the sexual politics in the story of Esther, it is instructive to spend some time with contemporary literature on issues suggested by aspects or themes of the Esther story itself. Surely one of these themes is the sexual servicing of the foreign conqueror forced upon Esther (and the other women) in the story. It turns out to be quite productive, then, to consider some of the modern literature surrounding “comfort women” in the twentieth century, that is, the women who were forced into sexual service for soldiers in the Second World War. It does not require a great deal of time with this literature, however, to

2 The discussion of “diaspora tales” traces at least to the early work of Ludwig Rosenthal, “Die Josephsgeschichte mit den Buchern Esther und Daniel verglichen,” ZAW 15 (1895): 278–84; W. Lee Humphreys, “A Life-Style for Diaspora: A Study of the Tales of Esther and Daniel,” JBL 92 (1973):  211–23; Arndt Meinhold, “Die Gattung der Josephsgeschichte und des Estherbuches:  Diasporanovella I,” ZAW 87 (1975):  306–24; Arndt Meinhold, “Die Gattung der Josephsgeschichte und des Estherbuches: Diasporanovella II,” ZAW 88 (1976): 72–93; Susan Niditch and Robert Doran, “The Success Story of the Wise Courtier: A Formal Approach,” JBL 92 (1977): 179–93; and Lawrence M. Wills, The Jew in the Court of the Foreign King: Ancient Jewish Court Legends (Minneapolis:  Fortress Press, 1990), now widely noted in commentaries on Daniel and Esther in particular. 3 Bach, Women, Seduction, and Betrayal, 77.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 100

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

101

7. Sleeping with the Enemy?

101

realize that this contemporary issue not only gets complicated in modern analysis but also that these complications are themselves, in turn, profoundly suggestive for rereading the tales of Esther. Some of these complications also connect with the story of Judith, drawing her into the discussion as well. To be specific, a reading of the comfort women controversies in recent historiography suggests that some issues raised in Esther that have received relatively little discussion should probably receive considerably more—and it is this kind of result that I believe justifies the methodology practiced here. Finally, we will briefly note toward the end of this chapter that these discussions also “implicate” the story of Judith. This study does not suggest strong conclusions, but it proposes a new dialogue about issues that have been a serious part of discussions concerning both the stories of Esther and Judith.

Comfort women in modern historical debate Although there is now a growing body of literature about the comfort women controversies,4 C. Sarah Soh’s 2008 work takes this debate into important, and for our present agenda, also quite controversial and suggestive directions.5 To begin, let us be clear what we are talking about. The term “comfort woman” is a translation of the Japanese term “Ianfu,” and, according to Soh’s helpful summary, refers to the tens of thousands of young women and girls of various ethnic and national backgrounds who were pressed into sexual servitude during the Asia Pacific War that began with the invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and ended with Japan’s defeat in 1945. Estimates of the total numbers of Japan’s comfort women range between 50,000 and 200,000. Though these included small numbers of Japanese, Korean women constituted the great majority. It is believed that large numbers of Chinese women were also victimized.6

Already here, it is significant to compare some defining terms that others have proposed, because these terms help us to understand some of the lines of the contemporary debates about this twentieth-century phenomenon. Susan Brownmiller, 4 Kazuko Watanabe, “Trafficking in Women’s Bodies Then and Now:  The Issue of Military ‘Comfort Women,’” Women’s Study Quarterly 27 (1999): 19–31; Yoshimi Yoshiaki, Comfort Women:  Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II, trans. Suzanne O’Brien (New  York:  Columbia University Press, 2000); Yuki Tanaka, Japan’s Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during World War II and the US Occupation (London:  Routledge, 2003); David Schmidt, Ianfu, the Comfort Women of the Japanese Imperial Army of the Pacific War: Broken Silence (Japanese Studies; Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000). 5 Chunghee Sarah Soh, The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). 6 Soh, The Comfort Women, xii.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 101

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

102

102

Daniel-Christopher

for example, states, “Girls and women taken from country villages, or hijacked in broad daylight on city streets, became a human cargo that was transported to barracks on frontline posts, jungle airstrips, and base camps, where the captives remained in sexual servitude until the war’s end.”7 The rhetorical heat can be turned up even more. In her testimony before the United Nations in 1998, Gay McDougall (then serving as Director of Global Rights/Partners for Justice) referred to “rape centers” and “rape camps” in discussing the comfort women. Quite clearly, the rhetorical terminology employed with respect to comfort women raises important questions for studies of the book of Esther. Was the Bêt-hannäšîm,8 the harem of the Persian king, a “rape camp”? I invite the reader to consider, as they think through reasons behind a response of either “yes” or “no,” that these reasons themselves suggest that the issues are clearly worthy of careful thought. Furthermore, it is worth pausing here to further 7 Susan Brownmiller, “Introduction,” in Japan’s Comfort Women:  Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during World War II and the US Occupation, ed. Yuki Tanaka (London: Routledge, 2003), xv. 8 A brief note on the terminology of the “harem” is in order here. My own initial interest in the comfort women issue was because I  believed that it would be a provocative and suggestive literature to bring into discussion with the clear sexual politics of the book of Esther, but now I have had occasional second thoughts, despite the fact that this remains a major issue in the commentaries as well. Sex with a foreign conqueror, especially forced sex with a foreign conqueror, is clearly an issue of concern in the commentaries. Fox, for instance, speculates on the harem life, asking, “Just what did Esther do on the night she won the queenship of the world-empire? What wiles and devices did the young virgin use to arouse the interest of a king who had the entire sexual resources of the Persian empire at his beck and call?” (Michael V. Fox, Character and Ideology in the Book of Esther [Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991]), 35–6. Clearly, what goes on in the harem and the king’s quarters remains an issue of interest and debate. It is what led to my initial project to read on about the comfort women. But should this be the central issue of Esther? In the wake of Said’s classic analysis of Orientalism, more recent work has focused on sexuality as a major theme of Orientalist fantasy. Rana Kabbani’s work, Imperial Fictions:  Europe’s Myths of Orient (London:  Saqi Books, 2008) and Derek Hopwood’s rather similar work, Sexual Encounters in the Middle East: The British, the French, and the Arabs (Reading: Ithaca Press, 1999), both focus specifically on the imagery of sexuality (discussing, e.g., the famous nineteenth-century painters like Jean-Leon Gerome who represent a school of painting known as the “Orientalists,” for whom harems were a favorite topic) and obsessions with sexuality (such as Burton’s re-sexualization of Arabian Nights with a new translation because he found the earlier versions far too sanitized). A  constant part of this was the ubiquitous harem. According to Kabbani in reference to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European travel writing, “the all-pervasive seraglio with its crimes of passion was never far from the traveler’s mind. It was the most fascinating and the most disturbing image to him, and he devised endless means of portraying it” (Kabbani, Imperial Fictions, 52). He continues, “It is the seraglio of the imagination disclosing itself, with its veiled women, its blind musicians, its black

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 102

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

103

7. Sleeping with the Enemy?

103

consider the significance of the rhetorical decisions made not only in the comfort women literature but also in modern commentaries on Esther. Here too the rhetoric quickly becomes inflamed, and on more than one topic.

Words for reading Esther: Hilarity and Holocaust? Consider, for example, the fascinating ambivalence about identifying themes with which to contextualize the story of Esther as a whole, that is, the kinds of comments and observations that are usually made in the opening chapters of commentaries. On the one hand, many commentators on Esther insist on an overall context of humor and hilarity in assessing the story as a whole. Esther is a book that Levenson finds “so entertaining, so comical.”9 Berlin insists that the book is “hilariously funny,”10 that the comic aspects are the “essence of the book,”11 and even that “the largest interpretive problems melt away if the story is taken as a farce or comedy associated with a carnival-like festival.”12 Wolfe refers to “hilariously absurd scenes and characters that leave us no choice but to laugh,”13 while Nowell compares the book of Esther to Arabian Nights to bring out Esther’s “comic

eunuchs and jealous princes; it is the impossible other, the bourgeois drawing-room’s secret foil” (121) and, “[t]he great Seraglio, so deeply entrenched in the European imagination, arrested the perception of even the most gifted of scholars. Its shadow fell heavily on the landscape they travelled through, so that they hardly saw anything at all of the details before them” (111). I am lately intrigued with what might be happening when we move from “Bêt-hannäšîm,” to “γυναικεῖος” in the LXX, to “court of the women’s house” in the King James Version, to “harem” in virtually all the modern translations, and even the term “seraglio,” borrowed from Italian which in turn borrowed it from Ottomon/Turkish references and which is now widely used in many modern commentaries. This term, interestingly, is most likely to have travelled to us via Venetian contacts with the Ottoman Empire, which drew from the Persian term “saray.” In short, even the terminology of the place where Esther is taken reflects the serious contemporary assumptions revealed by this kind of study. I began to wonder if my approach to Esther was not a further participation in this Western “male gaze” toward the Orient by initiating a study dealing with Esther, the harem, sexuality and the comfort women, women and collaboration, and so on. I am, in short, second-guessing my own methodology, while forging ahead. 9 Jon D. Levenson, Esther: A Commentary (OTL; Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 12. 10 Adele Berlin, Esther (The Jewish Publication Society Bible Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2001), xvi. 11 Berlin, Esther, xviii. 12 Berlin, Esther, xxii. 13 Lisa M. Wolfe, Ruth, Esther, Song of Songs, and Judith (Eugene, OR:  Cascade, 2011), 59.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 103

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

104

104

Daniel-Christopher

and farcical nature.”14 Grossman refers to a “light-hearted atmosphere . . . a playful, delightful reading experience.”15 Creech writes that Esther “redounds with gladness and joy and festivals and holidays,” furthermore arguing that the Greek additions spoil the party because they are so serious.16 To be fair, many of these comments insist that this general hilarity is to be observed while, at the same time, acknowledging many serious themes as well. Like Creech, LaCocque also describes the book as carnivalesque,17 but LaCocque attempts to bring the comic and the serious together when he points out that carnivals often follow the deadly serious and that the two are thus conceptually intertwined.18 Van Wijk-Bos refers to a story that is “wonderfully entertaining, filled with laughter in the face of destruction,”19 and Grossman, although she insists on humor, somewhat oddly suggests later that we must “not be taken in by the playful narrative.”20 The striking observation to be made here is with regard to the very large percentage of modern commentaries that also invoke the Holocaust in their introductory chapters.21 I am not, of course, the first one to notice this somewhat troubling juxtaposition of the themes of humor and horror in trying to characterize the book of Esther. Some commentators firmly resist the invitation to join in the party. When describing the gathering of women for the emperor, Tull states, “Nazi euphemisms such as ‘transfer’ and ‘selection’ are closer to the mark than pageant or contest.”22 Sakenfeld says, “it is hard for me to enjoy this underlying humor,”23

14 Irene Nowell, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther (NCBC; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2013), 109. 15 Jonathan Grossman, Esther:  The Outer Narrative and the Hidden Reading (Siphrut:  Literature and Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures; Winona Lake:  Eisenbrauns, 2011), vii. 16 David Creech, “Now Where’s the Fun in That? The Humorless Narrator in the Greek Version of Esther,” Biblical Research 52 (2007): 17. 17 Noted in Creech, “Now Where’s the Fun in That?,” 17. 18 Andre LaCocque, Esther Regina: A Bakhtinian Reading (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2008), 14. 19 Johanna W.  H. van Wijk-Bos, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther (WBC; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998), 105. My emphasis. 20 Grossman, Esther: The Outer Narrative, vii. 21 Linda M. Day, Esther (AOTC; Nashville:  Abingdon, 2005), 1; Fox, Character and Ideology, 12; Carol Bechtel, Esther (Interpretation; Louisville:  John Knox Press, 2002), 19; but also invoked in Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, Just Wives? Stories of Power and Resistance in the Old Testament and Today (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003), 52; van Wijk-Bos, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, 66–7; Sidnie A. Crawford, “Esther,” in New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 3, ed. Leander Keck (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999), 873. 22 Patricia K. Tull, Esther and Ruth (Interpretation Bible Studies; Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), 11. 23 Sakenfeld, Just Wives?, 63.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 104

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

105

7. Sleeping with the Enemy?

105

and in the introduction to his important book, Beal says that “although the tone is playful, the game is dead serious.”24 Is this fascinating ambivalence only because of the association with Purim? It is interesting that one reads very few characterizations of Judith, for example, as “carnivalesque”, much less “hilarious”. Some feminist writers, like Bach, are perhaps correct when they suggest that that book (as opposed to Esther) is far too threatening, especially for male readers, to be considered so entertaining.25 One need not make a judgment about these attempts to establish an overall reading context for Esther. Suffice it to say only that these conflicting opinions suggest that Esther is a dangerous book about which to make generalizations, because many of the issues stirred up by a reading of the book are hardly laughing matters—including the role and status of women in Scripture and the sexual politics of minority women in hostile majority contexts. The point here is that the highly tense atmosphere of the comfort women debate makes the choice of words highly significant, and it serves to call attention to a similar problematic use of terminology in describing Esther as well. On the comfort women debate, Tanaka writes, “The conquest of another race and colonization of its people often produce the de-masculinization and feminization of the colonized. Sexual abuse of the bodies of women belonging to the conquered nation symbolizes the dominance of the conquerors.”26 So, it is interesting that readers of Esther focus equally anxiously on the terminology used to navigate through the story. Levenson, then, is surely wise to warn on the first page of his commentary that it would be a “capital mistake” to view Esther from only one angle.27 All the more reason, then, to try to be precise about what aspect of the book of Esther we are now concerned with.

The modern debates on the comfort women We have said that one of the issues that make the Esther narrative significantly different from the other examples of “diaspora stories” is the role (both actual and symbolic) of sexuality in Esther’s relationships with the Persian administration (the theme is not entirely absent from Joseph, however). Esther is sexually used by the emperor, but sexually prepared (“groomed,” to use a more incendiary term) by other Persian officials whose job it is to facilitate the sexual desires of the emperor—all this in the context established by the first two chapters of the book. These chapters further reinforce the idea of a crisis in the sexual political status quo of the Persian Empire that was supposedly threatened by Vashti’s refusal to

24 Timothy Beal, “Esther,” in Ruth and Esther, Timothy K. Beal and Tod Linafelt (BO. SHNP) Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1999), 2. 25 Bach, Women, Seduction, and Betrayal, 187. 26 Tanaka, Japan’s Comfort Women, 5. 27 Levenson, Esther: A Commentary, 1.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 105

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

106

106

Daniel-Christopher

display herself before the emperor and his male guests of honor. This wider sexual political context is significant, and recent work on the “comfort women” emphasize wider contexts as well. Soh’s oral history work with many of the former comfort women themselves, combined with her own incisive analysis of wider sociopolitical contexts, complicate the “official” comfort women narrative that is deeply involved in the highly charged reparation politics taking place between Korea and Japan especially since 1991, when three Korean women identified themselves as former comfort women and filed a lawsuit for reparations in a Tokyo district court.28 The issue became even more serious when Dr. Yoshimi Yoshiaki happened onto seriously incriminating documents that were published on Jan 11, 1992 in a prominent Japanese newspaper, the Asahi Shimbun. These documents, which were located in the Library of the National Institute of Defense Studies, “clearly implicate the Japanese government in the establishment and maintenance of the military comfort system.”29 The issue was quickly politicized in the context of much wider issues of tension and resentment between South Korea, China, and a resurgent rightward rhetoric in twenty-first-century Japan. Clearly, the issue is not simply one of the abuse of women for Japanese soldiers during the Second World War, and Soh, like Tanaka,30 insists that the issue is a part of a much wider context of attitudes toward women more generally. As a result of her research, which I believe is worth quoting at some length here (especially given its transdisciplinary nature), Soh writes: In light of the unprecedented and life-transforming impact of social reforms and capitalist industrialization that took place during the first half of the twentieth century, it is crucial that we consider the structural forces at work in late colonial Korea for a deeper understanding of the comfort women phenomenon . . . Some of these narratives have pointed to the oppression of patriarchal family relations that compelled young women to engage in acts of resistance. Their personal narratives paint quite a different picture from the canonized image of police or the military forcibly dragging them away from loving parents; They unwittingly interfere with the activists’ paradigmatic story.31

In fact, Soh argues at the beginning of her study that the way the comfort women’s story is framed as an exclusively Japanese war crime issue “has diverted attention from the sociocultural and historical roots of women’s victimization in Korea, which Japan colonized from 1910 to 1945.” Therefore, Soh wants to seek a deeper understanding of the broader historical forces that were transforming colonial Korea from an agrarian male-oriented Confucian dynasty in which

28 29 30 31

Watanabe, “Trafficking in Women’s Bodies,” 19. Soh, The Comfort Women, 44. Tanaka, Japan’s Comfort Women. Soh, The Comfort Women, xiii. My emphasis.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 106

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

107

7. Sleeping with the Enemy?

107

women’s proper place was delimited within the confines of the family into a capitalist modern industrializing society that offered women unprecedented opportunities to seek autonomy and financial independence by working for wages in the public sphere.32

Soh discovered in some cases: Their leaving home represented a self-conscious act of personal resistance by daughters caught between the traditional paradigm of filial piety—inculcated by the Neo-Confucian gender ideology symbolized by “the rule of three obediences” (samjong chido)—and a modern individualist aspiration for autonomy and self-actualization.33

For obvious reasons, when Soh’s work began to be published, it placed her in the intense crossfire of political debates between Japan and Korea, especially with Korea increasingly at odds with Japan on a variety of contemporary issues and thus found the comfort women a convenient diversion from their own connivance with the suppression of women. The Korean position tended toward an unwavering narrative committed to the argument that none of the Korean women left home willingly. The predominant Japanese narrative is equally committed to suggesting that most of these women were involved in legal prostitution and are therefore not a matter of continued moral or financial responsibility, and most certainly not a matter of war crimes.34 Soh’s work, however, also complicates the analysis of the comfort women system by locating it in much wider historical contexts, which implicate Korea as well. She notes how ironic it is that the “Korean Government of the Choson Dynasty (1392–1910) had the same masculinist rationale for providing ‘comfort women’ for its troops as did wartime imperial Japan.”35 At the outset of her study she notes, “I present a critique of prevailing sexual cultures in patriarchal societies in general, and of military hypermasculinity in particular, which helped ‘normalize’ sexual exploitation and violence against women during and after the war.”36 It is important to fairly and clearly represent Soh’s valuable work. Soh confirms: There is no question that some girls and young women, especially those in occupied territories in China and the Southeast Asian countries, were seized by the military and brutally raped in or near the battlefield and/or taken to the barracks for sexual slavery, as testimonials of surviving victims in China, the Philippines, and elsewhere have revealed.37

32 33 34 35 36 37

Soh, The Comfort Women, 1. Soh, The Comfort Women, 4. Soh, The Comfort Women, 33. Soh, The Comfort Women, 69. Soh, The Comfort Women, xvi. Soh, The Comfort Women, 104.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 107

10/19/2017 8:04:05 PM

108

108

Daniel-Christopher

Soh’s work, therefore, must not be construed as a reading that is somehow sympathetic to Japanese political attitudes or policies that attempt to deny war crimes against women. Quite to the contrary, Soh insists that the politics of the comfort women issue reveal much wider, and much more systemic and destructive attitudes toward women than the present lines of the debate are prepared to allow: Nevertheless, the voices of working women—such as the runaway daughters who labored at the forefront of the industrial revolution as factory workers and other young women who were trafficked in the capitalist system of licensed prostitution—have been conspicuous by their absence from the historiography of colonial Korea. It is in this social context that attention to personal narratives of Korean comfort women survivors allows us to discern subaltern voices that speak, repeatedly and insistently, of domestic violence and gender discrimination at home, as well as of an irrepressible desire for self-improvement, self-reliance, and socioeconomic mobility promised by the modern industrializing economy and the emergent popular culture imported from the West via Japan, the colonial master . . . Koreans actually outnumbered civilian Japanese among those seeking profit by human trafficking, forcing prostitution and sexual slavery upon young female compatriots.38

Soh concludes: [F]rom my perspective, it was the structural violence of Korean patriarchy (with its masculinist sexual culture and the political economy of capitalist colonial modernity and postcolonial political economic development) in tandem with the military comfort system and imperialist aggression of wartime Japan, that loomed large as a fundamental source of my subjects’ lifelong social and psychological suffering.39

Tanaka adds: It is therefore hardly surprising to find the behavior of Japanese soldiers toward Asian comfort women and that of American, British and Australian soldiers toward Japanese comfort women almost identical. Both Japanese and Allied soldiers held comfort women in contempt.40

38 Soh, The Comfort Women, 104. 39 Soh, The Comfort Women, 243. 40 Tanaka, Japan’s Comfort Women, 174. As Soh also notes, “The issue is not an exclusively Asian phenomenon. During the Korean War, Japan turned into a comfort camp for the US military. In 1952, 70,000 Japanese women serviced US personnel, and there were many examples of gang rape by US soldiers on Japanese women (Soh, The Comfort Women, 210). Soh is not finished with only a twentieth-century history lesson. She notes, strikingly, that “research conducted by a government agency reported that in 2002 there were at least

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 108

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

109

7. Sleeping with the Enemy?

109

Soh’s work, in combination with Watanabe and Tanaka’s additional analyses, is profoundly suggestive for a reading of Esther. Although this experiment began with the hope that the comfort women episodes themselves may be a provocative backdrop to a rethinking of the Esther story, it becomes increasingly clear that the contemporary debates about the comfort women issue are themselves already suggestive for thinking about Esther. Specifically, we note that one of Soh’s more interesting discussions focused on “agency” in the oral histories of many of the women themselves. What was the role of choice? Was choice—a decision toward some level of autonomy—a factor in some Korean women’s decisions to work for the Japanese, even if sexual work was not what they originally had in mind? These issues lead to questions with regard to a reading of Esther 2 in particular, a chapter that has been a virtual lightning rod for discussions about Esther’s “agency” in the biblical story.

Problems with the agency of Esther in Esther 2:8 (MT) After Vashti’s refusal to entertain the Persian emperor’s male guests in the first chapter of the book of Esther, the monarch authorizes a sweep of his kingdom for new sex partners, and possibly a replacement for the queen: “Let beautiful young virgins be sought out for the king . . . And let the girl who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti” (2:2, 4). Not only is the action in 2:2–4 followed immediately by a reminder of Mordecai’s status as an exile (2:6), but the language of ch. 2 is filled with references to the king’s “order and his edict” (2:8). This is, incidentally, made even stronger if Addition A  is placed at the beginning of the work in the LXX form.41 In any case, considerable attention has focused on the nature of specific phrases in 2:8 of the MT: ‫ֽוּ ְב ִה ָקּבֵץ נְעָרוֹת ַרבּוֹת ֶאל־שׁוּשַׁן‬ . . . and when many young women were gathered in the citadel of Susa . . . ‫וַתִּ ָלּקַח ֶאסְתֵּ ר אֶל־בֵּית ַה ֶמּלְֶך‬ . . . Esther also was taken into the king’s palace

330,000 South Korean women working full-time in prostitution—8 percent of employed women in their twenties and thirties; that 20 percent of South Korean adult men between the ages of twenty and sixty-four purchased a sexual service 9.2 times a year in 2001; and that the sex industry produced an estimated profit of 24 trillion wŏn, or 4.1% of the country’s GDP, close to the 4.4% of the South Korean GDP contributed by the agriculture, forestry, and fishing combined.” Furthermore, the Korean government has promoted “sex tourism for Japanese men . . . in the name of national economic development” (Soh, The Comfort Women, 202–3). 41 Noted by Levenson, Esther: A Commentary, 37–8.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 109

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

110

110

Daniel-Christopher

We need not depend only on a (perhaps often somewhat forced) conclusion from the simple verb “to take” in the passive form as indicating in itself the lack of choice by Mordecai and Esther. It is, however, once again the commentary discussions on this matter that are themselves part of the point here. Arguably the first “commentary” on 2:8, in history and especially addressing the question of agency, is in the first instance the LXX addition C, which famously features a prayer by Esther that clarifies her silence in the Hebrew text. Although it is located far from the events described in ch. 2 in the LXX, it clearly reflects on those events. Esther’s prayer contains the following: You have knowledge of all things, and you know that I hate the splendor of the wicked and abhor the bed of the uncircumcised and of any alien. You know my necessity [“predicament”, NETS]—that I abhor the sign of my proud position, which is upon my head on days when I appear in public. I abhor it like a filthy rag [“menstrual cloth”, – NETS], and I do not wear it on the days when I am at leisure. (LXX 14:15–16)

Even though Levenson entertains the probability that Esther did not volunteer in the first instance, it is perhaps not his most sagacious choice of images to describe this portion of Esther 2 (MT) as a “Search for Miss Persia” contest—a phrase widely cited by those reading Levenson’s commentary. To be fair, it is a comment clearly in keeping with his emphasis on the humor of the book,42 but Levenson is hardly alone in his ambivalence on this passage. Morris already argued in 1930 that Esther was “not compelled,” pointing out that the verb “taken” was the most common Hebrew term for marriage.43 The passive form of the verb suggests to many modern readers that Esther’s agency in this episode is simply not at issue and is left an open question, but the commentaries do not leave it alone. Van Wijk-Bos notes that Esther is not the subject of any active verbs in this section of the book (“ ‘Mordecai adopted her,’ ‘Esther was taken’ and ‘put in custody of Hegai’ ”), but she nevertheless suggests—immediately following her observation about passive verbs—that “all seems to be going well for Esther.”44 Esther seems “passive” to Grossman, simply going along.45 Crawford notes that “in the Hebrew translation there is no hint of protest on the part of Esther or Mordecai. The king’s law is proclaimed and they obey it,” further stating that “[h]undreds of young girls are rounded up, their wishes not consulted or even considered, placed in a strange locale away from their family and friends; subjected, willingly or unwillingly, to a 42 Levenson, Esther: A Commentary, 53. 43 Morris, A.  E., “The Purpose of the Book of Esther,” Expository Times 42 (1930–31):  124-8, and see discussion in Rivkah Lubitch, “A Feminist’s Look at Esther,” Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought 42, no. 4 (1993): 439. 44 van Wijk-Bos, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, 113. 45 Grossman, Esther: The Outer Narrative, 29.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 110

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

111

7. Sleeping with the Enemy?

111

series of ‘treatments’, and then given one night for the sexual performance of their life, all for the pleasure of one man.”46 Fox dwells a bit more on this issue when addressing 2:8 in his commentary: We may assume that when the virgins “were gathered” there was no consultation of the maiden’s wishes. The verbs used in speaking of the girls are passive . . . Nevertheless, we cannot conclude that the maidens went only under compulsion. We are probably importing a foreign notion if we imagine the maidens would have had to be forced into the harem, for life in the palace would seem desirable to most people . . . What is significant—and most oppressive—is that their will, whatever it may have been, is of no interest to anyone in the story. They are handed around, from home, to harem, to the king’s bed. Their bodies belong to others, so much so that they are not even pictured as being forced.47

Mosala also suggests that the very ambiguity about Esther’s agency is typical of the book as a whole: “The text, which is otherwise excellent in its provision of socio-economic data, is eloquent by its silence on the conditions and struggles of the non-kings, non-office holders, non-chiefs, non-governors and non-queens in the Persian empire.”48 There are a number of readers who take a much firmer line on 2:8. Tull comments that analogies to beauty contests are “quite misleading,” and that a “closer contemporary analogy is the kidnapping of girls and women, lured into sexual slavery in foreign countries by false promises of respectable employment.”49 Tull is clearly alluding to comfort women here but does not appear to have developed this interesting comment further. Day agrees that the passive emphasizes that Esther was no volunteer,50 Sakenfeld insists that Esther “did not volunteer,”51 while Song argues that “[s]he had been forced into the harem rather than going voluntarily.”52 Grossman writes that, by using “taken” in reference to Mordecai, and then the king’s harem, “the narrator highlights the emotional and cultural rupture that Esther experiences when ‘taken’ from Mordecai’s home to the king’s palace and the tension of her mental outlook as she made the transition into this new world.”53 46 Sidnie White Crawford and Leonard Greenspoon, eds., The Book of Esther in Modern Research (London: T&T Clark, 2003). 47 Fox, Character and Ideology, 33–4. 48 Itumeleng J. Mosala, “The Implications of the Text of Esther for African Women’s Struggle for Liberation in South Africa,” Semeia 59 (1992): 134. 49 Tull, Esther and Ruth, 11. 50 Day, Esther, 48. 51 Sakenfeld, Just Wives?, 58. 52 Angeline Song, “Heartless Bimbo or Subversive Role Model?:  A Narrative (Self) Critical Reading of the Character of Esther,” Dialog 49 (2010): 60. 53 Grossman, Esther: The Outer Narrative, 67.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 111

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

112

112

Daniel-Christopher

Gur-Klein, in an important monograph on women’s rights in biblical texts, is even stronger: Allusions to a folktale lull readers into overlooking the arbitrarily sexual claims made on the maidens . . . Evoking the lot of Dinah, the maidens are dislocated from their guardians’ premises to the king’s harem without negotiation, marital procedure or ceremony. Under the king’s absolute dominion, they are isolated, their kin relationships severed.54

There are a number of issues raised by this discussion of a passive verb. First, the issue is related to the widely noted discussion in Rabbinic literature about whether Esther is intentional about her involvement with the Persian program (and also Mordecai, for that matter!). Second, there is the issue in feminist debates, especially, with regard to whether Esther is a passive victim, a clever strategist, or perhaps a woman who quite willingly and intentionally applies “feminine wiles” in a context of male privilege (and whether she does so for self-interest only, or because that is the only strategy available to her). A third, and related, issue is whether the feminist issues concerning Esther ought really to be widened to talk about her as an example of the exilic status of the Jews in diaspora more generally. This view would suggest that Esther “symbolizes” the exiles, and thus the story as a whole takes up questions of strategy and survival. These are all interrelated discussions, of course. We have alluded to some of them already, but we can briefly consider them further.

Was Esther married to Mordecai . . . and does this make a difference? It is common, especially in Jewish commentaries, to make extensive reference to the Rabbinic discussions around the figure of Esther. The issue, so it seems, turns largely on Esther’s sexual involvement with the emperor—who is obviously, and problematically, not Jewish. But there is an odd way with which this is often dealt, namely by insisting that Esther was married to Mordecai, sometimes defended by amending ‫“( לוֹ ְלבַת‬as his daughter”) to ‫“( ְלבֵת‬to his house”), implying “as his wife.” It seems that one of the motivations of this implied marriage is to continue the argument of agency in relation to strategies of survival. This would then mean that Mordecai faced a situation similar to Abram and Sarai in Genesis 12:10–20, where mortal danger was thought to justify Abram’s actions in relation to Sarai, who clearly slept with Pharaoh in Genesis 12 (although the parallel passage famously declares Sarah innocent of sleeping with the foreigner in Genesis 20).55 Gur-Klein

54 Thalia Gur-Klein, Sexual Hospitality in the Hebrew Bible: Patronymic, Meronymic, Legitimate and Illegitimate Relations (Sheffield: Equinox, 2013), 72. 55 Grossman, Esther: The Outer Narrative, 67; Aaron Koller, Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 144.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 112

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

113

7. Sleeping with the Enemy?

113

clarifies that marrying Esther to Mordecai actually enhances Esther’s plight within the confines of a male-dominated society where women are possessions and items of transaction: Although conventionally the stories of Judges 19 and Genesis 12, 20 and 26 promulgated the restriction and exclusivity of a wife’s sexuality, they transmit a reality where a wife becomes a trafficked commodity between a husband and another man. Socio-economically, the trafficking of women implies that their sexuality can be shared between men and offered in exchange for favors, provision, and gifts in hospitable situations or as a reciprocal token of benefits between men of uneven social status.56

Koller agrees, seeing the Rabbinic discussion as ultimately justifying Esther’s relations with the emperor. The Rabbis, he says, searched for a legal rationale behind her actions. Why did she not martyr herself before sleeping with a Gentile? Ultimately, Koller notes, they decided that—in order to save Jews—Esther has to give up her marriage to Mordecai.57 But who is giving up what here? Is this an action by Esther, or is the action, in fact, taken by Mordecai? Gur-Klein raises objections to the way the Rabbinic discussion is cited in defense of Esther, suggesting that a presumed marriage between Esther and Mordecai means that the heroic action is Mordecai’s. Levenson leaves the question open: Traditional Jewish commentators have been anxious to demonstrate that Mordecai did not willingly send his foster daughter/wife into the bedroom of the lecherous Ahasuerus and that Esther, too, did not oblige of her own free will. But the verb (“was taken”) at best demonstrates her passivity; it says nothing about her volition.58

As Mosala points out, “the survival of the group is achieved first and foremost by the alienation of Esther’s gender-power and its integration into the patriarchal structures of feudalism.”59 However, what choices would Esther have in the context of the storywriter and (presumably) “his” early readers? A spirited discussion continues in feminist literature about the agency of Esther. Did she have a choice between cooperation or resistance, as Hancock asks?60 In the study questions she writes at the end of her popular commentary on Esther, Tull suggests that a Sunday school teacher ask the following “study question”: “Does it bother you that Esther seemed to be trying

56 Gur-Klein, Sexual Hospitality in the Hebrew Bible, 32. 57 Koller, Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought, 216, 222. 58 Levenson, Esther: A Commentary, 60. 59 Mosala, “The Implications,” 136. 60 Rebecca S. Hancock, Esther and the Politics of Negotiation: Public and Private Spaces and the Figure of the Female Royal Counselor (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), 12–35.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 113

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

114

114

Daniel-Christopher

to gain the king’s favor, even during this forced conscription of young women by the king?”61 It clearly bothers many commentators! In an article on Esther, rather strikingly entitled “Heartless Bimbo or Subversive Role Model?,” Song reminds her reader that “the character of Esther has evoked strong reactions over the years from many female critics who read her as beautiful but brainless, a pawn in a man’s world, and a disgrace to feminism.”62 Bach says that the character of Esther, like many other dangerous women, ultimately is bridled by the text: The biblical authors throw cold water on feminine flames. Judith is returned to her proper place to live a solitary asexual life as demure widow. Descriptions of Esther’s beauty and body are replaced by accounts of her cleverly worded edicts, her acting as helpmate to Mordecai and dignified consort to Ahasuerus. Each woman is transformed into a cooler more reassuring portrait than one whose sexuality is still rampant, such as Salome and Delilah, who may be continuing the dance of desire.63

Sakenfeld refers to “two models of resistance” illustrated by Vashti (direct disobedience), and Esther.64 Koller also presents the argument that Esther offers a model of subversiveness: It was with the female that the Jews of the Diaspora likely identified. The female may be taken as a symbol of the less powerful and less confrontational, but potentially more subversive and more effective in resisting. Few Jews in the Persian Empire would be prepared to take the assertive stand that Mordecai took, much less the death-defying stand that Daniel took. But Esther illustrates a “feminine” option, and in this she is not alone within Second Temple, or earlier biblical, literature.65

There are those, however, who are not so sure. Day even wonders if Esther really slept with the Persian emperor: Though the vocabulary intimates that the evening’s encounter is sexual, such is never explicitly stated by the text. Elsewhere, the Hebrew Bible is not reticent in observing sexual encounters (for instance, with Eve and Adam [Gen 4:1], Jacob and Leah and Rachel, [Gen 29:21, 23, 30], Hannah and Elkanah [1 Sam 1:19], and Abishag and David [1 Kgs 1:4]). One therefore might expect that if the activities were sexual, that fact would be noted. The statement about King Ahasuerus “delighting” in a young woman (v. 14) is not helpful in elucidating

61 62 63 64 65

Tull, Esther and Ruth, 20. Song, “Heartless Bimbo or Subversive Role Model?,” 56. Bach, Women, Seduction, and Betrayal, 206–7. Sakenfeld suggests “working within the system” (Just Wives?, 64). Koller, Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought, 77.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 114

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

115

7. Sleeping with the Enemy?

115

this matter, as the Hebrew verb . . . signifies merely a general desire or pleasure. . . . Therefore, in this scene, exactly what occurs overnight with the king remains a matter of speculation.66

Fox, on the contrary, is quite certain that a sexual encounter takes place, noting that the actual competition is not a “beauty” contest, but quite blatantly a sex contest “with the winner being whoever can most please the king during her night with him.”67 He continues: Just what did Esther do on the night she won the queenship of the world-empire? What wiles and devices did the young virgin use to arouse the interest of a king who had the entire sexual resources of the Persian empire at his beck and call?. . . The author of Esther too perceives how women can be used as toys in the sexual games of the powerful, but he does not condemn the harem setup so harshly. He takes it for granted, as he does all the peculiarities of the gentile state. Both are fields of obstacle and danger—but also opportunity—for the Jews who find themselves thrust into them.68

LaCocque, commenting that “David had a slingshot, Esther had her beauty,” writes: Sex becomes a sheer means of survival, which in the context of the story is also a means of salvation from annihilation. The same motif is in the book of Judith, roughly contemporary with Esther . . . While world literature offers a plethora of stories about feminine wiles and their devastating results, biblical literature displays a string of heroines whose sexuality is eminently positive, from the Pentateuchal matriarchs to Tamar, Ruth, the Shulammite of the Song of Songs, Esther, Judith, Susannah, and many others.69

Arguing that Esther is not passive, Crawford suggests, “She takes steps, within the situation in which she finds herself.”70

Esther and “horizontal collaboration” All of this discussion focuses on agency and, more importantly, on Esther’s apparent lack of agency—at least at this stage of the story. There is, of course, another possibility that Soh’s work raises. As noted, Soh’s work with comfort women 66 Day, Esther, 51–2. 67 Fox, Character and Ideology, 28. 68 Fox, Character and Ideology, 35–6. 69 LaCocque, Esther Regina, 118. 70 Sidnie White Crawford, “Esther and Judith:  Contrasts in Character,” in The Book of Esther in Modern Research, eds. Sidnie White Crawford and Leonard Greenspoon (London: T&T Clark, 2003), 67.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 115

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

116

116

Daniel-Christopher

themselves raised very interesting complications in the accepted narrative according to which the comfort women were supposedly all taken against their will—a politically useful narrative that emphasizes their innocence and lack of ability to make any decision at all. For some of these women (some of these women!), however, Soh discovered that leaving home was already a first step of agency—filled with some hope for a better life in Westernized value systems that were, unfortunately but realistically, mediated by the Japanese imperial presence. Only a few commentators on Esther have risked considering, however gingerly, the notion that Esther saw her chance and seized the day. Martinez, who asks whether Esther has anything to say to migrant laborers in modern North America, suggests clear agency: Stuck within the imperialistic, male-centered rules of Persia, Esther is willing to be treated as a sexual object. Using her natural beauty to her own benefit and masterfully using her skills to put others in the palm of her hand.71

A reading from Fanon’s classic text, The Wretched of the Earth, throws open this question with even more singular clarity, albeit with genders reversed: The look that the native turns on the settler’s town is a look of lust, a look of envy; it expresses his dreams of possession—all manner of possession: to sit at the settler’s table, to sleep in the settler’s bed, with his wife if possible. The colonized man is an envious man. And this the settler knows very well; when their glances meet he ascertains bitterly, always on the defensive, “They want to take our place.” It is true, for there is no native who does not dream at least once a day of setting himself up in the settler’s place.72

But was this all cool calculation on Esther’s part? That makes her decision to become a concubine in the first place a matter of strategy rather than force, which is most often rejected out of hand. Normally, the picture of a woman with limited agency in the early Esther story is transformed into a story of a strong female by means of the nearly ubiquitous argument that Esther is quite a different woman in ch. 4! Now, at last, she emerges as a true patriot and woman of strength. Never mind that this does not save Mordecai from a possible cool calculation that the Persian gathering of women may be their “big break.” No, the early Esther was innocent! The girl must be saved—surely Esther must remain the ‘damsel in distress’? Maybe, but maybe not. The ubiquitous argument that Esther is a “changed woman” in ch. 4—a woman who begins to take charge, even giving Mordecai

71 Aquiles E. Martinez, “Mordecai and Esther: Migration Lessons from Persian Soil,” Journal of Latin American Theology: Christian Reflections from the Latino South 4, no. 1 (2009): 36. 72 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New  York:  Grove Press, 1963), 39. Emphasis mine.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 116

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

117

7. Sleeping with the Enemy?

117

orders that he “obeys”—risks raising the possibility that she has not changed at all, but that we simply see her more clearly in ch. 4. If we read the woman of ch. 4 back into ch. 2, the character of Esther can be read quite differently: a colonized woman who saw her chance (ch. 2) and now (in ch. 4) sees yet another chance, both equally dependent on the success of her “horizontal collaboration.”73 The intentional invoking of that last phrase suggests the relevance of another literature—clearly related to the comfort women cases—that pursues these questions in ways that are rarely addressed in Esther literature, namely, the strategies of concubines in history and the larger issues of collaboration. After all, as Berlin points out, Esther is never officially “married” to the emperor, and her actual status is “murky.”74 Davidovich echoes this conclusion that Esther was never married to the emperor and argues that, in fact, Esther is to be thought of as “Chief Concubine.”75 This raises yet another interesting issue.

Concubines and power In a recent volume on sexual politics and colonialism, Sarah Croucher writes about the sexual politics of the infamous slave-island of Zanzibar in the nineteenth century, where an Omani Islamic elite presided over a lucrative slave-economy. She writes, among her opening comments, the following observations: I have had to grapple with the politics and ethics of writing a scholarly paper that examines the subjectivities of enslaved women who were forced into sexual relations with their owners, an oppressive relationship that paradoxically may have offered a route to their greatest potential material well-being and eventual freedom. . .young girls who were to be in positions of concubinage were taught to be purveyors of sexual pleasure to the men who controlled them . . . [and] . . . it was understood that these women might, through affectionate relations, gain a particular degree of power over their master, for it was widely believed that ‘the special concubine, not the wife, most often captured the heart of the master.’ ”76

73 "Collaboration horizontale" is the abusive term introduced by the French for women accused of sexual relationships with occupying German soldiers. Often the women were publically shamed by having their heads shaved. Such symbolism rendered complex issues far too simplistic, as modern studies of political collaboration are making clear. See my upcoming study, “Esther on Trial:  Resistance or ‘Collaboration horizontale’?” in The Postcolonial Commentary on the Old Testament, ed. Hemchand Gossai (London: T&T Clark) 2017 - in press. 74 Berlin, Esther, 23. 75 Tal Davidovich, Esther, Queen of the Jews: The Status and Position of Esther in the Old Testament (CB.OTS, Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 78. 76 Sarah Croucher, “‘A Concubine Is Still a Slave’: Sexual Relations and Omani Colonial Identities in Nineteenth-Century East Africa,” in Archaeology of Colonialism:  Intimate

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 117

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

118

118

Daniel-Christopher

She concludes that “it is difficult to understand the complex subjectivities of domination and resistance that may have been involved for both concubines and freeborn wives.”77 What we have rarely seen in analysis of Esther, then, is the possibility of an intentional use of sexual prowess as an expression of her agency, and perhaps not only as a patriot engaging in what only appears to be what the French partisans angrily called “horizontal collaboration” in the aftermath of the Second World War. But even in this context, Esther has her defenders. As Martinez adds in his interesting arguments about the Esther story: A reader with a postcolonial social location must view them as an integral part of a necessarily oblique and subversive strategy . . . While some First World readers may regard this kind of behavior as that of a cunning and deceitful person, from the perspective of the powerless or disenfranchised, it must rather be seen as representing a necessary strategy.78

In his analysis of Esther, however, Davidson is not entirely buying this argument. He is therefore also critical of this means of achieving imperial power by using imperial power: As long as diversity buys into the larger imperial narrative, accepts its overarching forms of rule, and keeps its place on the periphery, then stability is ensured in the empire . . . Ultimately, imperial power and positions rescue the Jews from destruction . . . Access to power, more than its eradication, appears to be the concern of the book.79

This line of analysis—Esther’s very conscious use of her sexuality as a tool of survival and perhaps even plotting to seek privilege as one who hails from a position of minority disenfranchisement and subordination—could be seen to complicate the easy move to the next major theme, namely Esther as “symbol.”

Esther as symbol of dangers for Jews in the Diaspora We have noted that there is another line of analysis of Esther that seeks to move from the specific issues surrounding Esther as a particular Jewish woman to Esther as symbol of Jews and thus a symbol of survival ethics for the Diaspora. This line of thinking arguably has (at least some) of its foundation in a widely cited article

Encounters and Sexual Effects, eds. Barbara L. Voss and Eleanor Conlin Casella (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 76–7. 77 Croucher, “ ‘A Concubine Is Still a Slave,’ ” 80. 78 Martinez, “Mordecai and Esther,” 64, 67. 79 Davidson, Steed V., “Diversity, Difference, and Access to Power in Diaspora:  The Case of the Book of Esther,” WAW 29 (2009), 285–6.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 118

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

119

7. Sleeping with the Enemy?

119

published in 1973 by W. L. Humphreys. Humphreys famously suggests that Esther displays “means of success” in the Diaspora, like Daniel and Joseph, all of which to suggest that: “The Jew can remain loyal to his heritage and God and yet can live in interaction with it [diaspora].”80 The obvious next step, then, would be to suggest that Esther is a symbol of the Jews and, therefore, that one of the main purposes of the book is to propose strategies of Diaspora living, as Humphrey’s proposes: Esther and Mordecai skillfully seek the royal benefit and in so doing deliver their people. The tale does not permit any tension to develop between their double loyalty to king and co-religionists; the actual benefit for each party coincides.81

As many commentators have argued, there may be a strong suggestion in Esther that she symbolizes the Diaspora communities as a whole. Laniak refers to Esther as a kind of living metaphor for Jewish life in the Diaspora.82 Bechtel refers to a “parallel” between Esther and the exiles.83 LaCocque notes the number of references to the root “GLH,” and thus that Esther is a metaphor for exiles.84 Fox proposes that stories like Esther were used to work out how to live in Exile.85 Levenson argues that Esther “reflects Jewish life in Diaspora.”86 Fox says that Esther does not “stand for” the Jews, but models behavior for the Jews. Bach writes that Esther “functions as a metaphor for the holy community of Israel.”87 Therefore, Esther the symbol is Esther the strategist. So LaCocque argues that Esther’s solution is closer to Joseph’s than Moses’s, namely, the “safe management of Egyptian affairs,”88 while Fox suggests that the stories help Jews work out how to live in Exile.89 But once the discussion changes to the level of strategy for a people—a “nationalist” narrative perhaps, or at least a political narrative—then the issues raised by our reading of comfort women and other cases of women and debates about “collaboration” once again lead in important directions.

80 W. L. Humphreys, “A Life-Style for Diaspora:  A Study of the Tales of Esther and Daniel,” JBL 92, no. 2 (1973): 211–23. 81 Humphreys, “A Life-Style for Diaspora,” 215. 82 Timothy Laniak, “Esther’s Volkcentrism and the Reframing of Post-Exilic Judaism,” in The Book of Esther in Modern Research, eds. Sidnie White Crawford and Leonard Greenspoon (London: T&T Clark, 2003), 87–8. 83 Bechtel, Esther, 31. 84 LaCocque, Esther Regina, 126. 85 Fox, Character and Ideology, 147. 86 Levenson, Esther: A Commentary, 56. 87 Bach, Women, Seduction, and Betrayal, 198. 88 LaCocque, Esther Regina, 17. 89 Fox, Character and Ideology, 147.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 119

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

120

120

Daniel-Christopher

Esther 4:13: “Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape . . .” It must be said that the jump from Esther’s strategies in bed to Esther as symbol of patriotic Diaspora existence is finally complicated by an issue raised through a close reading of Mordecai’s famous conversation with Esther in ch. 4.  Widely hailed as the “turning point” in the book of Esther, she appears to take charge and is no longer passive.90 An interesting problem, however, lies in the first phrase from 4:14. Here, Mordecai warns Esther about the need for her to act, and act urgently: “For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish.” Discussions of this verse have tended to focus on the phrase about deliverance from “another quarter/place.” Is there a possibility that the term: mäqôm (‫מ ָ֣קוֹם‬,”place”) may be an oblique reference to God? If so, then it would be a singular theistic allusion in the MT that is otherwise missing in the book as a whole. Meyers is not certain of this theistic allusion, but raises the possibility;91 Levenson warns that “too much pursuit of precision is unwise for the exegete when the text is so vague,”92 while LaCocque considers the suggestion that the phrase is part of a question, namely, “Do you think relief will come from another place?” LaCocque ultimately rejects this possibility as well as the idea that it is a reference to God,93 while Crawford argues just as strongly that the passage has theological “implications” for God.94 However, as far as I have seen, only Beal has raised a more ominous possibility that he did not, unfortunately, appear to elaborate either in the work cited below or in his later full commentary. Beal writes: The threat may mean Esther will die with the rest of the Jews. On the other hand, its implications may be more sinister, namely that Esther will not escape from “judgment” at the hands of the Jews themselves. That is, she and her father’s house will not escape certain annihilation when Jewish deliverance comes from “another place.”95

90 Grossman, Esther: The Outer Narrative, 30; Michael V. Fox, “Three Esthers,” in The Book of Esther in Modern Research, eds. Sidnie White Crawford and Leonard J. Greenspoon (London: T&T Clark), 52–4. Although Lubitch argues that the “turn” is earlier, she agrees with the striking change (Lubitch, “A Feminist’s Look at Esther,” 438). 91 Carol Meyers, “Esther,” in The Oxford Bible Commentary, eds. John Barton and John Muddiman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 328. 92 Levenson, Esther: A Commentary, 81; cf. Martien A. Halvorson-Taylor, “Secrets and Lies: Secrecy Notices (Esther 2:10, 20) and Diasporic Identity in the Book of Esther,” JBL 131 (2012): 467–85. 93 LaCocque, Esther Regina, 90. 94 Crawford, “Esther and Judith”, 888–90. 95 Timothy Beal, The Book of Hiding:  Gender, Ethnicity, Annihilation, and Esther (London: Routledge, 1997), 72.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 120

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

121

7. Sleeping with the Enemy?

121

Beal’s incisive proposal certainly violates many accepted narratives about Esther, but that is because it considers (however briefly) an implication raised in our earlier discussions about the strategies of the captive concubine that may be in operation here. In fact, this one partial verse, as Beal intimates, could be another signal that rather dramatically changes the character of the book of Esther as a whole—at the very least suggesting one major question that may illuminate why the book was considered so important in the first place. The first part of our analysis raised questions about the implied character of Esther herself, but once we change to the notion of Esther as a social and political symbol, the question also changes: Was Esther a “collaborator”? Mordecai’s threat could very well be read as follows: “When we get out of this, one way or another, your role will be carefully examined, my dear Esther! How do you think that trial is going to go for you?” This alleged implication is thus completed with a threat of execution. Can this reading of Esther be highlighted by additional reference to our contemporary social literature on the comfort women? Indeed it can.

Collaboration and resistance in Esther and Judith A reading of the controversies about the contemporary debates on comfort women, and especially Soh’s important book, suggests that part of the power behind the controversy is the evaluation of women’s role in the war (my emphasis). As such, the narrative of Korean women’s innocence is essential to the continued narrative that they had little choice in what they were doing. Just as forthrightly, the Japanese conservative reaction is to argue precisely for their agency—in other words, their willing collaboration with the Japanese, and implied, with their war effort. For both sides, the lines of the conflict, and thus the war, must be kept clear and clean. Is there a similar pressure to construct a resistance narrative—and especially an anti-collaborationist narrative—for reading Esther? It is not difficult to document in many commentaries about Esther that there is a prevailing argument that Esther is a patriotic fighter in challenging circumstances. For example, Costas (perhaps stretching just a bit) argues, “The book of Esther offers a paradigm of liberating theological reflection . . . It does not accept a negative event as fate or an accident of history.”96 Hacham argues that, contrary to 3 Maccabees, “the author of the book of Esther apparently experiences greater security in Diaspora existence and places trust in the Jewish representatives in government.”97 Davidson argues that a “social location on the periphery of foreign context raises issues of access to power as a means of communal survival.”98 Song refers to the “Pragmatism of

96 Orlando E. Costas, “The Subversiveness of Faith:  Esther as a Paradigm for a Liberating Theology,” TER 40 (1988): 67. 97 Noah Hacham, “3 Maccabees and Esther:  Parallels, Intertextuality, and Diaspora Identity,” JBL 126 (2007): 783. 98 Davidson, Steed V., “Diversity, Difference, and Access to Power, 281.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 121

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

122

122

Daniel-Christopher

the Powerless,”99 while Crawford insists that her behavior must be judged within the historical period and setting.100 Fox argues that Esther is nationalistic, but that it is not narrow, segregationist, or exclusivist. Rather, the author “seems comfortable with the idea of the Jews living among the nations indefinitely. He assumes that Jews are accepted for the most part as equals.”101 Sakenfeld, also, calls Esther’s “strategy” one of working “within the system.”102 Linda Day suggests that Esther “plays the power system to get to its top rung in the way that only an underdog could do,”103 but also reflects an acceptance of two loyalties: “The story provides an example, especially in the figure of Esther, of how Jews can succeed; rather than standing against a foreign system, they should choose to work within it.”104 Berlin states that the book models “successful behavior for Jews living in Diaspora.”105 Koller, who has pursued this discussion more than most studies of Esther, suggests: If one chooses not to resist, like Esther, there are two paths of accommodation open. One is the abdication of responsibility, the abandonment of identity, the passive allowance of external forces to influence one’s very being; the other is the active solicitation of such influences.106

But then, at a later point in his analysis, Koller presses the point further: It was with the female that the Jews of the Diaspora likely identified. The female may be taken as a symbol of the less powerful and less confrontational, but potentially more subversive and more effective in resisting . . . Few Jews in the Persian Empire would be prepared to take the assertive stand that Mordecai took, much less the death-defying stand that Daniel took. But Esther illustrates a “feminine” option, and in this she is not alone within Second Temple, or earlier biblical literature.107

Esther, collaboration, and Judith: Trial by story? It is important to point out, however, that there have been some dissenting voices which speak against the majority assumption that the book of Esther is from the

99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107

Song, “Heartless Bimbo or Subversive Role Model?,” 60. Crawford, “Esther and Judith,” 67–8. Fox, Character and Ideology, 219. Sakenfeld, Just Wives?, 64. Day, Esther, 92. Day, Esther, 13. Berlin, Esther, xxxiv. Koller, Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought, 68. Koller, Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought, 77.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 122

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

123

7. Sleeping with the Enemy?

123

Diaspora and therefore reflects a certain optimism about the possibilities of success while living in the Diaspora. In other words, some argue that Esther is actually quite a negative story about Diaspora conditions. Grossman, for example, thinks that Esther actually warns against living in the Diaspora: Despite the ultimately happy ending, it seems unlikely that the story advocates coming to terms with Jewish existence in exile . . . For all of Joseph’s success in exile, life in Egypt ultimately degenerated into enslavement. The Jews of Shushan had no guarantees that they would escape the same fate.108

Albertz believes that Judith, like the additions to Esther in the Greek, is intended to correct a potentially positive reading of exile in Esther: “This repudiation of the exile, so vehemently espoused by the book of Judith, probably reflects the experience of the Maccabean war of liberation.”109 If collaboration is the issue raised by Esther (and this is always intensified when Judith is brought into the discussion), then it may suggest that Stern, for example, is right: the Esther story is actually more similar to Judith and raises typically homeland issues—and homeland issues in the context of a sense of victory.110 If this is the context, then it is among the privileges of the victor to examine cases of questionable nationalism in order to ask whether they were collaborators. It is useful to discuss how we are using this terminology, and the contemporary debates are helpful on this context. Soh’s work on the comfort women, in particular, suggests that the story of Esther should not be immune to raising questions about Jewish collaboration across a wide spectrum of what “collaboration” consists of. Similarly, James Scott alerts us to a much wider range of definitions of “resistance” so that historians need neither to be so literalist as to insist upon evidence of open warfare in order to identify “resistance,” nor to read anything short of open warfare as a clear sign of acquiescence. In short, the comfort women debates raise similar questions in modern readings of Esther.111 By way of bringing this discussion to a preliminary close (but hardly conclusions, as yet) I can see at least three areas where the comfort women debates can be important for Esther studies. First, however, I acknowledge that although I may be proposing a new set of comparative notions and analytical vocabulary, the fear of “collaboration” as an accusation against Esther (then or now) is arguably behind many of the debates we have noted about Esther’s “strategies,” “limited options,”

108 Grossman, Esther: The Outer Narrative, 242. 109 Rainer Albertz, Israel in Exile:  The History and Literature of the Sixth Century B.C.E., trans. David Green (SBL; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 38. 110 Elsie Stern, “Esther and the Politics of Diaspora,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 100 (2010): 25–53. 111 Most notably in James Scott, The Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), and his later work Domination and the Art of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 123

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

124

124

Daniel-Christopher

“clever ploys,” and so on. At this point, it seems important to note the warning of Sawyer, for example, against a false essentialism of feminist strategies of identity: We can appreciate how the rules have been and can be bent. We can recognize a myriad individual, fragmented selves performing gender across a full spectrum of possibilities, revealing in this subversion how those individual selves have been artificially constructed to perform imprisoned within the polarities of “male” and “female” identity.112

Furthermore, Beal’s suggestion that Mordecai may be worried about a later judgment against Esther as a “collaborationist” in Esther 4:14 (MT) makes increasing sense.113 Judith’ s perilous use of sexuality obviously raises equally compelling issues of collaboration, but she asserts an agency even more clearly in doing so—certainly more than Esther in the MT. Second, I suggest that Soh’s work on the comfort women also invites a reading of Esther that proposes that at least one of the worries of later editors and compilers of the canon was the issue Esther’s alleged collaboration with foreign power—and not only the issue of Esther’s adherence to purity laws and feminine boundaries. Finally, if this emphasis on “judging” the actions of Esther (and Judith) is valid, it raises interesting questions about the “location” of the editing and canonization—and the continued official use—of Esther. Stern, we have noted, believes that the book of Esther is closer in spirit to the nationalism of Judith and Maccabees, and is in fact a homeland work that condemns diaspora life: Esther represents a nationalist Judean fantasy about the Diaspora that, like Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel, is pro-Judean and deeply critical of strategies of Diaspora living that are not oriented toward Jerusalem and grounded in particularist practice.114

Bach even wants to suggest that the key issues of Esther, Judith, and also the story of Jael, is the threat of Hellenistic culture in the homeland: The Jewish writers of the Maccabean era, struggling against Hellenization and its resultant permissiveness, were threatened both by the genre of romance and by its tempting picture of the eroticized female character . . . This fear of female sexuality and its resultant attack on male power created stories in which the female voice was suppressed.115

112 Deborah F. Sawyer, “Gender Strategies in Antiquity: Judith’s Performance,” FT 28 (2001): 11. 113 Beal, “Esther,” 65. 114 Stern, “Esther and the Politics of Diaspora,” 30. 115 Bach, Women, Seduction, and Betrayal, 84.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 124

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

125

7. Sleeping with the Enemy?

125

Bach argues for a “suppressed” female voice or, we might propose, a “sublimated” voice, perhaps easily missed in the larger questions of national political conflict, survival, and ultimate victory.116 As Mosala suggests, the book of Esther sacrifices gender struggles to national struggles.117 Grossman argues that Esther ultimately is a nationalist document that condemns the dangers of diaspora life: Despite the ultimately happy ending, it seems unlikely that the story advocates coming to terms with Jewish existence in exile . . . For all of Joseph’s success in exile, life in Egypt ultimately degenerated into enslavement. The Jews of Shushan had no guarantees that they would escape the same fate.118

Ilan suggests that Joseph, who was widely hailed as an example for Jewish success and power, is also emulated by the Hasmonean era’s attention to Judith, Susanna, and Esther because—taken together—they reiterate the life of Joseph:  “Judith attains glory at the site of Joseph’s disgrace, Susanna undergoes Joseph’s ultimate test of chastity and prevails, and Esther reenacts his wisdom and rise to power in a foreign court.”119 The comfort women debates add still more to our assessment of the book of Esther. First, these debates may be the luxuries of self-perceived victors who can then, after their victories, spend time sifting through the events to praise the heroes and condemn the villains. Collaborationists face their trials and opprobrium in such contexts, typically as foils to better raise up the heroes (who are most likely vying for office in the postwar context). This might suggest that Esther becomes part of the canon at a time when Jews are “reviewing” their history during a period of perceived strength—precisely, as Ilan has suggested, in the Hasmonean period. But just as significantly, one does not evaluate the ‘glorious conflict,’ raise up the heroes, and condemn the villains—including the trials to condemn or vindicate those who appeared to collaborate (but may have been secret patriots)— until one is victorious. Therefore, reading Esther as part of ‘post conflict’ national examinations of character mean that the violent victory at the end of Esther is an essential part of the Esther narratives, precisely because her actions are judged by the ultimate success of her people. In other words, one could conceivably propose

116 Tal Ilan even makes the fascinating suggestion that the Esther stories were useful as homeland propaganda for the acceptance of Shelamzion (76–67 BCE), wife of Alexander Jannai, as queen in the homeland: “The fact that this policy (official policy to promote the idea of a Queen) was initiated in Jerusalem, that the old king in the Judaen capital was ailing and that a year later his widow was crowned queen in Jerusalem seems to me more than mere coincidence. The decision to promote the book of Esther could well be associated with the coronation of Shelamzion” (Tal Ilan, Integrating Women into Second Temple History [Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999], 135). 117 Mosala, “The Implications,” 136. 118 Grossman, Esther: The Outer Narrative, 242. 119 Ilan, Integrating Women, 147.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 125

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

126

126

Daniel-Christopher

precisely the opposite of Wolfe’s argument, who states, “The core storyline of the book strikes me as more appropriate to a people who were suffering under despotism than to a people who had already overthrown such a ruler.”120 This argument is representative of other commentaries, certainly, but while I acknowledge that it is the most common, I am no longer sure that I agree. If the writers are writing from desperation, then Esther and Judith would both be in danger of being read as failures, or worse. If we picture Esther “on trial” by the patriotic front, we can well imagine the arguments in her defense:  “We were victorious—and we were victorious partly because of the stratagems of our patriotic sister Esther.” The Greek additions, then, could be taken as rather clear indications that the “trial” was taking place:  her character is even more honored and her resistance even more intentional and clear. Contrary to the MT, in the LXX we are privy to her private thoughts and prayers, which communicate her “true” feelings of revulsion at what she must do for the national cause. Now, finally, we extend this reading to Judith. In this proposed reading, with an eye to issues of collaboration and agency, Esther has a great deal more in common with Judith and much of the Maccabean literature as well. As many commentaries have suggested, Judith may be a “correction” to Esther—a strong and powerful woman who escaped sexual impurity and led her nation to success.121 As Crawford argues in her important essay on Esther and Judith, the presumed male author used Judith as a model for Esther: “He created a story in many ways parallel to Esther, but made two major changes: he set the story in Israel and made the heroine a model of religious piety.”122 But Judith’s action is equally dependent on the final victory. Had she merely killed one military leader, but the war continued unabated, sister Judith may have had to respond to some awkward questions back in Batulia. But we do not have to raise these questions here as they are widely addressed in the literature on the book of Judith. The focus of this chapter is not Judith, of course, but it is important to take note that the debates about Judith, too, are equally ambiguous. Milne, for example, argues: As a character Judith is . . . a seductive helper who effectively promotes gynophobia, not equity, in a patriarchal narrative. Though she plays an important literary role in an epic struggle to liberate her people from the Assyrians, Judith liberates neither herself nor her countrywomen from the status quo of the biblical gender ideology.123

120 Wolfe, Ruth, Esther, Song of Songs, and Judith. 121 Koller, Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought, 136, 138. 122 Crawford, “Esther and Judith,” 69. 123 Pamela J. Milne, “What Shall We Do with Judith? A Feminist Reassessment of a Biblical ‘Heroine,’” Semeia 62 (1993): 55. Cf. Davidson’s critique of Esther, 285–6.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 126

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

127

7. Sleeping with the Enemy?

127

It can be argued that if Esther stood some kind of ideological “trial” in the minds of the editors and canonizers of the official tradition during the Hellenistic period, Judith was likely next on the docket. Judith, however, benefits from her lawyers having already watched the debates about Esther. Our point is only this:  such debates about the “patriotism” and agency of these women may be the privileges of a perceived success. The exaggerated victories in both Esther and Judith are essential to their vindication. In any case, like the comfort women, one wonders if some of the heat generated by the stories of Esther and Judith, in both ancient and modern commentary, is at least partially because of the violations of “our” women, but also because of the unspoken doubts and suspicions (evident by some denials in the LXX) of collaboration with the enemy. What we have seen is that the literature on the comfort women can certainly help us to raise serious issues not only in the text of Esther (and Judith) but also issues in the contemporary dialogues about Esther in the commentaries. The comfort women literature can also help us to see ways of separating questions about Esther and Judith the women from Esther and Judith the symbols. Either focus of analysis must navigate treacherous waters, and thus we are far from firm conclusions at this stage.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 127

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

128

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 128

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

129

Chapter 8 “ J UD GE M E NT WAS E X E CU T E D U P ON H E R , A N D S H E B E CAM E A  B Y WOR D A MONG W OM E N” (E ZE K. 23:10):  D IVINE R EV E NGE P ORN , S LUT- S HAM ING, E TH N IC I T Y, A N D E XI LE I N E ZE KIE L  16  A N D  2 3 Holly Morse

Ezekiel 16 and 23, two “marriage metaphor” texts, have frequently drawn critical attention from feminist biblical scholars due to their inclusion of shocking, retributive violence against the personified Samaria and Jerusalem, the “wives” of Yahweh. This chapter aims to develop an ethnicity-focused feminist approach to reading Ezekiel’s deployment of sexualized imagery of the two female cities, whose “whoring” with foreign men and subsequent divinely decreed punishment by mutilation and public stripping serves as a figurative explanation of the conquest and ultimately the exile of Israel and Judah. While I acknowledge that both descriptions of Samaria and Jerusalem are predominantly metaphorical, I argue that by considering the texts as examples of slut-shaming the reader’s eye is drawn to rarely acknowledged passages in the biblical accounts where the prophet reveals his underlying concern with the behavior of real women. As part of the public shaming of the feminized cities, not only are their bodies to be exposed to their foreign lovers but, crucially, this punishment is to be witnessed by other women—Ezekiel 16.41; 23.10, 48—and thus to function as a warning to the female population against apostasy, adultery, and sexual interaction with foreign men. My examination of the text will be divided into two sections. First, I  will consider the “fantasy” element of chs 16 and 23, in which Ezekiel describes the crimes of personified Jerusalem and Samaria as a metaphor for religious infidelity in Israel and Judah, arguing that these sections also belie both a concern with the emasculation of Israelite and Judahite men and an equally strong anxiety around female sexual interaction with foreign men. Second, I will analyze the ways in which the description of God’s punishment of Jerusalem in Ezekiel 16, and Samaria and Jerusalem in Ezekiel 23, functions as a form of divine “revenge porn” and “slut-shaming” that points toward the “reality” of life during the exilic period. These two terms have developed in recent years to describe the frequent public sexual shaming of women on the internet in response to perceived promiscuous behavior. Revenge porn, the act of sharing explicit images of a woman without her consent, usually following a breakup, is most frequently perpetrated by men.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 129

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

130

130

Holly Morse

Slut-shaming, however, the act of negatively judging sexual images and behavior of women, which can include the making but also consuming of revenge porn, also has a very strong female voice. I will argue that precisely when the prophet begins to describe Yahweh’s revenge against the women’s ethnically troubling sexuality, in which he uses foreign men and foreign women as his weapons, Ezekiel’s metaphor ruptures, and the reader slips from “fantasy” to “reality” as the prophet moves from condemning personified Jerusalem and Samaria to brutalizing her daughters, real women of the cities, for their pursuit of foreign men.

Ezekiel, exile, and ethnicity While considerable work has been done on the pornographic representations of the female body in Ezekiel 16 and 23 and their connection to domestic violence, adultery, and misogyny,1 attention to central issues of foreignness, colonization, and power, all of which are integral to the exilic environment and experience of the prophet, have been less regularly brought to bear on interpretation of the marriage metaphor. There are a number of notable exceptions, but a review of three will suffice here to indicate the ways in which recent scholarship on exile and masculinity in Ezekiel provide an important foundation from which my own argument will develop. The first was written in 2000 by Corinne L. Patton, in which she develops a critique of and response to a number of feminist readings of Ezekiel 23, claiming that work to date had not given due attention to the historical setting of the original text.2 In her own analysis, Patton continues to “use the lens of gender” to focus her

1 For example, Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes, “The Metaphorization of Woman in Prophetic Speech: An Analysis of Ezekiel 23,” in On Gendering Texts: Female and Male Voices in the Hebrew Bible, ed. Athalya Brenner and F. van Dijk-Hemmes (Biblical Interpretation Series 1; Leiden: Brill, 1993), 167–76; J. Cheryl Exum, “The Ethics of Biblical Violence Against Women,” in The Bible in Ethics: The Second Sheffield Colloquium, ed. John W. Rogerson et a1. (JSOTSup 207; Sheffield:  Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 248–71, rev. and updated in “Prophetic Pornography,” in Plotted, Shot and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical Women JSOTSup 215; Gender, Culture, Theory 3 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 101–28; Mary Shields, “Multiple Exposures: Body Rhetoric and Gender Characterizations in Ezekiel 16,” JFSR 14 (1998); T. Drorah Setel, “Prophets and Pornography:  Female Sexual Imagery in Hosea,” in Feminist Interpretation of the Bible, ed. Letty M. Russell (Philadelphia:  Westminster, 1985), 86–95; Renita Weems, “Gomer: Victim of Violence or Victim of Metaphor?” Semeia 47 (1989):  87–104; Renita Weems, Battered Love: Marriage, Sex, and Violence in the Hebrew Prophets (OBT; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995). 2 Corinne Patton, “‘Should Our Sister Be Treated Like a Whore?’ A  Response to Feminist Critiques of Ezekiel 23,” in The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives, ed. M. S. Odell and J. T. Strong (SBLSymS 9; Atlanta, GA:  Society of Biblical Literature, 2000), 222.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 130

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

131

8. “Judgement Was Executed upon Her . . .”

131

reading, but compliments this with a second lens, the lens of the historical situation of Ezekiel 23, when Jerusalem had just “been attacked, pillaged, raped, if you will, by the Babylonians.”3 Using this reading strategy, Patton argues that contrary to many feminist critiques which posit that the prophet’s descriptions of the brutal punishments of Samaria and Jerusalem condone aggression against women, there is, in fact, within Ezekiel 23 an “awareness of and horror at sexual violence.”4 She goes on to expand upon this point by arguing that “all members of Israelite society were aware of the fate of women (as beloved wives, innocent sisters, honored elders) at the hands of an enemy who wins.”5 On this basis, Patton argues that the marriage metaphor was deliberately chosen precisely because the horror of the sexual violence that the female family members of the Judeans had experienced conveyed the horror of Ezekiel’s own situation in Babylon. By representing himself and his fellow men as God’s unfaithful and battered wife, the prophet holds up a “mirror” to the exiles. In doing so Ezekiel is not only calling the group a ‘ “bunch of women”, but also drawing attention to their responsibility for the suffering of their wives, daughters, sisters, and mothers because of the men’s moral failings that brought about the exile.6 While I  support Patton’s call to contextualize the reading of the chapter in the world of exile and diaspora, I  believe her relatively sympathetic reading of the text’s troubling sexual violence as solely metaphorical of the male condition and male suffering erases an important aspect of Ezekiel’s prophecy. By arguing that the text is only concerned with a male audience and addressing their experience at the hands of the Babylonians, Patton glosses over some significant details that indicate Ezekiel may have used the marriage metaphor to address the female population, too. In particular, I find her interpretation of Ezekiel 23:10 and 23:48 especially weak, as Patton argues that these verses do not refer to a female audience for Ezekiel at all, but are just another example of the prophet feminizing his male listeners and readers.7 It is precisely this position I intend to argue against, below. Gale Yee further develops some of the insights from Patton in her own analysis of Ezekiel 23’s colonial context, in which she situates “the pornographic imagery of Ezek. 21:1–35 historically in the collective trauma of disgraced priestly elite males, who suffered colonization, conquest and exile during the first quarter of the sixth century B.C.E.”8 Taking a rather more critical tone than Patton, Yee argues that by constructing a marriage metaphor in which two female personified cities are punished for their infidelity, Ezekiel undertakes an “act of transgendered self blame,” articulating his guilt, and the guilt of the male community, as the guilt of promiscuous, adulterous women.9 For Yee, the use of the marriage metaphor is 3 Patton, “Should Our Sister Be Treated Like a Whore?,” 229. 4 Patton, “Should Our Sister Be Treated Like a Whore?,” 228. 5 Patton, “Should Our Sister Be Treated Like a Whore?,” 232. 6 Patton, “ ‘Should Our Sister Be Treated Like a Whore?,” 232–3. 7 Patton, “ ‘Should Our Sister Be Treated Like a Whore?,” 232. 8 Gale A. Yee, Poor Banished Children of Eve:  Women as Evil in the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2003), 133. 9 Yee, Poor Banished Children of Eve, 132.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 131

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

132

132

Holly Morse

precisely that, a metaphor, in which the “blame falls metaphorically on the bodies of women” (my italics).10 As with Patton’s work, Yee is primarily interested in the insights Ezekiel’s metaphor offers us into his self-blame and his mutilated masculinity, concluding that “Ezekiel 23 may be considered a testament to the nation’s emasculinity, a nation stripped of its masculinity.”11 In an article from 2004, Daniel L.  Smith-Christopher also picks up on the issue of colonization in Ezekiel, this time in relation to the marriage metaphor in ch. 16, and in particular on vv. 37–39, which describe the stripping of woman Jerusalem by Yahweh and her foreign lovers as punishment for her perceived sin.12 In this insightful paper, Smith-Christopher, like Patton and Yee, draws attention to common scholarly failings to recognize the historical reality of the “violence, bloodshed, vengeance and terror” that saturates Ezekiel’s vision in ch. 16.13 In response to this perceived silence in previous work on the marriage metaphor, Smith-Christopher reviews a range of ancient Near Eastern military tactics represented in a range of Mesopotamian and Neo-Assyrian reliefs to contextualize his reading of Ezekiel 16.13–39, and he concludes that “the ‘humiliation’ of ‘Jerusalem’ as female must be directly connected to the ideology of, and practice of, Assyrian and Babylonian warfare.”14 He argues that the usual practice of warfare included the stripping of the conquered by the conquerors, including male prisoners of war like Ezekiel, as a means of feminizing and disempowering the colonized nation. Thus, for Smith-Christopher, rather than a titillated male gaze, Ezekiel’s marriage metaphor represents: a triumphalist “imperial gaze” of the conquerors over the humiliated and stripped male soldiers who foolishly tried to resist the superior forces. Ezekiel himself may have been fully aware of his “feminization” of this imperial gaze in order to deepen the impact of his metaphor—and not at all involved in merely a “male attempt” to appeal to a supposed practice of publicly stripping and humiliating women as punishment for adultery.15

Once more, with Smith-Christopher’s work, sexual violence in the form of stripping becomes focalized through the lens of male self-blame and emasculation. Following this review of three works on Ezekiel’s marriage metaphors and his exilic context, two key points of similarity have emerged. First, a shared commitment to reading the marriage metaphors as indicators of the emasculation

10 Yee, Poor Banished Children of Eve, 122. 11 Yee, Poor Banished Children of Eve, 121. 12 Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, “Ezekiel in Abu‐Ghraib: Rereading Ezekiel 16:37–39 in the Context of Imperial Conquest,” in Ezekiel’s World: Wrestling with a Tiered Reality, ed. S. L. Cook and C. L. Patton (SBLMS; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 141–57. 13 Smith-Christopher, “Ezekiel in Abu‐Ghraib,” 149. 14 Smith-Christopher, “Ezekiel in Abu‐Ghraib,” 153. 15 Smith-Christopher, “Ezekiel in Abu‐Ghraib,” 155.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 132

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

133

8. “Judgement Was Executed upon Her . . .”

133

of Ezekiel and his Judahite male contemporaries. Second, while Patton, Yee, and Smith-Christopher each pay attention to the specific power dynamics at play in the imperial context of Ezekiel’s prophecy, they do not give any extended attention to the prophet’s ethnically motivated sexual anxieties. Rather Patton, Yee, and Smith-Christopher are predominantly concerned with examining the prophet’s reaction to political power dynamics between the male Judean exiled elite and the conquering nations in chs 16 and 23. My aim is to build on their work, by arguing here, in a volume that is focused on women and exile, that one particular aspect of Ezekiel’s experience of emasculation at the hands of enemy men deserves further attention, rather than passing mention. That is the particular sexual anxiety Ezekiel appears to have developed over the ethnic threat to Israelite and Judahite identity posed by potential unions between the women of Samaria and Jerusalem, and invading male forces. After all, while Ezekiel’s experience of exile would clearly have impacted on his sense of masculinity, it would also no doubt have made a significant impact on other aspects of his identity. Separated from his land and his Temple, the Judean priestly prophet’s sense of religious, political, and ethnic belonging would have been in turmoil, too. Consequently, Kenton Sparks and Dalit Rom-Shiloni argue that it is precisely because of this trauma that we find such a particular concern in Ezekiel to develop a specific image of Israel’s ethnic identity that would come to be echoed in the work of later post-exilic writers.16 For Sparks, the concern with ethnicity in the exilic parts of Ezekiel is twofold. First, he argues that the prophet was deeply concerned, working from exile, to make an ethnic distinction between his own community in Babylon, and the Judean remnant. Sparks highlights this particular theme in both Ezekiel 11:1–25 and 33:23–24, where the prophet emphasizes the role of the exiled community, those who have been “scattered,” as the future Israel, in contrast to those left behind in “the waste places in the land of Israel” (Ezek. 33:24).17 Alongside this perceived internal ethnic threat coming through in the book of Ezekiel, there was an equally grave concern with the “the cultural threat of assimilation in the Babylonian context” as the “enticement of Mesopotamian economic prosperity during the Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid periods were considerable.”18 Assimilation was therefore “much more than a passive threat.”19 Along similar lines, Dalit Rom-Shiloni has argued that “Ezekiel’s prophecies demonstrate the post-traumatic reactions of an exile, a refugee.”20 Unlike Sparks,

16 Kenton L. Sparks, Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel: Prolegomena to the Study of Ethnic Sentiments and Their Expression in the Hebrew Bible (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1998) and Dalit Rom-Shiloni, “Ezekiel as the Voice of the Exiles and Constructor of Exilic Ideology,” Hebrew Union College Annual 76 (2005): 1–45. 17 Sparks, Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel, 289. 18 Sparks, Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel, 314 n. 92. 19 Sparks, Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel, 314 n. 92. 20 Rom-Shiloni, “Ezekiel as the Voice of the Exiles and Constructor of Exilic Ideology,” 4.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 133

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

134

134

Holly Morse

who reflects on both the inner and outer boundaries of Ezekiel’s ethnic identity building, Rom-Shiloni predominantly focuses on his concern to mark the distinction between Judean remnant and the exile community. In particular Rom-Shiloni observes a contrast between the originary stories presented in Ezekiel 16 and Ezekiel 20, arguing the former was produced to explain the ethnic roots of the Judean exiles, while the latter, in which she discerns more hope, was provided as the history of the exile community. She argues that the focus on the connection between the community left behind in the land and the Canaanites serves to present them as ethnically separate from, and inferior to, those who went into exile. Consequently, for Rom-Shiloni the family metaphor functions as a means of presenting the Judean remnant as utterly and thoroughly corrupt, condemned to death without any hope of restoration.21 This, she argues, is in direct contrast to the alternative political metaphor provided in Ezekiel 20 in which the prophet demonstrates that “the continuous covenant relationship is guaranteed for the future as well: God is the Exiles’ King.”22 Building on the work of Rom-Shiloni, Katherine Southwood, in her major work on ethnicity in Ezra 9–10, has also concluded that there are some considerable links to be found between ethnic attitudes to foreign “others” both from neighboring nations as well as from those who remained in Judah displayed by Ezekiel, with Ezra’s clear desire to delineate ethnically between the “people of the land” and the Golah.23 Though my own particular focus here will not be on Ezekiel’s inner ethnic anxieties, but rather his outer ethnic concerns, the work of both Sparks and Rom-Shiloni provide important indicators of the major concern the prophet had with constructing and maintaining a particular ethnic identity while in exile. It is precisely through this very specific contextual lens that I wish to analyze Ezekiel’s marriage metaphor. In what ways does gender feature in the prophet’s expression of his concern over ethnic identity in exile? How did this impact upon his description of women? Do chs 16 and 23 offer any indicators of the place of women in diaspora?

From fantasy to reality: Ezekiel imagining female sexuality in exile I will begin my argument first by analyzing the metaphorical frame that Ezekiel establishes in his description of the crimes of Jerusalem and Samaria in chs 16 and

21 Rom-Shiloni, “Ezekiel as the Voice of the Exiles and Constructor of Exilic Ideology,” 29. 22 Rom-Shiloni, “Ezekiel as the Voice of the Exiles and Constructor of Exilic Ideology,” 29. 23 Katherine E. Southwood, Ethnicity and the Mixed Marriage Crisis in Ezra 9–10: An Anthropological Approach (Oxford Theological Monographs; Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2012), especially p. 159 n. 64.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 134

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

135

8. “Judgement Was Executed upon Her . . .”

135

23 in order to demonstrate the particular ethnic focus we find in each. In the second section of my analysis, I focus on the points in both texts where the metaphor ruptures and the prophet slips from talking about metaphorical crimes that cross national and ethnic boundaries and their punishment, into managing the behavior of the women left after the catastrophe.

The fantasy In work that considers the relationship between Ezekiel 16 and Ezekiel 23, the former has predominantly been understood by scholars to be the more religiously focused of the “marriage metaphors.”24 Sharon Moughtin-Mumby, however, in her survey of these metaphors in Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel suggests that “many sharpen the superficial distinctions between Ezekiel 16 and 23”, including the tendency to see a focus on cultic, rather than political, crimes in Ezekiel 16, “almost certainly in an attempt to explain why a single prophetic book might include two narratives so similar in character.”25 Analysis of Ezekiel’s description of woman Jerusalem in ch. 16, however, will demonstrate that he is as preoccupied with her troubling of political and ethnic boundaries through her relations with her foreign neighbors, as he is with her religious infidelities.26 From the very outset, the text belies a concern with the ethnic origins of Jerusalem. Having described Yahweh’s commissioning of Ezekiel to alert the city to her “abominations,” the deity then commands that the prophet should remind her of her mixed background (Ezek. 16.2–3): Mortal, make known to Jerusalem her abominations, and say, Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite.

It seems, then, that part of the “abomination” of Jerusalem is her foreign parentage. This observation is echoed by Marvin Pope who notes that throughout the text, “her aberration [is attributed to] her hereditary defect of character” (cf. Ezek. 16:44–45).27 Writing on Ezekiel from an entirely different, feminist perspective,

24 Sharon Moughtin-Mumby, Sexual and Marital Metaphors in Hosea, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel (Oxford Theological Monographs. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 157. 25 Moughtin-Mumby, Sexual and Marital Metaphors, 157. She cites Brownlee’s assertion that the two texts must originally have had entirely different subject matter. 26 It is worthwhile noting that while Hosea and Jeremiah give some attention to the issue of political allegiance, this is minimal in comparison to Ezekiel who is interested in “foreignness” in a more thorough and all-encompassing way. 27 M. H. Pope, “Mixed Marriage Metaphor in Ezekiel 16” in Fortunate the Eyes That See:  Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Seventieth Birthday,

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 135

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

136

136

Holly Morse

Julie Galambush also highlights the multiple ways in which the introduction of Jerusalem is of a woman/city who is entirely foreign:  “Jerusalem begins her life as excluded, ‘other,’ in terms of her family membership, her national identity, her community status, and her ritual purity.”28 There is, in vv. 2–4, no real focus on religious crimes, aside from, perhaps, the presentation of the exposed baby as impure because it remains covered in its mother’s blood. Rather, Ezekiel’s expansion on the abnormal “biography” of Yahweh’s wife, which is not present in either Hosea or Jeremiah, betrays a specific focus on the boundaries between the nation of Israel and other nations, which, according to his metaphor, were clearly very permeable in her early years.29 Despite her questionable stock, the desolate, abandoned foreign child, Jerusalem, draws the attention of Yahweh. Unwanted by her Amorite and Hittite parents, and apparently left out to die, Yahweh decides to give life to the girl. While this divine action is often understood as an act of compassion, there is nothing in the text to actually help the reader qualify Yahweh’s motives for saving the child. Rather than dwelling on this particular moment in Jerusalem’s life, the text moves at a rapid pace from description of a bloody, naked baby, to the image of the now sexually mature body of a woman who has grown up at Yahweh’s command (Ezek. 16:6–7). Marvin Pope notes, against the work of many other scholars, that between vv. 4–7 Yahweh provides no care for the baby and that God appears to abandon the girl—or at least the story of her childhood—in favor of recounting his sexual interaction with her once she has matured.30 Linda Day, commenting on the same verses, also notes the “egotistical” element of the presentation of the childhood of Jerusalem, in which she is depicted as a “masterwork” of Yahweh.31 This “masterwork” is not completed by the adoption of the child. Rather it is only through Jerusalem’s sexual encounter with God that her identity changes from a desolate foreigner to a desirable Israelite. Yahweh reminisces to Jerusalem that

ed. Astrid B. Beck and David Noel Freedman (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge:  William B. Eerdmans, 1995), 395. 28 Julie Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel: The City as Yahweh’s Wife (SBL Dissertation Series 130; Atlanta, GA: Scholars, 1992), 91. 29 “Biography” is Moshe Greenberg’s terminology—in his commentary he recognizes this as a distinctive feature of Ezekiel’s “marriage metaphor” but does not comment much further on its broader indication of Ezekiel’s concern with national identity boundaries. See Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20 (Anchor Bible, 22l Garden City, NY/London:  Doubleday, 1983), 299. He argues that Ezekiel’s “impulse” to include this information was due to his development of theodicy: “by starting from the very origins of the people (Hos. 2: 5 may have suggested this) the effect of the denunciation is heightened.” It seems to me, however, that it is equally in keeping with Ezekiel’s heightened interest in social and ethnic boundaries being ruptured by Exile, not just a concern with “foreign” religious practice. 30 M. H. Pope, “Mixed Marriage Metaphor in Ezekiel 16,” 393. 31 Linda Day, “Rhetoric and Domestic Violence in Ezekiel 16,” Biblical Interpretation 8. 3 (2000), 209.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 136

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

137

8. “Judgement Was Executed upon Her . . .”

137

the second time he passed by her “you were at the age for love. I spread the edge of my cloak over you (‫)ואפרש כנפי עליך‬, and covered your nakedness” (Ezek. 16:8). In his commentary on Ezekiel, Moshe Greenberg explains that “covering a woman with a garment expresses acquiring her,” citing Ruth 3.9 as a parallel example.32 In this text Ruth approaches Boaz on the threshing room floor and asks that he might “spread” his “cloak” over her (‫)ופרשת כנפך על אמתך‬. Interestingly, the moment that Boaz grants her wish not only marks that Ruth acquires a husband but also a crucial point in her assimilation into the Israelite community.33 Likewise, in Ezekiel the phrase highlights an occasion on which an Israelite male, through sexual intercourse with a foreign woman, allows her to be incorporated into his ethnic group. In the case of Ezekiel 16.8, it is after this encounter that Yahweh begins to remove the signs of Jerusalem’s desolate foreignness and begins her transformation into his queen: “Then I bathed you with water and washed off the blood from you, and anointed you with oil” (Ezek. 16:9). This cleansing and clothing ritual marks a second stage in the transition of the woman’s identity from foreigner to Israelite. While this second element of the transition clearly focuses on the shift of the woman from a state of ritual impurity to purity, with Yahweh washing away Jerusalem’s impure blood to allow her to move into a state of appropriate holiness,34 the notion of cleansing and clothing also comes with different connotations for the transformation of the identity. First, the cleansing of the woman by Yahweh is reminiscent of the regulations for dealing with a captive foreign bride in Deuteronomy 21:10–13, in which washing is not specified, but the warrior is commanded to “bring her home to your house: she shall shave her head, pare her nails, discard her captive’s garb.”35 Though the language and the tone of the texts are very different, the process of transformation that Yahweh makes Jerusalem undergo can be read as a glorified version of the process of transformation legislated for in Deuteronomy. In both cases markers of the woman’s previous life must be removed in order for her to become Israelite. As Susan Niditch remarks on the captive bride, “The shaved hair, together with cutting of the nails and removal of clothing, are powerful symbols of the transformation

32 Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 277. 33 See K. E. Southwood: “As a result of Naomi’s intervention, Ruth is able to remarry; one of the most prominent indicators of assimilation” in “Will Naomi’s Nation be Ruth’s Nation?: Ethnic Translation as a Metaphor for Ruth’s Assimilation within Judah,” Humanities 3 (2014): 102–31 (p. 117). 34 For further discussion on this particular theme, see Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel, 91–109. 35 “Clothes of captivity” (‫—)שמלת שביה‬this could mean the clothing she had on when she was captured, or the clothing she had been put into during captivity. It seems more likely to me that it would be the former, given that it is well known that stripping was part of warfare, both, it would seem, as a means of shaming captives, but also as a means of removing markers of their identity.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 137

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

138

138

Holly Morse

of the social body”—they remove her from her old life.36 In many ways, the literal removal of the woman’s blood in Ezekiel functions as an erasure of her family roots, her blood ties.37 Thus, borrowing Niditch’s language, I argue that in Ezekiel, as in Ruth and in Deuteronomy, “permanent and indelible cultural and ethnic identity is thus understood as male. Women are . . . imagined as gardens for men’s seed and become fully identified as belonging to an ethnic group after belonging to a man and being ‘marked,’ in a sense, by a man of that group.”38 Clearly, in Ezekiel 16 vv.1–8, as well as Ruth and Deuteronomy, we have examples of what would, for the Israelite males, constitute a “good” ethnic transition, from foreign woman to adored Israelite wife whose beauty and sexuality is harnessed and possessed by her Israelite husband, Yahweh. Yet, if the ethnic identity of women was so liminal and fluid, as the opening of Ezekiel 16 suggests, female bodies also had the potential to be a source of great anxiety and competition for men, as they function as sites of ethnic contestation between distinct groups of men. Gale Yee also notes that for Ezekiel, in his colonial context, women would function as the “boundary” markers of ethnic identity.39 It is precisely for this reason that “male-generated laws and customs define with whom and under what circumstance women can have sexual relations.”40 As Yee writes, “Women become the literal and metaphorical sites where male controversies and struggles are played out, in which they have little voice or representation.”41 The focus on the “conversion” of Jerusalem in Ezekiel 16:1–14, and its emphasis on the liminality of female ethnic identity, not just religious identity, I argue is unique to Ezekiel’s marriage metaphor and I suggest is a product of his own traumatic and liminal location in the aftermath of war and exile.42 Overall, then, not only does Ezekiel 16:1–14 serve as a metaphor for God’s election of Jerusalem but it also offers a strong indicator of Ezekiel’s attitudes to women and ethnicity, which will be crucial for our overall understanding of the marriage metaphor. These opening verses of the chapter demonstrate that Ezekiel’s representation of the election of Jerusalem relied on the assumption that female ethnic identity was fluid. While this meant Ezekiel could use the female body in

36 Susan Niditch, “My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man”: Hair and Identity in Ancient Israel (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 130. 37 Interestingly, in preparation for her “seduction” of Boaz, Ruth the Moabite washes and anoints herself. 38 Niditch, “My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man”, 131 on Deuteronomy 21. Clearly this perception seems to differ from those texts that see foreign women, or some groups of foreign women, as to be rejected entirely. 39 Yee, Poor Banished Children of Eve, 118. 40 Yee, Poor Banished Children of Eve, 118. 41 Yee, Poor Banished Children of Eve, 119. 42 Nothing like this kind of issue appears in Hosea or Jeremiah, where, as Galambush has observed, the female personification of Jerusalem “is presented as having no identity other than as Yahweh’s wife,” Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel, 81.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 138

10/19/2017 8:04:06 PM

139

8. “Judgement Was Executed upon Her . . .”

139

his metaphorical representation of Jerusalem’s origins, if the ethnic identity of women was so liminal, it could clearly also function as a source of great anxiety and competition for men. This anxiety is played out in the following verses, as the beautiful woman Jerusalem begins to abuse the beauty and glory gifted to her by Yahweh on the occasion of their marriage by using them to pursue foreign lovers (vv. 15–22).43 Initially the sexual dealings that Yahweh describes Jerusalem enjoying with foreign men function very clearly as a metaphor for the people of Jerusalem’s cultic and religious failings before the exile. Ezekiel initially equates the crime of “whoring” (√‫ )זנה‬to the building of shrines (v. 16), the making of idols (v. 17), and the giving of food (v. 19), echoing both Hosea (2:5–13) and Jeremiah (2:20, 23–25, 28, 33–34; 3:1–10) quite directly. Interestingly, in the marriage metaphor in each of these books the lovers are unnamed and unknown. While vv. 15–22 demonstrate a more general concern with Jerusalem taking up religious practice “other” than correct Israelite religious practice, as Zimmerli notes, from v. 26 the text branches out in a new direction.44 It is this new direction in the description of the crimes of woman Jerusalem that is particular to Ezekiel and might tell us something more about his specific experience of exile. Here the text departs from Hosea and Jeremiah, as Ezekiel develops a sharp focus on the female gaze of Jerusalem as it falls on foreign male bodies: “You played the whore with the Egyptians, your lustful neighbors (‫ )יךבשכ גדלי בשר‬multiplying your whoring, to provoke me to anger” (Ezek. 16:26) While Hosea and Jeremiah had, to a certain extent, made a connection between the foreign alliances made by Israel and the metaphor of sexual relationship, Ezekiel, in the words of Moshe Greenberg, “not only adopted this imagery from his predecessors, but spelled out

43 Here we find another intertextual echo that opens up Ezekiel’s description of Jerusalem further. In Isa. 3.16–26, the daughters of Zion trust in their own attractions, and ultimately lose their way. Disaster ensuing from vanity is a common theme throughout Ezekiel, where beauty is understood to be a gift from God that is often abused by those upon whom it has been bestowed. It does seem, however, to be gendered within the book, with male trust in beauty being linked to wisdom and pride in Ezek. 28, whereas female trust in beauty is here portrayed very much in terms of sexual lasciviousness and promiscuity. On the matter of this issue of two different, gendered presentation of beauty, note the shared vocabulary between Ezek. 16 and Ezek. 28. For a full treatment of this issue in connection to ideas of nation see John T. Willis, “National Beauty and Yahweh’s Glory as a Dialectical Key to Ezekielian Theology,” Horizons in Biblical Theology 34, no. 1 (2012): 1–18. In the context of her feminist critique Mary Shields notes that the beauty of the woman is a direct reflection of the strength and power of God, but she does not see this within the wider presentation of human beauty throughout the book:  Mary E. Shields, “Multiple Exposures: Body Rhetoric and Gender Characterization in Ezekiel 16,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 14, no. 1 (1998): 10. 44 Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel:  A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), 344.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 139

10/20/2017 5:43:37 PM

140

140

Holly Morse

the ‘sexual attractiveness’ of the lovers in characteristic vividness.”45 Although the “sexual attractiveness” of Egypt is emphasized in order to highlight the political appeal the county may have held for Judah, it cannot be denied that the metaphor simultaneously seems to indicate Ezekiel’s assumption that to Judahite women, like Jerusalem, the Egyptians were perceived as desirable, “big-membered neighbors.”46 Here, then, I argue that yet another layer to Ezekiel’s ethnic anxieties becomes apparent in the prophet’s horror and terror of the hypersexualized and animalistic foreign male “other” who distracts Judahite women away from their husbands. The same focus on female desire for foreign male flesh is apparent, though in a slightly less explicit way, in Ezekiel’s description of Jerusalem’s sexual dealings with the Assyrians and Chaldeans (vv. 26–29). Here, the woman’s desire is understood to be so deep that Jerusalem is willing to behave like a prostitute, acting as if she had no husband, but willing to forgo any payment other than her own pleasure (vv. 30–31).47 Ezekiel, as a male living in exile, under imperial rule, is highly likely to have felt deeply emasculated and traumatized after the experience of deportation. A by-product of this emasculation appears to be a deep-rooted concern with the greater appeal of his more masculine, more powerful foreign conquerors, and the potential power they had to lure Judahite women away from their husbands, just as the nations of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon had lured Yahweh’s wife away from him. Given that the prophet clearly understood that women “literally and symbolically designate the ‘porous frontiers’ through which nation, ethnicity, and culture can be penetrated,” it is little wonder he developed such an exaggerated male gaze on female desires.48 This reading of Ezekiel 16 is strengthened by next turning to read Ezekiel 23. Here Ezekiel’s marriage metaphor involves not one but two wives of Yahweh, who have been led astray. Samaria and Jerusalem, renamed as the terrible sisters, Oholah and Oholibah, are presented as sexually deviant from the very beginning of the chapter. Unlike ch. 16, there is no honeymoon period for Yahweh and his wives in ch. 23. Rather the chapter opens: Mortal, there were two women, the daughters of one mother; they played the whore in Egypt; they played the whore in their youth; their breasts were caressed there, and their virgin bosoms were fondled. Oholah was the name of the elder and Oholibah the name of her sister. They became mine, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names, Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem.

Thus, the history of Samaria and Jerusalem is not qualified as a history of the once successful marriage of Yahweh to the cities, but rather a catastrophic failure in

45 46 47 48

Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 299. Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel, 66. Day, “Rhetoric and Domestic Violence in Ezekiel 16,” 211. Yee, Poor Banished Daughters of Eve, 118.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 140

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

141

8. “Judgement Was Executed upon Her . . .”

141

which “the Egyptians are the first in a series of male racialized Others who play an erotic role in this national history.”49 Ezekiel 23.3, then, presents an image of the young—we do not know how young—women having their breasts fondled by the foreign men. Here, as in the description of the Egyptians in ch. 16.26, Ezekiel offers his audience further access to his imaginative perception of the female gaze and female sexual experience. The presentation of this verse, particularly within the wider context of a chapter that portrays female sexuality as insatiable and nymphomanical, contains an assumption on the part of the prophet that the women enjoyed this attention from the Egyptians. Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes argues that the text offers a kind of double vision—while in the women’s eyes this sexual encounter with Egypt in their youth would likely have amounted to child abuse, Ezekiel seems to view it as a threatening example of the lascivious enjoyment the two females derived from their encounters in Egypt.50 Ezekiel’s assumption that the women took pleasure in their sexual encounter with Egyptian men is unquestionable when v. 3 is read alongside v. 21: “Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians fondled your bosom and caressed your young breasts.” Clearly, this is partly due to the function of the metaphor, as van Dijk-Hemmes points out: the imagery of women is indispensable for conveying a message which is a “contradiction in terms”: the people are guilty of their own past enslaving in as much as women are, by definition, guilty of their own sexual misfortunes.51

Ezekiel’s fascination with female desire for sexualized Egyptian bodies reaches its peak later in the chapter, where the prophet describes Oholibah, “remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt and lusted after her paramours there, whose members (‫ )בשר חמורים‬were like those of donkeys, and whose emission was like that of stallions (‫( ”)וזרמת סוסים זרמתם‬Ezek. 23:19–20). Many have argued that this animalistic presentation of the Egyptians’ genitalia is intended to both demonize the foreign nation and simultaneously emphasize the absolute depravity of the women’s insatiable sexual desires which mirrors the absolute depravity of Judah, and the depth of its political failings.52 Fokkelien van 49 Yee, Poor Banished Children of Eve, 122. 50 Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes, “The Metaphorization of Woman in Prophetic Speech: An Analysis of Ezekiel XXIII,” Vetus Testamentum 43, no. 2 (1993): 162–70. 51 van Dijk-Hemmes, “The Metaphorization of Woman in Prophetic Speech,” 167. 52 For example, Greenberg, 480: “The oversize genitals of Egyptians figure as well in 16:26 (evidently a commonplace, expressing a popular notion of their lewdness), and are here compared in size and seminal discharge to those of equines, proverbially lascivious, Jer 5:8.” See also Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel, 116: “Ezekiel’s simile that the Egyptians’ penises are ‘like those of asses’ (v. 20) is sometimes interpreted as denigration of the abnormal lust of the ‘foreigners’ (see, e.g., Wevers, Ezekiel, 136). More likely, the comparison is intended to insult Jerusalem (and may even reflect some jealousy of the Egyptians’ endowments) depicting her lust as abnormal, even bestial (cf. Lev. 18:23; 20:15–16, which

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 141

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

142

142

Holly Morse

Dijk-Hemmes, however, points toward another potential layer of meaning that can be discerned in Ezekiel’s representation of the Egyptian bodies when she notes that, “Instead of reflecting female desire, it betrays a male obsession.”53 But what is this male obsession? Both Tracy M. Lemos and Gale Yee have convincingly argued that Ezekiel’s perception of the female sexual gaze reflects an internalized male jealousy and fear over the superior masculinity and sexual appeal of conquering nations, which we observed taking root in Ezekiel 16, brought about through the emasculating experience of being conquered and deported. In particular, Lemos provides a wide range of evidence from the ancient Near East that suggests very frequently Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Israelites would use animalistic and sexual imagery to positively represent their own virility.54 Thus, Lemos writes, Ezekiel’s explicit description of the well-endowed Egyptians represents the prophet’s “acknowledgement of the superior claim to masculinity held by the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians, the handsome foreigners that Jerusalem found so irresistible,” while the Israelites, “by their own standards of masculinity . . . were disgraced and emasculated. In the midst of their Babylonian conquerors, they had become ‘women.’ ”55 I argue, however, that an important aspect of this emasculation is brought forward through a more direct and literal interpretation of the metaphor. Not only does Ezekiel imagine himself as part of an unfaithful, feminized nation, but it seems entirely possible that the imagery of the unfaithful Israelite or Judahite woman who runs after powerful foreign men would be a source of real and powerful terror for males living in exile, away from their homeland, with their ethnic and national identity in peril and their masculinity in shreds. Given that Ezekiel, more than any other prophet who uses the marriage metaphor, is concerned first with ethnic boundaries as demonstrated above, and second with the sexual prowess and physical and material attractions of his specifically male conquerors, it does not seem beyond reason to read the account of Oholah and Oholibah’s sexual encounters with Egyptians, and, as we shall see Assyrians and Chaldeans, as reflecting a genuine fear of the Judean’s loss of control over their women’s bodies. Not only are the physical attributes of Ezekiel’s foreign enemies portrayed as being sexually appealing but he also, when discussing the women’s attraction to Assyria and Babylon, shifts his focus to their strong military appearance and their

prescribes the death penalty for bestiality).” See also Paul M. Joyce, Ezekiel: A Commentary (LHBOTS 482; London:  T&T Clark, 2007), 162. Lemos provides a discussion of these scholarly tendencies in T. M. Lemos, “The Emasculation of Exile: Hypermasculinity and Feminization in the Book of Ezekiel,” in Interpreting Exile: Displacement and Deportation in Biblical and Modern Contexts, ed. Brad E. Kelly, Frank Ritchel Ames and Jacob Wright (Society of Biblical Literature. Ancient Israel and Its Literature, 10; Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 379–80. 53 Dijk-Hemmes, “The Metaphorization of Woman in Prophetic Speech,” 168. 54 Lemos “The Emasculation of Exile,” 377–93. 55 Lemos “The Emasculation of Exile,” 389–90.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 142

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

143

8. “Judgement Was Executed upon Her . . .”

143

uniforms. Thus, the war for power between Yahweh and his enemies is managed through the vision and the desires of personified Samaria, Oholah, who “lusted after her lovers the Assyrians, warriors clothed in blue, governors and commanders, all of them handsome men, mounted horsemen” (Ezek. 23:5–7) and Oholibah, Jerusalem, who not only chased after the “handsome young men” of the Assyrian army but also fell for the carved, painted images of the Babylonian soldiers (Ezek. 23:12–15)! In each case the clothing, the attire, and the military prowess of the soldiers is emphasized. In much the same way that Jerusalem’s “clothes” were her markers in Ezekiel 16, and it was her adornments that made her dangerously attractive to other nations, here in Ezekiel 23 it is the attire of the men that draw Yahweh’s adulterous wives to them. The verb “lust” (√‫ )זגב‬is found elsewhere only once, in Jeremiah, but is used repeatedly in Ezekiel 23 to describe this particular female desire for the foreign male body (vv. 5, 7, 9, 12, 16, 30). As Zimmerli notes in his commentary, “unlike in 16:15, where the woman’s beauty, as a cause of wanton immorality, is mentioned, in ch.23 all emphasis is placed on the description of the lovers and their desirable features.”56 This is echoed by Kamionkowski when she suggests, “Ezekiel 23’s innovation is in its preoccupation with the lovers, the other men, and with violence. The text is filled with hypervirility, and is more concerned with the symbols of masculinity than it is with the misconduct of the women.”57 While I agree with the observations of both Zimmerli and Kamionkowski regarding the apparent obsession of Ezekiel with the appeal of foreign male bodies, I cannot accept that this limits the prophet’s interest in the crimes of the two personified women as the latter suggests. In fact it seems to me that quite the opposite is the case. Ezekiel’s obsession with the foreign male body is the foreign male body precisely as it is viewed through the eyes of the female cities. To conclude this section, I argue that throughout Ezekiel 16 and Ezekiel 23’s metaphorical representations of Jerusalem and Samaria, it is clear that for the prophet the women’s bodies were the sites on which the conflict between Yahweh and his foreign neighbors took place. While initially, from the descriptions of the crimes of Jerusalem and Samaria, these women seem simply to be figurative representations of the cities and territory that were being contested, I have argued that the description of their crimes hints toward a very real concern with the sexual lives of women in exile, and the conflict between Ezekiel and his fellow Judahite men, and their Babylonian conquerors. As I will now demonstrate, this is greatly heightened in Ezekiel’s description of the wanton wives’ punishments in chs 16 and 23. It is in these parts of the chapters that I argue Ezekiel’s metaphor slips and in doing so it confirms my hypothesis posited above, that his metaphor rests on a genuine terror of women’s desire for, and intercourse with, foreign men. When Yahweh begins to slut-shame his wives for their promiscuous behavior with foreign men by exposing their bodies to sexual abuse and public humiliation, this

56 Zimmerli, Ezekiel, 484. 57 S. Tamar Kamionkowski, Gender Reversal and Cosmic Chaos: A Study on the Book of Ezekiel (JSOTSup, 368; London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003), 147–8.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 143

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

144

144

Holly Morse

mode of divine revenge porn functions not only to send a message to the men of Jerusalem about their political and religious infidelities but also as a warning to women against getting too close to the enemy.

The reality So far, so metaphorical. The lascivious, promiscuous behavior of Yahweh’s city brides, though presented in rather different ways in Ezekiel 16 and 23, has, I have argued, demonstrated the prophet’s deep-seated identification of the female body as the site of contestations between males. In this case, the battle being fought between Yahweh and his foreign neighbors over the sexual favor of wives Samaria and Jerusalem has functioned predominantly at a metaphorical level. Nonetheless, it has demonstrated that for this particular prophet, the ethnic and political identity of the cities, and consequently of the people, were equally if not more important than their religious infidelities. When the reader moves to the sections on the punishment of the two cities in chs 16 and 23, it becomes clear that the audience Ezekiel hopes to speak to is not just the males, whom he aims to emasculate into religious and political submission, but in fact, when the metaphor slips, the speech is directed straight at women. The central strategy for punishing Jerusalem’s crimes in Ezekiel 16:36–41 is through shame—this is elicited in the woman through sexual abuse and exposure: Because your lust was poured out and your nakedness uncovered in your whoring with your lovers . . . I will gather all your lovers, with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated; I will gather them against you from all around, and will uncover your nakedness to them, so that they may see all your nakedness.

Here the punishment for Jerusalem is presented as a of kind “like for like” retaliation— because the woman exposed her naked genitalia to her foreign lovers, Yahweh promises to gather Jerusalem’s lovers around her, and uncover her nakedness in front of them (Ezek. 16:36–37). There has been wide debate over how best to interpret the account of stripping in this pericope:  some have suggested it reflects a regular form of punishment for adultery in ancient Israel; others have argued against this literal reading by focusing on the literary function of the stripping in the wider scheme of the metaphor.58 Many scholars have also framed this as part of Ezekiel 16 in their wider reading of chs 16 and 23 as pornography. It is this particular aspect of interpretation that I  want to nuance here, as the generic description of Ezekiel 16 and 23 as pornography lacks

58 For a full discussion see Peggy Day, “The Bitch Had It Coming To Her: Rhetoric and Interpretation in Ezekiel 16,” Biblical Interpretation 8, no. 3 (2000): 231–54.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 144

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

145

8. “Judgement Was Executed upon Her . . .”

145

accuracy.59 To uncritically label explicit prophetic texts as pornography is to ignore the complex and wide-ranging debates concerning the definition of pornography and discussion around the extent to which pornography can ever be feminist. In their important work on “porno-prophetics,” scholars like T.  Drorah Setel,60 Athalya Brenner,61 and Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes62 made important progress in developing ethical readings of troubling, sexually explicit content of Hosea, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, in particular. Their work, however, tended to rely on stringent anti-pornography strands of feminism that argued all pornography was necessarily violent and misogynistic. In recent years, however, feminist theory focused on pornography has called into question whether “all pornographic materials subordinate or encourage or even portray violence toward women,” with an increasingly strong pro-pornography strand of feminism emerging.63 Consequently, there has been an increasing concern to complicate the category “pornography” by identifying various “types” or genres within it, which, I argue can be informative for our readings of Ezekiel 16 and 23. Thus, feminist theorists have begun to follow social science researchers in drawing more fine-grained distinctions within the general category of pornography (i.e., the sexually explicit material whose primary function is to produce sexual arousal in those who view or read them). They often distinguish between 1) violent pornography; 2) non-violent but degrading pornography; and 3) non-violent and non-degrading pornography, since there is some evidence to suggest that some of these materials (e.g., in categories 1 and 2) may be harmful in ways that other material (e.g., category 3) is not.64

59 For a similar critique from T. M. Lemos, see “ ‘They Have Become Women’: Judean Diaspora and Postcolonial Theories of Gender and Migration,” Social Theory and the Study of Israelite Religion Essays in Retrospect and Prospect, ed. Saul M Olyan (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012), 81–110. 60 T. Drorah Setel, “Prophets and Pornography: Female Sexual Imagery in Hosea,” in Feminist Interpretation of the Bible, ed. Letty M. Russell (Philadelphia:  Westminster Press, 1985), 86–95. 61 Athalya Brenner, “On ‘Jeremiah’ and the Poetics of (Prophetic?) Pornography,” in On Gendering Texts: Female and Male Voices in the Hebrew Bible, ed. Athalya Brenner and Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes (Leiden:  Brill, 1993), 178–93; and “Pornoprophetics Revisited:  Some Additional Reflections,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 70 (1996): 63–86. 62 van Dijk-Hemmes, “The Metaphorization of Woman in Prophetic Speech,” 167. 63 Angela Carter was an early proponent of the possibility of the “moral pornographer,” in direct opposition to the strong anti-pornography stance of Dworkin and MacKinnon. See Angela Carter, The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History (London:  Virago, 1979). See also a discussion on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pornography-censorship/#RecLibDis 64 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pornography-censorship/#RecLibDis

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 145

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

146

146

Holly Morse

One distinct subcategory of “violent pornography” that has been identified in recent years is “revenge pornography,” a “genre” that now proliferates the internet, and which I argue provides an analogy to the sexually explicit imagery found in the book of Ezekiel.65 The following description of revenge porn is provided on the CPS website: In April 2015, the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 created a new criminal offence of Revenge Pornography, making it a criminal offence to disclose private sexual photographs and films without the consent of an individual who appears in them and with the intent to cause that individual distress. A typical case of revenge pornography would involve an ex-partner uploading an intimate image of the victim to the Internet or sending it to their friends and family. It is carried out with the intention of causing distress, humiliation and embarrassment to the victim.66

What is implied by this quotation, but not made explicitly clear, is that the usual aim of revenge porn, as the term suggests, is to punish the victim (most often a woman), for perceived infidelities and promiscuities by exposing their body for ridicule, judgment and shaming.67 A helpful clarification of the terminology, particularly in view of my aim to bring greater accuracy to the use of terms like “pornography” in interpreting biblical material, is provided by Scott Stroud: Many revenge porn posters, who submit either pictorial content or subsequent comments, seem upset at the alleged conduct or character of the pictured

65 On Hunter Moore’s site, isanyoneup.com, see Scott R. Stroud, “The Dark Side of the Online Self: A Pragmatist Critique of the Growing Plague of Revenge Porn,” Journal of Mass Media Ethics 29, no. 3 (2014):  168–83 and Samantha Bates, “Revenge Porn and Mental Health,” Feminist Criminology 12, no. 1 (2017):  22–42 (p.  23). From a report in the Economist in 2014: “At least 3,000 porn websites around the world feature the revenge genre, and the number is rising, says John Di Giacomo of Revision Legal, a Michigan based law firm. Women’s charities in Britain and America say more victims are contacting them for help all the time. (Men are occasionally targeted, too.) In Japan the number of cases reported to police more than tripled, to 27,334, between 2008 and 2012.” Anon, “Misery merchants; Revenge porn,” The Economist 412.8894 (July 5, 2014): 5051. http://www.economist.com/news/international/21606307-how-should-online-publication-explicit-imageswithout-their-subjects-consent-be Last accessed: 26 February 2016. 66 http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/latest_news/female_sentenced_for_revenge_porn/ 67 There is some discussion over the gendering of revenge porn—see Stroud, “The Dark Side of the Online Self,” 179. There are, however, strong statistics to suggest that overwhelmingly online women are subject to particular abuse, which is often connected to sexual abuse such as rape threats. See http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/ online-harassment/pi_2014-10-22__online-harassment-02/

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 146

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

147

8. “Judgement Was Executed upon Her . . .”

147

individuals and seek revenge. Many posters assert that a given pictured individual was a cheater or “deserved” the shame that came with his or her nude.68

Although scholars such as Robert Carroll and Johanna Stiebert have wanted to suggest that the imagery of the sexual shaming of Jerusalem is akin to the “ravings of a drug-crazed fanatic,” which function in Ezekiel’s prophecy as a kind of antilanguage or social critique that relies on grotesque and exaggerated imagery, it seems to me that in fact Yahweh’s desire to inflict disturbing sexualized punishment on his unfaithful wife is horrifyingly close to the real behavior exhibited by a jilted lover in the twentieth or twenty-first century.69 Indeed, in a study by Samantha Bate on the effects revenge porn has on victims’ mental health, she provides a number of first person accounts of the type of abuse a number of women underwent. This chapter is not the place to recount the harrowing details, but the abuse included male ex-partners sharing sexually explicit images with victims’ new partners (cf. Ezek. 16:37); sexually explicit images with victims’ peers (cf. Ezek. 16:39–41); sexually explicit images of the victim being raped by their ex-partner (cf. Ezek. 16:37).70 Death threats, rape threats, or the promise of extreme violence often accompany revenge porn.71 When explaining why the male perpetrators of these crimes committed such acts, Bate concluded that in many this type of behavior was deeply connected with their desire to regain power and control over their victims, not just to punish them.72 As Helen Lewis puts it in an opinion piece on the rapid rise of revenge pornography online, “This is a form of terrorism . . . What we are witnessing are deliberately outrageous acts, designed to create a spectacle and to instill fear in a target population.”73 To return now to Ezekiel 16:37, there are clearly some significant differences between revenge pornography described above and the work of the ancient prophet. Perhaps most obviously, the former relies on modern technologies such as digital photography and the internet, while the latter is an ancient literary composition. Furthermore, Yahweh is the rejected lover, while Ezekiel is the one who

68 Scott R. Stroud, “The Dark Side of the Online Self,” 168–83. 69 Robert Carroll, “Desire Under the Terebinths: On Pornographic Representation in the Prophets—A Response,” in Athalya Brenner, ed., A Feminist Companion to the Latter Prophets, TheFeminist Companion to the Bible 8 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 300 and Johanna Stiebert, The Construction of Shame in the Hebrew Bible:  The Prophetic Contribution (JSOTSup, 346; London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002). 70 Samantha Bates, “Revenge Porn and Mental Health.” 71 For example, ‘ “He said he would destroy me,” says Annmarie Chiarini, a lecturer from Maryland.” Anon, “Misery merchants; Revenge porn,” 5051. 72 Samantha Bates, “Revenge Porn and Mental Health,” 23. 73 Helen Lewis “Online Abuse, Leaked Nudes and Revenge Porn:  This Is Nothing Less than Terrorism against Women,” New Statesman 143.5226 (2014):  25. http://www. newstatesman.com/culture/2014/09/online-abuse-leaked-nudes-and-revenge-porn-n othing-less-terrorism-against-women Last accessed: February 26, 2017.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 147

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

148

148

Holly Morse

produces the revenge pornography. Yet this seems fitting of the role of a prophet—it is his job to communicate Yahweh’s experience to his people, so it makes sense that the prophet would be the one who produces revenge porn, rather than the deity! And he creates this particular type of pornographic image, I would argue, for precisely the same reason the revenge porn posters share images today: to respond to feelings of betrayal, emasculation, and anger. While these differences are significant, there are more fundamental similarities that do commend the comparison. Both rely on highly “visual” strategies of shaming. While modern revenge porn usually involves the exposure of a female’s body either in a photograph or sometimes a video, imagery we see with our eyes, Ezekiel constructs a picture of the exposure of Jerusalem’s body that he expects the reader to “see” in their mind’s eye. Both modern revenge pornography as well as Ezekiel’s imagery serve a punitive and cautionary function. And both types of pornography involve violence, shaming, and retaliation. Thus, in Ezekiel 16:37, when Ezekiel describes how Yahweh will “uncover your nakedness to them, so that they may see all your nakedness,” it is not in order to titillate his audience, but to provide a cautionary image of what happens to the type of wife/nation who chases after “big-membered” foreign lovers. The community were to “look” on the naked body of Israel and take heed from the fate they “saw” through his image-filled prophecy. At one level of the metaphor Ezekiel produces this revenge pornography to shame and humiliate the Judean men who are represented by Jerusalem, and to warn them of the devastating consequences of their religious and political infidelities. It also seems to me that Ezekiel, who as I have already demonstrated is so deeply affected by the potent masculinity of his foreign neighbors and their ability to influence the prototypical Israelite woman, Jerusalem, is surely also building into his work a genuine response to the threat of ethnic disintegration. If women’s bodies are the site on which males stake their ethnic claim, then the rape and revenge porn Yahweh commits against Jerusalem perhaps reflects a tacit acceptance by Ezekiel of the male right to reclaim sexual power over women who leave the community. 74 Perhaps then, this horrendous fantasy, though not yet a reality, bears some reflection of Ezekiel’s true feelings about the dire crime of Israelite women diluting their ethnic group identity during the exile. I do not, however, want to suggest that this revenge porn found in Ezekiel 16 in any way corresponded to or was derived from legal punishments for adultery—Peggy Day has provided a strong enough rebuttal of that particular theory. I would, however, argue that just as revenge porn is not

74 For an extended discussion on the importance of power, and in particular Yahweh’s power in Ezekiel 16 see Mary E. Shields, “Multiple Exposures,”, p.12 n. 27. Shields focuses mainly on the power play she sees taking place between Yahweh and his wife Jerusalem, while I see the central struggle taking place over the woman’s body, between Yahweh and his foreign competitors.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 148

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

149

8. “Judgement Was Executed upon Her . . .”

149

current legal punishment for adultery or infidelity, it is clearly an powerful part of the fabric of how women’s bodies are policed in contemporary society, with much of this policing being reliant on creating a message of fear for women about how they should behave. Furthermore, I believe that on the basis of the rest of the chapter’s focus on the relations between Jerusalem and foreign men, Ezekiel’s focus is not on infidelity or adultery generally, but on a particular type of adultery, the type involving the blurring of ethnic boundaries that Jerusalem’s affairs brought about. Another helpful description for the behavior that is described within Ezekiel’s revenge pornography is slut-shaming. Slut-shaming, or “slut bashing” as Leonora Tanenbaum labels it, involves a particular type of abusive behavior—verbal, physical, psychological—by which women, and also, though to a lesser extent, men, are abused because of their perceived promiscuity.75 Tanenbaum offers this definition of the term: “Slut-bashing is a particular form of bullying, I argue, because it is verbal harassment conducted repeatedly over time in which a girl is intentionally targeted because she does not adhere to feminine norms.”76 Women can be slut-shamed for any level of perceived sexual deviance, from wearing revealing clothing, to being raped—which is often reframed as a fate the female victim “deserved” because of her sexuality.77 Clearly, then, in Ezekiel 16:37 not only do we have an example of revenge porn, but also punitive slut-shaming. Throughout Ezekiel 16, Yahweh repeatedly calls his wife Jerusalem a whore because of her sexual behavior and goes to great effort to embarrass and shame her for her behavior. This clearly reaches its peak in Ezekiel 16:37 when the verbal abuse shifts to physical abuse and Jerusalem is to be stripped in retaliation for her behavior. The use of slut-shaming as a mechanism of punishment continues later in the chapter, in what are perhaps the most disturbing parts of Ezekiel 16’s sexual metaphor, vv. 40–41: I will deliver you into their hands, and they shall throw down your platform and break down your lofty places; they shall strip you of your clothes and take your beautiful objects and leave you naked and bare. They shall bring up a mob against you, and they shall stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords. They shall burn your houses and execute judgements on you in the sight of many women.

What is most intriguing about this pericope is that, in addition to a shift of the perpetrators of the stripping from Yahweh to Jerusalem’s lovers (although

75 Revenge pornography, then, would be counted as a type of “slut-shaming.” See Leora Tanenbaum, I Am Not a Slut: Slut-Shaming in the Age of the Internet (New York:  Harper Perennial, 2015). 76 Tanenbaum, I Am Not a Slut, 68. 77 Tanenbaum provides a number of different cases of slut-shaming in connection to a wide variety of perceived “crimes” that she has encountered in her research in a variety of settings. Tanenbaum, I Am Not a Slut, 63–140.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 149

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

150

150

Holly Morse

Yahweh is still ultimately responsible for this), women participants are included in the process of slut-shaming. Mary Shields has commented that “it is suggestive that the woman’s beauty goes forth ‘among the nations’ (v. 14) but that her punishment takes place ‘in the sight of many women’ (v. 41) rather than nations.”78 I would suggest that this focus on the “sight” of women is intended to invert the lascivious gaze of Jerusalem described earlier in the chapter. Just as she is stripped in retaliation for her own exposure of her body to foreign lovers, so her sexualized gaze that Ezekiel imagined in v. 26 is punished by Jerusalem being subject to judgmental female gaze. Interestingly, in modern studies of slut-shaming, women have been found to be more likely to slut-shame other women than men. Indeed, Tanenbaum’s extended study on the use of slut-shaming as a means of social control shows that this was highly prevalent behavior among other women, although men do also “slut-bash.” She writes “although I have found that most slut-bashers in schools are girls, boys also participate.”79 Likewise, a Demos survey of Twitter UK found that “The study, which specifically monitored the use of the words “slut” and “whore” by UK Twitter users over a three-week period, found 6,500 unique users were targeted by 10,000 explicitly aggressive and misogynistic tweets and in a number of other surveys concerned with sexually abusive language and slut-shaming, it was found that women were as likely, if not more likely to be the perpetrators.”80 In vv. 40–41, then, we have divine encouragement for women to participate in the shaming of female bodies, and the policing of female sexuality. Here Ezekiel is calling for the sexual female gaze, that he imagined fell so favorably on his conquerors, to be converted in all women in to a gaze of judgment and horror. Simultaneously, the image of the stripped woman Jerusalem appears to be presented as a kind of cautionary tale, warning women against her particular brand of sexual freedom. We will return to this issue below, in connection to Ezekiel 23:10 and 48. Before doing so, some further examination of the use of slut-shaming in Ezekiel 16 is warranted, as additional support for reading Ezekiel and Yahweh as using women to slut-shame other women comes through analysis of the repeated mention of other personified cities and nations and their “daughters,” which appear throughout ch. 16. While it is quite usual for women to be personified as cities or spaces, it is unusual, indeed unique, in the marriage metaphor, apart from in Ezekiel, for female cities to be involved in the shaming of one another. In Jeremiah, and in Hosea, the woman’s body is exposed to her foreign lovers as revenge for her sexual infidelity, so in all three we encounter

78 Mary E. Shields, “Multiple Exposures,” p.12 n. 27. 79 Tanenbaum, I Am Not a Slut, especially p. 97. See also Elizabeth A. Armstrong, Laura T. Hamilton, and J. Lotus Seeley “ ‘Good Girls’: Gender, Social Class, and Slut Discourse on Campus,” Social Psychology Quarterly 77, no. 2 (2014): 100–22. 80 https://www.demos.co.uk/press-release/staggering-scale-of-social-mediamisogyny-mapped-in-new-demos-study/

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 150

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

151

8. “Judgement Was Executed upon Her . . .”

151

a type of divine revenge porn, but nowhere in the former two is the policing of the female city’s or nation’s behavior done by other female nations. Initially this metaphorical use of “revenge porn” and “slut-shaming” may seem like another fairly straightforward strategy for demonstrating the absolute thoroughness of Jerusalem’s failure in the eyes of Yahweh.81 By comparing Jerusalem to “her infamously wicked sisters” Sodom and Samaria, it is clear that “Jerusalem is worse than her sisters and must therefore suffer her shame.”82 However, on closer inspection of the verses in which woman Jerusalem is shamed by other female cities, it becomes clear that an unambiguous interpretation of these texts as metaphor becomes problematic. For example, in v. 48 Lord God declares: “As I live, says the Lord God, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done.” This description is unusual, as Zimmerli points out “it is not properly clear why Samaria and Sodom are not mentioned alone, but with their daughters.” ’83 What does Ezekiel mean by the “daughters” of Samaria and Sodom, then? Given that the Hebrew phrase “son(s) of x” (. . .‫)בני‬, with “x” being a nation, is the usual way to refer to a member or members of a particular nation, for example in v. 26 the Egyptians are in fact “the sons of Egypt,” it seems to me that Ezekiel must be describing Samaria or Sodom and her female inhabitants. The language thus confirms the break in Ezekiel’s metaphor suggested by Ezekiel 16.37, indicating that a purely metaphorical reading of this chapter of the prophet’s book is not feasible. Instead, it is clear that the prophet, in a number of places, is not only condemning the sexual infidelities of Jerusalem but also the same crimes being committed by her daughters. Jerusalem, and the women of Jerusalem blur into one another, and it seems he is equally worried about the implications Judahite women’s sexual conduct has for real ethnic boundaries as he is about the implications of Jerusalem’s behavior for the stability of national boundaries. Indeed, I  would argue that Ezekiel fully believes the proverb “like mother, like daughter” (Ezek. 16:44) and so sees the “daughters of the city,” the women of Jerusalem, as prone to, and punishable for, the same types of infidelities with foreign men, as their mother. An even clearer picture of divinely encouraged and prophetically supported slut-shaming emerges from Ezekiel 23. The description of Jerusalem’s punishment in Ezekiel 23:26 is, in many ways, very similar to the account supplied in Ezekiel 16. The prophet’s description slips between the punishment of an actual city through war and plunder and the punishment of Yahweh’s wife through being stripped, abused, stoned, and eventually murdered by her lovers (vv. 23–49). Once again, then, it is in the prophet’s account of the revenge on the figurative cities that his work fluctuates “between cities and women (real or imaginary),” and in

81 Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel, 106–7. 82 Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel, 107. 83 Zimmerli, Ezekiel, 350.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 151

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

152

152

Holly Morse

particular in the moments in vv. 10 and 48 where Yahweh promises that Oholah and Oholibah will become examples to other women:84 Addressing Oholah in v. 10: “Judgement was executed upon her, and she became a byword among women.” Addressing Oholibah in v. 48: “Thus will I put an end to lewdness in the land, so that all women may take warning and not commit lewdness as you have done.” Even more so than in ch. 16, here Ezekiel is no longer concerned with setting an example for his male companions through his metaphor, but using it as a way to establish an environment in which women police the behavior of other women and are terrified of the punishment that would await them if they breached the boundaries of their ethnic group. That the figure of the “whore,” Oholah, will be made a “byword,” literally “a name” (v. 10), among women offers an explicit confirmation of the important function slut-shaming has in Ezekiel 23.85 Interestingly, Greenberg sees this warning as applying to the gentile women of Samaria, rather than to Israelite women, because of Ezekiel’s intention to portray Israel as more corrupt than other nations.86 So, the women of gentile nations will recognize the thorough depravity of Jerusalem, while Judahite women will not. This does not, however, make good sense in the context of the chapter as a whole which is quite clearly intended to be addressed to Judahites via Ezekiel, nor in the broader context of an account so heavily focused on the behavior of Yahweh’s people. Zimmerli reads this verse in parallel with ch. 16, arguing that here Ezekiel 23 “then takes over from 16:41 the statement that this judgement makes Oholah a subject of women’s gossip,” highlighting the importance of women internalizing and communicating the horror of the judgment that was passed on Jerusalem.87 The didactic aim of Ezekiel reaches its pinnacle in v.  48, where it becomes clear that the whole of the marriage metaphor functions in a specific way for a female audience. Here Yahweh reiterates that just as Oholah would become a “byword” among women, so Jerusalem’s fate at the hands of the Babylonians will serve as a warning to other women. Its position at the very conclusion of the chapter seems to indicate its overall importance, as the prophet concludes his work by stating that Jerusalem will be brutally and sexually punished for her desire for foreign men, and that she shall be treated in such a way as to be a warning to women. In one of the few, brief scholarly 84 Robert Carroll, “Whorusalamin:  A Tale of Three Cities as Three Sisters,” in On Reading Prophetic Texts:  Gender-Specifc and Related Studies in Memory of Fokklien Van Dijk-Hemmes, ed. Bob Becking and Meindert Dijkstra (BIS 18; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 62–82, esp. p. 71. 85 Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 21–37:  A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Anchor Bible, 22A; London: Yale University Press, 2004), 477. 86 Greenberg, Ezekiel 21–37, p. 478. 87 Zimmerli, Ezekiel, 485.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 152

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

153

8. “Judgement Was Executed upon Her . . .”

153

acknowledgments of Ezekiel’s concern with inappropriate ethnic mixing between Israelite and Judahite women and their foreign neighbors in Ezekiel 23, Andrew Mein writes: The warning to real women is the sting in the tail of an oracle which has up to that point been an allegory of male behavior. But it is clear that women’s sexual freedom would pose a threat to the community of exiles. If women were to have sought husbands or lovers outside the community (or, perhaps more plausibly, their fathers were to have married them to outsiders), then it might have proved increasingly difficult to maintain a distinctively Jewish culture and identity.88

For me this “sting,” however, forms part of a much wider concern with the monitoring of the female body in Ezekiel 16 and 23. Repeatedly we have seen that the prophet was deeply concerned to present the female body as dangerously ethnically porous, as well as to portray the impressive masculinity of foreign men that he imagined through the eyes of Judahite women, and finally also concerned to ensure that women witness the brutal sexual violence that would await them if they chose to cross ethnic boundaries and sleep with the enemy. It is worth noting here, very briefly, that this anxiety would likely have been shared by numerous Judean men. After all, as T. M. Lemos has briefly observed in her study of the emasculating experience of exile, “Perhaps some Judean women, like the Babylonians, would have seen their conquered husbands as weak and dishonored.”89 It is also equally likely that the women of an exiled community, if given the opportunity, may choose to improve their lot, at least economically and in social standing, by beginning a relationship with a Babylonian man.90 They could stay with them and maintain respectability among their own kind, but what does respectability mean among a deeply humiliated people? Indeed, documentary evidence does suggest that Ezekiel’s worry about the threat of intermarriage on his community’s identity was very real, as we now have documentary evidence to suggest that Judean women did indeed marry into the Babylonian community during the sixth century, offering further contextual support for reading Ezekiel 16 and 23 through an ethno-sexual lens.91 For Lemos, this point is not particularly important, and she seems to mention it in passing in her overall argument concerning the marriage metaphor as an indicator primarily of the damaged masculinity of

88 Andrew Mein, Ezekiel and the Ethics of Exile (Oxford Theological Monographs; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 174. 89 Lemos, “They Have Become Women,” 101. 90 Lemos, “They Have Become Women,” 101. 91 Kathleen Abraham, “West Semitic and Judean Brides in Cuneiform Sources from the Sixth Century BCE: New Evidence from a Marriage Contract from Āl-Yahudu,” Archiv Für Orientforschung 51 (2005):  198–219. See also T. M. Lemos, Marriage Gifts and Social Change in Ancient Palestine, 1200 BCE to 200 CE (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 237–44.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 153

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

154

154

Holly Morse

Judahite men.92 I hope, however, to have shown that this issue of the control of the females within their female group is intimately tied up with Ezekiel’s experience of humiliation and degradation in exile.

Conclusion Throughout this chapter I have argued that a careful reading of Ezekiel 16 and 23 with an eye to themes of ethnicity and gender suggests that in these texts there is a deeply complex process of meaning making going on that is implicitly and explicitly concerned with constructing a narrative for monitoring the behavior of women in exile. Thus, not only does Ezekiel’s metaphor function as a predominantly masculine literary device, made by men, for men, concerning their masculinity, as scholars like Patton, Yee, and Smith-Christopher Lee have argued, but I hope to have demonstrated that it also functions on a second important, historically rooted, register. As much as Ezekiel was concerned about the religious and political dealings of the nation in chs 16 and 23, he was also concerned about women, ethnicity, and Israelite male control over Israelite female bodies. In my interpretation, the reality of Ezekiel 16:41, Ezekiel 23:10, and 48, the “sting in the tail of the metaphor,” are not just momentary slips in the overall literary structure. Rather they provide the key to recognizing an entire layer within the chapters that is aimed at controlling female sexuality through revenge porn and slut-shaming, as a response to the perceived ethnic threat posed by the potent appeal of foreign masculinity. Thus I conclude that in Ezekiel 16 and 23 we encounter a multifaceted deployment of the marriage metaphor in ways that speak to a male audience and help to explain their trauma, as well as providing a warning for women against abandoning their community while living during the period of exile.

92 Lemos, “They Have Become Women,” 101.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 154

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

155

B IBLIOGRAPHY Abma, Richtsje. Bonds of Love: Methodic Studies of Prophetic Texts with Marriage Imagery (Isaiah 50:1–3 and 54:1–10, Hosea 1–3, Jeremiah 2–3). SSN 40. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1999. Abraham, Kathleen. “West Semitic and Judean Brides in Cuneiform Sources from the Sixth Century BCE: New Evidence from a Marriage Contract from Āl-Yahudu.” AfO 51 (2005): 198–219. Ackerman, Susan. “ ‘And the Women Knead Dough’: The Worship of the Queen of Heaven in Sixth-Century Judah.” Pages 109–24 in Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel. Edited by Peggy L. Day. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1989.Ackerman, Susan. Under Every Green Tree. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992. Ackerman, Susan. Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel. ABRL. New York: Doubleday, 1998. Ackerman, Susan. “Digging Up Deborah: Recent Hebrew Bible Scholarship on Gender and the Contribution of Archaeology.” NEA 66 (2003): 172–84.Ackerman, Susan. “Household Religion, Family Religion, and Women’s Religion in Ancient Israel.” Pages 127–58 in Household and Family Religion in Antiquity. Edited by John Bodel and Saul M. Olyan. AW.CH. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Adams, Jim W. The Performative Nature and Function of Isaiah 40–55. LHBOTS 448. London and New York: T&T Clark, 2006. Adams, Samuel L. Social and Economic Life in Second Temple Judea. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2014. Ahn, John J. Exile as Forced Migrations: A Sociological, Literary, and Theological Approach on the Displacement and Resettlement of the Southern Kingdom of Judah. BZAW 417. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010. Albertz, Rainer. Israel in Exile: The History and Literature of the Sixth Century B.C.E. Tr. David Green. SBL 3. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003. Andersen, T. David. “Renaming and Wedding Imagery in Isaiah 62.” Bib 67 (1986): 75–80. Anderson, Bernhard. “The Place of the Book of Esther in the Christian Bible.” JR 30 (1950): 32–43. Anderson, Gary A. Sin: A History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009. Armstrong, Elizabeth A., Hamilton, Laura T., and Seeley, J. Lotus. “‘Good Girls’: Gender, Social Class, and Slut Discourse on Campus.” SPQ 77, no. 2 (2014): 100–22. Bach, Alice. Women, Seduction, and Betrayal in Biblical Narrative. Cambridge University Press, 1997. Baker, Cynthia. “Imagined Households.” Pages 113–28 in Religious Society in Roman Palestine: Old Questions, New Approaches. Edited by Douglas Edwards. New York: Routledge, 2004. Baker, Cynthia. “When Jews Were Women.” HR 45 (2005): 114–34. Bal, Mieke. “The Elders and Susanna.” BI 1, no. 1 (1993): 1–19. Baltzer, Klaus. Deutero-Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 40–55. Hermeneia. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2001.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 155

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

156

156

Bibliography

Bates, Samantha. “Revenge Porn and Mental Health.” F C 12, no.1 (2017): 22–42. Bauer, Angela. Gender in the Book of Jeremiah: A Feminist-Literary Reading. SBL 5. New York: Peter Lang, 1999. Baumann, Gerd. Contesting Culture: Discourses of Identity in Multi-Ethnic London. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Beal, Timothy. The Book of Hiding: Gender, Ethnicity, Annihilation, and Esther. London and New York: Routledge, 1997. Beal, Timothy K. “Esther.” In Ruth and Esther, Timothy K. Beal and Tod Linafelt. BO.SHNP. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press 1999. Bechtel, Carol M. Esther. Interpretation. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2002. Benbassa, Esther, and Jean-Christophe Attias. The Jew and the Other. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2004. Berges, Ulrich. Klagelieder. HTKAT. Freiburg: Herder, 2002. Berlin, Adele. Esther. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2001. Berman, Joshua A. “Hadassah bat Abihail: The Evolution from Object to Subject in the Character of Esther.” JBL 120 (2004): 647–69. Berquest, Jon L. Controlling Corporeality: The Body and the Household in Ancient Israel. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Beuken, W. A. M. “Servant and Herald of Good Tidings: Isaiah 61 as an Interpretation of Isaiah 40–55.” Pages 411–42 in The Book of Isaiah – Le Livre d’Isaie: Les Oracles et Leurs Relecteurs: Unité et Complexité de l’Ouvrage. Edited by Jacques Vermeylen. BETL 8. Louvain: Leuven University Press, 1989. Beuken, W. A. M. “Isaiah LIV: The Multiple Identity of the Person Addressed.” Pages 29–70 in Language and Meaning: Studies in Hebrew Language and Biblical Exegesis – Papers Read at the Joint British-Dutch Old Testament Conference, London, 1973. OTS 19. Leiden: Brill, 1974. Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 2004. Biddle, Mark E. “The Figure of Lady Jerusalem: Identification, Deification and Personification of Cities in the Ancient Near East.” Pages 173–87 in The Biblical Canon in Comparative Perspective. Edited by K. Lawson Younger, Jr., William W. Hallo and Bernard F. Batto. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1991. Biddle, Mark E. “Lady Zion’s Alter Egos: Isaiah 47.1–15 and 57.6–13 as Structural Counterparts.” Pages 124–39 in New Visions of Isaiah. Edited by Roy F. Melugin and Marvin A. Sweeney. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996. Black, Richard. “Fifty Years of Refugee Studies: From Theory to Policy.” IMR 35, no. 1 (2001): 57–78. Blenkinsopp, Joseph. “Second Isaiah—Prophet of Universalism.” JSOT 41 (1988): 83–103. Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Isaiah 56–66: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 19B. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Judaism, The First Phase: The Place of Ezra and Nehemiah in the Origins of Judaism. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009. Boda, Mark J. “Walking in the Light of Yahweh: Zion and the Empires in the Book of Isaiah.” Pages 54–89 in Empire in the New Testament. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Cynthia Long Westfall. MNTS. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010. Boda, Mark J. “Babylon in the Book of the Twelve.” HeBAI 3 (2014): 225–48. Boda, Mark J. “Identity in Diaspora: Reading Daniel, Ezra–Nehemiah, Esther as Diasporic Narratives.” Pages 1–26 in Rejection: God’s Refugees in Biblical and Contemporary Perspective. Edited by Stanley E. Porter. MNTS. Eugene, OR: Eerdmans, 2015.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 156

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

157

Bibliography

157

Bohak, Gideon. Joseph and Aseneth and the Jewish Temple in Heliopolis. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996. Brenner, Athalya. “On ‘Jeremiah’ and the Poetics of (Prophetic?) Pornography.” Pages 178–93 in On Gendering Texts: Female and Male Voices in the Hebrew Bible. Edited by Athalya Brenner and Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes. Leiden: Brill, 1993. Brenner, Athalya, ed. A Feminist Companion to the Latter Prophets. FCB 8. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995. Brenner, Athalya, “Pornoprophetics Revisited: Some Additional Reflections.” JSOT 70 (1996): 63–86. Brenner, Athalya, ed. A Feminist Companion to Esther, Judith and Susanna. FCB 7. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997. Brenner, Athalya, ed. Prophets and Daniel. FCB II 8. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001. Brenner, Athalya. “From Ruth to the ‘Global Woman’: Social and Legal Aspects.” Interpretation 64, no. 2 (2010): 162–8. Brenner, Athalya. “From Ruth to Foreign Workers in Contemporary Israel: A Case Study in the Interaction of Religion, Politics and the Economy.” Pages 178–91 in Secularism and Biblical Studies. Edited by Roland Boer. London: Equinox, 2010. Brenner, A., and F. van Dijk-Hemmes. On Gendering Texts. BIS 1. Leiden: Brill, 1996. Bronner, Leila A., “Reclaiming Esther: From Sex Object to Sage.” JBQ 26 (1998): 3–11. Brownmiller, Susan. “Introduction.” Page xv in Japan’s Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during World War II and the US Occupation. Edited by Yuki Tanaka. London: Routledge, 2003. Brubaker, Rogers. “The ‘Diaspora’ Diaspora.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 28 (2005): 1–19. Brueggemann, Walter. Isaiah 40–66. WBCa. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1998. Brueggemann, Walter. Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012). Burchard, Christoph. Untersuchungen zu Joseph und Aseneth. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1965. Burrus, Virginia. Saving Shame: Martyrs, Saints, and Other Abject Subjects. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. Butting, Klara. “Esther: About Resistance against Anti-Semitism and Sexism.” Pages 207–20 in Feminist Biblical Interpretation. Edited by Luise Schottroff and Marie-Theres Wacker. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012. Camacho, Keith L. “The Politics of Indigenous Collaboration.” JPH 43 (2008): 207–22. Camp, Claudia V. Wise, Strange and Holy: The Strange Woman and the Making of the Bible. JSOTSup 320/GCT 9. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000. Carr, David. “Passion for God: A Center in Biblical Theology.” Horizons in Biblical Theology 23, no. 1 (2001): 1–24. Carroll, Robert. “Desire Under the Terebinths: On Pornographic Representation in the Prophets—A Response,” in A Feminist Companion to the Latter Prophets. Edited by Athalya Brenner (Feminist Companion to the Bible, 8; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 300. Carroll, Robert. “Whorusalamin: A Tale of Three Cities as Three Sisters,” in On Reading Prophetic Texts: Gender-Specifc and Related Studies in Memory of Fokklien Van Dijk-Hemmes. Edited by Bob Becking and Meindert Dijkstra. BIS 18; Leiden: Brill, 1996. Carruthers, Jo. Esther Through the Centuries. BBC. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Carson, Anne. “Putting Her in Her Place: Women, Dirt, and Desire.” Pages 135–69 in Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 157

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

158

158

Bibliography

World. Edited by David M. Halperin, John J. Winkler, and Froma I. Zeitlin. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. Carter, Angela. The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History. London: Virago, 1979. Castles, Stephen. “Towards a Sociology of Forced Migration and Social Transformation.” Sociology 37, no. 1 (2003): 13–34. Chapman, Cynthia R. The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite-Assyrian Encounter. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2004. Chapman, Cynthia R. “Sculpted Warriors: Sexuality and the Sacred in the Depiction of Warfare in the Assyrian Palace Reliefs and in Ezekiel 23:14–17.” Pages 1–17 in The Aesthetics of Violence in the Prophets. Edited by Julia M. O’Brien and Chris Franke. LHBOTS 517. New York and London: T&T Clark, 2010. Chapman, Cynthia R. “‘Oh that You Were Like a Brother to Me, One Who had Nursed at My Mother’s Breasts’: Breast-Milk as a Kinship-Forging Substance.” JHS 12 (2012): 1–41. Chatty, Dawn. “Anthropology and Forced Migration.” Pages 74–85 in The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. Edited by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Gil Loescher, Katy Long, and Nando Sigona. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Childs, Brevard S. Isaiah. OTL. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001. Claassens, L. Juliana M. Mourner, Mother, Midwife: Reimagining God’s Presence in the Old Testament. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2013. Clements, Ronald E. “Isaiah: A Book without an Ending?” JSOT 97 (2002): 109–26. Clines, David J. A. “Why Is There a Song of Songs and What Does It Do to You If You Read It?” Pages 94–121 in Interested Parties: The Ideology of Writers and Readers of the Hebrew Bible. Edited by David J. A. Clines. JSOTSup, 205. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994. Code, Lorraine. “Taking Subjectivity into Account.” Pages 15–48 in Feminist Epistemologies. Edited by Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter. TG. New York: Routledge, 1993. Cohen, Chayim. “The ‘Widowed’ City.” JANESCU 5 (1973): 75–81. Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Global Diasporas. New York: Routledge, 2008. Cohn, Robert L. “The Second Coming of Moses: Deuteronomy and the Construction of Israelite Identity.” Pages 62–73 in Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies; Division A: The Bible and Its World. Edited by Shmuel Ahituv et al. Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1999. Cohn, Robert L. “Negotiating (with) the Nations: Ancestors and Identity in Genesis.” HTR 96 (2003): 149–66. Cohn, Robert L., and Laurence J. Silberstein, eds. The Other in Jewish Thought and History: Constructions of Jewish Culture and Identity. New York/London: New York University Press, 1994. Colson, Elizabeth. “Forced Migration and the Anthropological Response.” JRS 16 (2003): 1–18. Conczorowski, Benedikt J. “All the Same as Ezra? Conceptual Differences Between the Texts of Intermarriage in Genesis, Deuteronomy 7 and Ezra.” Pages 89–108 in Mixed Marriages: Intermarriage and Group Identity in the Second Temple Period. Edited by Christian Frevel. New York: T&T Clark, 2011. Connell, Raewyn. Gender and Power: Society, the Person, and Sexual Politics. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1987.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 158

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

159

Bibliography

159

Connell, Raewyn. Gender. SI. Oxford: Polity, 2002. Connell, Raewyn. Gender in World Perspective. 2nd ed. SI. Cambridge: Polity, 2009. Costas, Orlando E. “The Subversiveness of Faith: Esther as a Paradigm for a Liberating Theology.” TER 40 (1988): 66–78. Crawford, Sidnie White. “Esther.” Vol. 3, Pages 855–972 in New Interpreter’s Bible. Edited by Leander Keck. Nashville: Abingdon, 1999. Crawford, Sidnie White, and Leonard J. Greenspoon, eds. The Book of Esther in Modern Research. London: T&T Clark, 2003. Crawford, Sidnie White. “Esther and Judith: Contrasts in Character.” Pages 61–76 in The Book of Esther in Modern Research. Edited by Sidnie W. Crawford and Leonard J. Greenspoon. London: T&T Clark, 2003. Creangă, Ovidiu, ed. Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond. BMW 33. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2010. Creangă, Ovidiu, and Peter-Ben Smit, eds. Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded. HBM. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2014. Creech, David. “Now Where’s the Fun in That? The Humorless Narrator in the Greek Version of Esther.” Biblical Research 52 (2007): 17–40. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” UCLF 140 (1989): 139–67. Crossan, John Dominic. The Dark Interval: Towards a Theology of Story. Niles, IL: Argus Communications, 1975. Croucher, Sarah, “‘A Concubine Is Still a Slave’: Sexual Relations and Omani Colonial Identities in Nineteenth-Century East Africa.” Pages 67–84 in Archaeology of Colonialism: Intimate Encounters and Sexual Effects. Edited by Barbra, L. Voss and Eleanor C. Casella. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Cuéllar, Gregory Lee. Voices of Marginality: Exile and Return in Second Isaiah 40–55 and the Mexican Immigrant Experience. AUS, VII. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. Currie, Mark. Postmodern Narrative Theory. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011. Darr, Katheryn Pfisterer. Isaiah’s Vision and the Family of God. LCBI. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994. Daube, David. “Absalom and the Ideal King.” VT 48, no. 3 (1998): 315–25. Davidovich, Tal. Esther, Queen of the Jews: The Status and Position of Esther in the Old Testament. CB.OTS, 59. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2013. Davidson, Steed V. “Diversity, Difference, and Access to Power in Diaspora: The Case of the Book of Esther.” WAW 29 (2009): 280–7. Davis, Ellen F. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2000. Day, Linda. “Rhetoric and Domestic Violence In Ezekiel 16.” BI 8, no. 3 (2000): 205–30. Day, Linda M. Esther. AOTC. Nashville: Abingdon, 2005. Day, Peggy L. “The Bitch Had It Coming to Her: Rhetoric and Domestic Violence in Ezekiel 16.” BI 8, no. 3 (2000): 231–54. de Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley : University of California, 1984. Dijkstra, Meindert. “Yhwh as Israel’s Gō’ēl: Second Isaiah’s Perspective on Reconciliation and Restitution.” ZABR 5 (1999): 236–57. Dille, Sarah. “Honor Restored: Honor, Shame and God as Redeeming Kinsman in Second Isaiah.” Pages 232–50 in Relating to the Text: Interdisciplinary and Form-Critical Insights on the Bible. Edited by Timothy Sandoval and Carleen Mandolfo. London: T&T Clark, 2003.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 159

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

160

160

Bibliography

Dille, Sarah. Mixing Metaphors: God as Mother and Father in Deutero-Isaiah. LHBOTS. London: T&T Clark, 2004. Donato, Katharine M., Donna Gabaccia, Jennifer Holdaway, Martin Manalansan IV, and Patricia R. Pessar. “A Glass Half Full? Gender in Migration Studies.” IMR 40 (2006): 3–26. Dor, Yonina. “From the Well in Midian to the Baal of Peor: Different Attitudes to Marriage of Israelites to Midianite Women.” Pages 154–69 in Mixed Marriages: Intermarriage and Group Identity in the Second Temple Period. Edited by Christian Frevel. New York/ London: T&T Clark, 2011. Douglas, Mary. Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology. New York: Pantheon, 1970. Drandaki, Anastasia, Demetria Papanikola-Bakirtzi and Anastasia Tourta. Heaven & Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections. Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports/Benaki Museum, 2013. Dryburgh, Marjorie. “Rewriting Collaboration: China, Japan, and the Self in the Diaries of Bai Jianwu.” JAS 68 (2009): 689–714. Eilberg-Schwartz, Howard. The Savage in Judaism: An Anthropology of Israelite Religion and Ancient Judaism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Emmott, Catherine. “Constructing Social Space: Sociocognitive Factors in the Interpretation of Character Relations.” Pages 295–31 in Narrative Theory and the Cognitive Sciences. Edited by David Herman. Stanford, CA: Center for the Study of Language and Information Publications, 2003. Engel, Helmut. Die Susanna-Erzählung. Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1985. Eskenazi, Tamara. “The Missions of Ezra and Nehemiah.” Pages 509–29 in Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period. Edited by Oded Lipschits and Manfred Oeming. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006. Eskenazi, Tamara Cohn, and Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. JPS Commentary on Ruth. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2011. Esler, Philip. “Social-Scientific Models in Biblical Interpretation.” Pages 3–14 in Ancient Israel: The Old Testament in its Social Context. Edited by Philip Esler. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006. Exum, Cheryl. “The Ethics of Biblical Violence Against Women.” Pages 248–71 in The Bible in Ethics: The Second Sheffield Colloquium. Edited by John W. Rogerson et a1. JSOTSup 207. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995. Exum, Cheryl. Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical Narratives. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016 (originally published in 1993). Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, 1963.Fentress-Williams, Judy. Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries:Ruth. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2012. Fewell, Danna Nolan. “Space for Moral Agency in the Book of Ruth” JSOT 40, no. 1 (2015): 79–96. Fewell, Danna Nolan. “The Work of Biblical Narrative.” Pages 3–26 in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Narrative. Edited Danna Nolan Fewell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Fewell, Danna Nolan and Gunn, David Miller. Compromising Redemption: Relating Characters in the Book of Ruth. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1990. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Elena. “Gender and Forced Migration.” Pages 395–408 in The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. Edited by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et al. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 160

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

161

Bibliography

161

Fisch, Harold. “Susanna as Parable: A Response to Piero Boitani.” Pages 35–42 in The Judgment of Susanna: Authority and Witness. Edited by Ellen Spolsky. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996. Fischer, Kurt W., and June Price Tangney. “Self-Conscious Emotions and the Affect Revolution.” Pages 3–22 in Self-Conscious Emotions: The Psychology of Shame, Guilt, Embarrassment, and Pride. Edited by Kurt W. Fischer and June Price Tangney. New York: Guilford Press, 1995. Fitzgerald, Aloysius. “Mythological Background for the Presentation of Jerusalem as a Queen and False Worship as Adultery in the OT.” CBQ 34, no. 4 (1972): 403–16. Fitzgerald, Aloysius. “Btwlt and Bt as Titles.” CBQ 37, no. 2 (1975): 167–83. Fludernik, Monika. Towards a “Natural” Narratology. London/New York: Routledge, 1996. Fludernik, Monika. “Identity/Alterity.” Pages 260–72 in The Cambridge Companion to Narrative. Edited by David Herman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Fox, Michael V. Character and Ideology in the Book of Esther. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1991. Fox, Michael V. “Three Esthers.” Pages 50–60 in The Book of Esther in Modern Research. Edited by Sidnie W. Crawford and Leonard J. Greenspoon. London: T&T Clark, 2003. Frank, Arthur. Letting Stories Breathe: A Socio-Narratology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. Frankfurter, David. Evil Incarnate: Rumors of Demonic Conspiracy and Ritual Abuse in History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. Fretheim, Terence E. Jeremiah. SHBC. Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2002. Freud, Sigmund. “Taboo of Virginity.” Vol. 11, pages 193–207 in The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. London: Hogarth, 1957–74. Frevel, Christian. “The Discourse on Intermarriage in the Hebrew Bible.” Pages 1–14 in Mixed Marriages: Intermarriage and Group Identity in the Second Temple Period. Edited by Christian Frevel. New York: T&T Clark, 2011. Friedrich, Klaus-Peter. “Collaboration in a ‘Land without a Quisling’: Patterns of Collaboration with the Nazi German Occupation Regime in Poland during World War II.” SR 64 (2005): 711–46. Friesen, Ivan D. Isaiah. BCBC. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 2009. Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. In the Wake of the Goddesses: Theology, the Humanities, and the Education of Seminarians. New York: Free Press, 1992. Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of Their Stories. New York: Schocken 2002. Fuchs, Esther. “Reclaiming the Hebrew Bible for Women: The Neoliberal Turn in Contemporary Feminist Scholarship.” JFSR 24 (2008): 45–65. Galambush, Julie. Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel: The City as Yahweh’s Wife. SBLDS. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992. Gera, Deborah Levine. “Judah and Judith.” Pages 25–38 in Israel’s Land: Papers Presented to Israel Shatzman on His Jubilee. Edited by Joseph Geiger, Hannah M. Cotton, and Guy D. Stiebel. Hebrew. Jerusalem: The Open University of Israel and Israel Exploration Society, 2009. Gibson, E. Leigh, and Shelly Matthews, eds. Violence in the New Testament. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2005. Gingrich, Andre. “Conceptualizing Identities: Anthropological Alternatives to Essentializing Difference and Moralizing Othering.” Pages 3–17 in Grammars of Identity/Alterity: A Structural Approach. Edited by Andew Gingrich and Gerd Baumann. New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2004.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 161

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

162

162

Bibliography

Giri, Bed Prasad. “Diasporic Postcolonialism and Its Antinomies.” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 14 (2005): 215–35. Goldingay, John. Isaiah. NIBC. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2001. Goldingay, John. The Message of Isaiah 40–55: A Literary-Theological Commentary. London: T&T Clark, 2005. Goldingay, John. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 56–66. ICC. London: Bloomsbury, 2014. Gombrich, E. H. “Icones Symbolicae: The Visual Image in Neo-Platonic Thought.” JWCI 11 (1948): 163–92.Goodman, Grant K. “Review of Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II. By Yoshimi Yoshiaki (Columbia: Columbia Universtiy Press, 2000)” JJSa 30 (2004): 183–6. Goodman, Grant K. “Review of Japan’s Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during World War II and the US Occupation. By Yuki Tanaka (London and New York: Routledge, 2002)” JJSa 30 (2004): 183–6. Gordon, Pamela, and Washington, Harold C. “Rape as a Military Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible.” Pages 308–25 in A Feminist Companion to the Latter Prophets. FCB 8. Edited by Athalya Brenner. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995. Greenberg, Moshe. Ezekiel 1–20. AB 22l. Garden City, NY and London: Doubleday, 1983. Greenberg, Moshe. Ezekiel 21–37: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 22A. London: Yale University Press, 2004. Grillo, Jennie. “Showing Seeing in Susanna: The Virtue of the Text.” Prooftexts 35 (2015): 250–70. Grossman, Jonathan. Esther: The outer Narrative and the Hidden Reading. Siphrut 6. Winona Lake, Eisenbrauns, 2011. Grosz, Elizabeth. “Bodies and Knowledges: Feminism and the Crisis of Reason.” Pages 187–215 in Feminist Epistemologies. Edited by Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter. TG. New York: Routledge, 1993. Gruen, Erich. Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1998. Guenther, Allen. “A Typology of Israelite Marriage: Kinship, Socio-Economic, and Religious Factors.” JSOT 29, no. 4 (2005): 387–407. Guest, Deryn. Beyond Feminist Biblical Studies. BMW 47. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2012. Gur-Klein, Thalia. Sexual Hospitality in the Hebrew Bible: Patronymic, Meronymic, Legitimate and Illegitimate Relations. Equinox, Sheffield, 2013. Hacham, Noah. “3 Maccabees and Esther: Parallels, Intertextuality, and Diaspora Identity.” JBL 126 (2007): 765–85. Halvorson-Taylor, Martien A. Enduring Exile: The Metaphorization of Exile in the Hebrew Bible. VTSup 141. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Halvorson-Taylor, Martien A. “Secrets and Lies: Secrecy Notices (Esther 2:10, 20) and Diasporic Identity in the Book of Esther.” JBL 131 (2012): 467–85.Hancock, Rebecca S. Esther and the Politics of Negotiation: Public and Private Spaces and the Figure of the Female Royal Counselor. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2013. Hanson, Paul D. Isaiah 40–66. Interpretation. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1995. Haran, Menahem. Ben Rishonot La-Hadashot (between Rishonot (Former Prophecies) and Hadashot (New Prophecies): A Literary-Historical Study of Prophecies in Isaiah 40–48). Jerusalem: Magnes/Hebrew University, 1963.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 162

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

163

Bibliography

163

Harding, Sandra. “Rethinking Standpoint Epistemology: What Is ‘Strong Objectivity’?” Pages 49–82 in Feminist Epistemologies. Edited by Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter. TG. New York: Routledge, 1993. Harrell-Bond, Barbara E. Imposing Aid: Emergency Assistance to Refugees. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Heffelfinger, Katie M. I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes: Lyric Cohesion and Conflict in Second Isaiah. BibInt 105. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Herman, David. Story Logic: Problems and Possibilities of Narrative. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska, 2002. Herman, David. “Stories as a Tool for Thinking.” Pages 163–92 in Narrative Theory and the Cognitive Sciences. Edited by David Herman. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications, 2003. Herrera, Gioconda. “Gender and International Migration: Contributions and Cross-Fertilizations.” ARS 39 (2013): 471–89. Hoeder, Dirk. “Migration Research in Global Perspective: Recent Developments.” SGO 9 (2012): 63–84. Holladay, William L. “On Every High Hill and under Every Green Tree.” VT 11, no. 2 (1961): 170–6. Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette, ed. Gender and U.S. Immigration: Contemporary Trends. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. Hopwood, Derek. Sexual Encounters in the Middle East: The British, the French, and the Arabs. Reading: Ithaca Press, 1999. Hornsby, Teresa J. and Ken Stone, eds. Bible Trouble: Queer Reading at the Boundaries of Biblical Scholarship. SS 67. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011. Hornsby, Teresa J., and Guest, Deryn. Transgender, Intersex, and Biblical Interpretation. SS 83. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016. House, Paul R. Song of Songs/Lamentations. WBC 23b. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004. Humphrey, Edith McEwan. The Ladies and the Cities: Transformation and Apocalyptic Identity in Joseph and Asenath, 4 Ezra, the Apocalypse and The Shepherd of Hermas. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995. Humphreys, W. L. “A Life-Style for Diaspora: A Study of the Tales of Esther and Daniel.” JBL 92 (1973): 211–23. Ilan, Tal. Integrating Women into Second Temple History. TSAJ 76. Tuebingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999. Jacobsen, Karen. “Livelihoods and Forced Migration.” Pages 99–111 in The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. Edited by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et al. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Japhet, Sara. “People and Land in the Restoration Period.” Pages 103–25 in Das Land Israel in biblischer Zeit. Edited by Georg Strecker. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983. Johnstone, Barbara. Stories, Community, and Place: Narratives From Middle America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Jones, Bruce William. “Two Misconceptions about the Book of Esther.” CBQ 39 (1977): 171–81. Joyce, Paul M. Ezekiel: A Commentary. LHBOTS 482; London: T&T Clark, 2007. Kabbani, Rana. Imperial Fictions: Europe’s Myths of Orient. London: Saqi Books, 2008. Kagwanja, Peter Mwangi. “Ethnicity, Gender, and Violence in Kenya.” Forced Migration Review 9 (2000): 22–5.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 163

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

164

164

Bibliography

Kamionkowski, S. Tamar. Gender Reversal and Cosmic Chaos: A Study on the Book of Ezekiel. JSOTSup 368. London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003. Kiefer, Jörn. Exil und Diaspora. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2005. Kimmel, Michael. “After Fifteen Years: The Impact of the Sociology of Masculinity on the Masculinity of Sociology.” Pages 93–109 in Men, Masculinities & Social Theory. Edited by Jeff Hearn and David Morgan. PMET. London: Unwin Hyman, 1990. Klein, Lillian. From Deborah to Esther: Sexual Politics in the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003. Koller, Aaron. Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought. Cambridge University Press, 2014. Konstan, David. “Shame in Ancient Greece.” SR 70, no. 4 (2003): 1031–60. Koosed, Jennifer L. Gleaning Ruth: A Biblical Heroine and Her Afterlives. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2011. Kossmann, Ruth. Die Esthernovelle: Vom Erzahlten zur Erzahlung: Studien zur Traditions und Redaktionsgeschichte des Estherbuches. VTSup 79. Leiden: Brill, 2000. Kraemer, Ross. When Aseneth Met Joseph. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay in Abjection. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. LaCocque, Andre. Esther Regina: A Bakhtinian Reading. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2008. Laniak, Timothy S. Shame and Honor in the Book of Esther. SBLDS 165. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998. Laniak, Timothy S. “Esther’s Volkcentrism and the Reframing of Post-Exilic Judaism.” Pages 77–90 in The Book of Esther in Modern Research. Edited by Sidnie W. Crawford and Leonard J. Greenspoon. London: T&T Clark, 2003. Lapsley, Jacqueline E. “Shame and Self-Knowledge.” Pages 143–74 in The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives. Edited by Margaret S. Odell and John T. Strong. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000. Leach, Edmund. “Anthropological Aspects of Language: Animal Categories and Verbal Abuse.” Pages 153–65 in Reader in Comparative Religion: An Anthropological Approach. Edited by William Lessa and Evon Vogt. New York: Harper & Row, 1979. Leisering, Christina. Susanna und der Sündenfall der Ältesten: Eine vergleichende Studie zu den Geschlechterkonstruktionen der Septuaginta-und Theodotionfassung von Dan 13 und ihren intertextuellen Bezügen. EZ 19. Wien: LIT, 2008. Lemos, Tracy M. Marriage Gifts and Social Change in Ancient Palestine, 1200 BCE to 200 CE. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Lemos, Tracy M. “The Emasculation of Exile: Hypermasculinity and Feminization in the Book of Ezekiel.” Pages 377–93 in Interpreting Exile: Displacement and Deportation in Biblical and Modern Contexts. Edited by Brad E. Kelle, Frank Richtel Ames, and Jacob L. Wright. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011. Lemos, Tracy M. “‘They Have Become Women’: Judean Diaspora and Postcolonial Theories of Gender and Migration.” Pages 81–109 in Social Theory and the Study of Israelite Religion: Essays in Retrospect and Prospect. Edited by Saul M. Olyan. RBS 71. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012. Lemos, Tracy M. “Were Israelite Women Chattel? Shedding New Light on an Old Question.” Pages 227–41 in Worship, Women, and War: Essays in Honor of Susan Niditch. Edited by John J. Collins, T. M. Lemos, and Saul M. Olyan. BJS 357. Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 2015. Levenson, Jon D. Esther, a Commentary. OTL. Lousiville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 164

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

165

Bibliography

165

Levine, Amy-Jill. “Sacrifice and Salvation: Otherness and Domestication in the Book of Judith.” Pages 17–30 in “No-One Spoke Ill of Her”: Essays on Judith. Edited by James C. VanderKam. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992. Levine, Amy-Jill. “‘Hemmed in on Every Side’: Jews and Women in the Book of Susanna.” Pages 303–23 in A Feminist Companion to Esther, Judith and Susanna. Edited by Athalya Brenner. FCB 7. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997. Lewis, Helen. “Online Abuse, Leaked Nudes and Revenge Porn: This Is Nothing Less than Terrorism against Women.” New Statesman 143.5226 (2014): 25. Linafelt, Tod. “Narrative and Poetic Art in the Book of Ruth.” Interpretation 64, no. 2 (2010): 118–29. Linafelt, Tod. “Poetry and Biblical Narrative.” Pages 84–92 in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Narrative. Edited by Danna Nolan Fewell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Loader, William R. G. The Pseudepigrapha on Sexuality. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011. Loland, Hanne. Silent or Salient Gender: The Interpretation of Gendered God-Language in the Hebrew Bible, Exemplified in Isaiah 42, 46, and 49. FAT II.32. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008. Longino, Helen. “Subjects, Power and Knowledge: Description and Prescription in Feminist Philosophies of Science.” Pages 101–20 in Feminist Epistemologies. Edited by Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter. TG. New York: Routledge, 1993. Lubitch, Rivkah. “A Feminist’s Look at Esther.” Judaism 42, no. 4 (1993): 438–46. Lundbom, Jack R. Jeremiah 37–52. AB 21C. New York: Doubleday, 2004. Magdalene, F. Rachel. “Ancient Near Eastern Treaty-Curses and the Ultimate Texts of Terror: A Study of the Language of Divine Sexual Abuse in the Prophetic Corpus.” Pages 326–85 in Feminist Companion to the Latter Prophets. Edited by Athalya Brenner. FCB 8. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995. Maier, Christl M. Daughter Zion, Mother Zion: Gender, Space, and the Sacred in Ancient Israel. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008. Martinez, Aquiles Ernesto. “Mordecai and Esther: Migration Lessons from Persian Soil.” LAT 4 (2009): 16–50. Matthews, Victor H., and Don C. Benjamin. Social World of Ancient Israel 1250–587 BCE. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993. McKenzie, Steven L. All God’s Children: A Biblical Critique of Racism. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997. Mein, Andrew. Ezekiel and the Ethics of Exile. OTM. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Meinhold, Arndt. “Die Gattung der Josephsgeschichte und des Estherbuches: Diasporanovella I.” ZAW 87 (1975): 306–24. Meinhold, Arndt. “Die Gattung der Josephsgeschichte und des Estherbuches: Diasporanovella II.” ZAW 88 (1976): 72–93. Meyers, Carol. “Esther.” Pages 324–30 in The Oxford Bible Commentary. Edited by John Barton and John Muddiman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Meyers, Carol L. Households and Holiness: The Religious Culture of Israelite Women. Facets. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005. Meyers, Carol L. “Contesting the Notion of Patriarchy: Anthropology and the Theorizing of Gender in Ancient Israel.” Pages 83–105 in A Question of Sex? Gender and Difference in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond. Edited by Deborah W. Rooke. HBM 14. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2007.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 165

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

166

166

Bibliography

Meyers, Carol L. “In the Household and Beyond: The Social World of Israelite Women.” ST 63 (2009): 19–41. Meyers, Carol L. Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.Meyers, Carol L. “Was Ancient Israel a Patriarchal Society?” JBL 133 (2014): 8–27. Mills, Mary E., “Household and Table: Diasporic Boundaries in Daniel and Esther.” CBQ 68 (2006): 408–20. Milne, Pamela J., “What Shall We Do with Judith? A Feminist Reassessment of a Biblical ‘Heroine.’ ” Semeia 62 (1993): 37–58. Mittman-Richert, Ulrike. “Einführung zu den historischen und legendarischen Erzählungen.” JSHRZ 6, no. 1 (2000): 114–38. Mobley, Gregory. The Empty Men: The Heroic Tradition of Ancient Israel. New York: Doubleday, 2005. Moi, Toril. Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory. London: Methuen, 1985. Moore, Carey A. Daniel, Esther and Jeremiah: The Additions. AB 44. Garden City : Doubleday, 1977. Morris, A. E. “The Purpose of the Book of Esther.” ET 42 (1930–31): 124–8. Moughtin-Mumby, Sharon. Sexual and Marital Metaphors in Hosea, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. OTM. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Mosala, Itumeleng J. “The Implications of the Text of Esther for African Women’s Struggle for Liberation in South Africa.” Semeia 59 (1992): 129–37. Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Pages 14–27 in Visual and Other Pleasures. Edited by Laura Mulvey. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Nägelsbach, Carl Wilhelm Eduard. The Prophet Isaiah: An Exegetical and Doctrinal Commentary. Translated by Samuel T. Lowrie and Dunlop Moore. LCHS. London: Charles Scribner, 1871. Nawyn, Stephanie J. “Gender and Migration: Integrating Feminist Theory into Migration Studies.” SC 4 (2010): 749–65. Nawyn, Stephanie J., Anna Reosti, and Linda Gjokaj. “Gender in Motion: How Gender Percipitates International Migration.” Pages 175–202 in Perceiving Gender Locally, Globally, and Intersectionally. Edited by Vasilikie P. Demos and Marcia Texler Segal. AGR 13. Bingley : Emerald Jai, 2009. Nelson, Lynn Hankinson. “Epistemological Communities.” Pages 121–59 in Feminist Epistemologies. Edited by Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter. TG. New York: Routledge, 1993. Newman, Jesse. “Narrating Displacement: Oral Histories of Sri Lankan Women.” Refugee Studies Centre Working Papers 15 (2003): 1–59. Newman, Judith. “The Scripturalization of Prayer in Exilic and Second Temple Judaism.” Pages 7–24 in Prayers that Cite Scripture. Edited by James L. Kugel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. Niditch, Susan and Robert Doran., “The Success Story of the Wise Courtier: A Formal Approach.” JBL 92 (1977): 179–93. Niditch, Susan. A Prelude to Biblical Folklore: Underdogs and Tricksters. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000. Niditch, Susan. “My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man”: Hair and Identity in Ancient Israel. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Nielsen, Kirsten. Ruth. Translated by Edward Broadbridge. OTL. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 166

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

167

Bibliography

167

Nolte, S. Philip, and Pierre J. Jordaan. “Esther’s Prayer in Additions to Esther: Addition C to LXX Esther—An Embodied Cognition Approach.” APB 20 (2009): 293–309. Nowell, Irene. Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther. NCBC. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2013. O’Brien, Julia M. Challenging Prophetic Metaphor: Theology and Ideology in the Prophets. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2008. Olyan, Saul M. Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Oosting, Reinoud. The Role of Zion/Jerusalem in Isaiah 40–55: A Corpus-Linguistic Approach. SSN 59. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Orr, Gregory. Poetry as Survival. The Life of Poetry: Poets on Their Art and Craft. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2002. Osgood, S. J. “Women and the Inheritance of Land in Early Israel.” Pages 45–7 in Women in the Biblical Tradition. Edited by George J. Brooke. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1992. Oswalt, John. The Book of Isaiah, Chapters 40–66. NICOT. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997. Patton, Corinne. “‘Should Our Sister Be Treated Like a Whore?’ A Response to Feminist Critiques of Ezekiel 23.” Pages 221–38 in The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives. Edited by Margaret S. Odell and John T. Strong. SBLSymS 9. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000. Paul, Shalom M. “Biblical Analogues to Middle Assyrian Law.” Pages 333–50 in Religion and Law: Biblical-Judaic and Islamic Perspectives. Edited by Erwin B. Firmage, Bernard G. Weiss, and John W. Welch. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990. Paul, Shalom M. Isaiah 40–66: Translation and Commentary. ECC. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012. Pedraza, Silvia. “Women and Migration: The Social Consequences of Gender.” ARS 17 (1991): 303–25. Pervo, Richard. “Aseneth and Her Sisters: Women in Jewish Narrative and in the Greek Novels.” Pages 145–60 in “Women Like This”: New Perspectives on Jewish Women in the Greco-Roman World. Edited by Amy-Jill Levine. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991. Pitt-Rivers, Julian. “Honour and Social Status.” Pages 19–77 in Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society. Edited by John George Peristiany. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. Pope, Marvin H. “Mixed Marriage Metaphor in Ezekiel 16.” Pages 384–99 in Fortunate the Eyes That See: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Seventieth Birthday. Edited by Astrid B. Beck and David Noel Freedman. Grand Rapids, MI/ Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 1995. Powell, Stephanie Day. “Do Not Press Me to Leave You: Narrative Desire in the Book of Ruth.” PhD diss., Drew University, 2015. Pseudo-Chrysostom. “On Susanna.” PG 56: 589–94. Rakel, Claudia. “Judith: About a Beauty Who is Not What She Pretends to Be.” Pages 515–30 in Feminist Biblical Interpretation. Edited by Luise Schottroff, Marie-Theres Wacker, and Martin Rumscheidt. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012. Reinhartz, Adele. “Better Homes and Gardens: Women and Domestic Space in the Books of Judith and Susanna.” Pages 325–39 in Text and Artifact in the Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity: Essays in Honor of Peter Richardson. Edited by Stephen G. Wilson and Michel Desjardins. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2000.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 167

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

168

168

Bibliography

Renkema, Johan. Lamentations. Translated by Brian Doyle. Leuven: Peeters, 1998. Rigg, Bryan Mark. Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2002. Roberts, Alexander, and Donaldson, James. Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1905. Robinson, Ronald. “Non-European Foundations of European Imperialism: Sketch for a Theory of Collaboration.” Pages 117–42 in Studies in the Theory of Imperialism. Edited by Roger Owen and Bob Sutcliffe. London: Longman Group, 1972. Rook, John. “Making Widows: The Patriarchal Guardian at Work.” BTB 27, no. 1 (1997): 10–15. Rom-Shiloni, Dalit. “Ezekiel as the Voice of the Exiles and Constructor of Exilic Ideology.” HUCA 76 (2005): 1–45. Rom-Shiloni, Dalit. Exclusive Inclusivity: Identity Conflicts between the Exiles and the People Who Remained (6th–5th Centuries BCE). LHBOTS 543. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013. Rosenthal, Ludwig. “Die Josephsgeschichte mit den Buchern Esther und Daniel verglichen.” ZAW 15 (1895): 278–84. Roslof, Edward E. Red Priests: Renovationism, Russian Orthodoxy, and Revolution, 1905–1946. Indianopolis: Indiana University Press, 2002. Rothenbusch, Ralf. “The Question of Mixed Marriages Between the Poles of Diaspora and Homeland: Observations in Ezra-Nehemiah.” Pages 60–77 in Mixed Marriages: Intermarriage and Group Identity in the Second Temple Period. Edited by Christian Frevel. New York: T&T Clark, 2011. Safran, William. “Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return.” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 1 (1991): 83–99. Sakenfeld, Katharine Doob. Just Wives?Stories of Power and Resistance in the Old Testament and Today. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003. Salters, Robert B. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Lamentations. ICC. New York: T&T Clark, 2010. Sawyer, Deborah F. “Gender Strategies in Antiquity: Judith’s Performance” FT 28 (2001): 9–26. Sawyer, John F. A. “Daughter of Zion and Servant of the Lord in Isaiah: A Comparison.” JSOT 44 (1989): 89–107. Schmidt, David Andrew. Ianfu, The Comfort Women of the Japanese Imperial Army of the Pacific War: Broken Silence. JSa 10. Edwin Mellen: Lewiston, 2000. Schmitt, John J. “The Motherhood of God and Zion as Mother.” RB 92 (1985): 557–69. Schwartz, Regina. The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Schwartz, Seth. “Israel and the Nations Roundabout: 1 Maccabees and the Hasmonean Expansion.” JJS 42 (1991): 16–38. Scott, James. The Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987. Scott, James. Domination and the Art of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. Scott, Joan Wallach. “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis.” Pages 152–80 in Feminist Epistemologies. Edited by Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter. TG. New York: Routledge, 1993.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 168

10/19/2017 8:04:07 PM

169

Bibliography

169

Sedgwick, Eve. “Shame, Theatricality and Queer Performativity.” Pages 35–66 in Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity. Edited by Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick and Adam Frank. SQ. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003. Seitz, Christopher R. Zion’s Final Destiny: The Development of the Book of Isaiah—A Reassessment of Isaiah 36–39. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1991. Sen, Amartya. Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny. New York: Norton, 2006. Setel, Drorah “Prophets and Pornography: Female Sexual Imagery in Hosea.” Pages 86–95 in Feminist Interpretation of the Bible. Edited by Letty M. Russell. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985. Shectman, Sarah. Women in the Pentateuch: A Feminist and Source-Critical Analysis. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009. Shepherd, David. “Violence in the Fields? Translating, Reading, and Revising in Ruth 2.” CBQ 63, no. 3 (2001): 444–63. Shields, Mary E. “Multiple Exposures: Body Rhetoric and Gender Characterization in Ezekiel 16.” JFSR 14, no. 1 (1998): 5–18. Smith-Christopher, Daniel L. “Between Ezra and Isaiah: Exclusion, Transformation, and Inclusion of the ‘Foreigner’ in Post-Exilic Biblical Theology.” Pages 117–42 in Ethnicity and the Bible. Edited by Mark Brett. Leiden: Brill, 1996. Smith-Christopher, Daniel. Biblical Theology of Exile. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2002. Smith-Christopher, Daniel L. “Ezekiel in Abu-Ghraib: Rereading Ezekiel 16:37–39 in the Context of Imperial Conquest.” Pages 141–57 in Ezekiel’s World: Wrestling with a Tiered Reality. Edited by Stephen L. Cook and Corrine L. Patton. SBLMS. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Smith, Gary V. Isaiah 40–66. NAC. Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2009. Smith, Jonathan Z. “What a Difference a Difference Makes.” Pages 3–48 in “To See Ourselves as Others See Us”: Christians, Jews, and “Others” in Late Antiquity. Edited by Jacob Neusner and Ernest S. Frerichs. Chico, CA.: Scholars Press, 1985. Soh, C. Sarah. The Comfort Women: Sexual Violence and Postcolonial Memory in Korea and Japan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Song, Angeline. “Heartless Bimbo or Subversive Role Model?: A Narrative (Self) Critical Reading of the Character of Esther.” Dialog 49 (2010): 56–69. Southwood, Katherine E. Ethnicity and the Mixed Marriage Crisis in Ezra 9–10: An Anthropological Approach. OTM. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Southwood, Katherine E. “Will Naomi’s Nation be Ruth’s Nation?: Ethnic Translation as a Metaphor for Ruth’s Assimilation within Judah.” Humanities 3 (2014): 102–31. Sparks, Kenton L. Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel: Prolegomena to the Study of Ethnic Sentiments and Their Expression in the Hebrew Bible. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1998. Stassen, S. L. “Marriage (and Related) Metaphors in Isaiah 54:1–17.” JS 6 (1994): 57–73. Steck, Odil Hannes. “Zion als Gelände und Gestalt: Überlegungen zur Wahrnehmung Jerusalems als Stadt und Frau im Alten Testament.” Pages 126–48 in Gottesknecht und Zion: Gesammelte Aufsätze zu Deuterojesaja. Edited by Odil Hannes Steck. FAT 4. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992. Stern, Elsie, “Esther and the Politics of Diaspora.” JQR 100 (2010): 25–53. Stiebert, Johanna. The Construction of Shame in the Hebrew Bible: The Prophetic Contribution. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 169

10/19/2017 8:04:08 PM

170

170

Bibliography

Stromberg, Jake. Isaiah after Exile: The Author of Third Isaiah as Reader and Redactor of the Book. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Stroud, Scott R. “The Dark Side of the Online Self: A Pragmatist Critique of the Growing Plague of Revenge Porn.” JMME 29, no. 3 (2014): 168–83. Suriano, Matthew J. “Death, Disinheritance, and Job’s Kinsman-Redeemer,” JBL 129, no. 1 (2010): 49–66. Tanaka, Yuki. Japan’s Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during World War II and the US Occupation. London and NY: Routledge, 2003. Tanenbaum Leora. I Am Not a Slut: Slut-Shaming in the Age of the Internet. New York: Harper Perennial, 2015. Tan, Nancy. “Breaking the Silence of the Dismissed Foreign Wives and Children.” Pages 84–93 in Crossing Textual Boundaries. Edited by Lung Kwong Lo and Ying Zhang. Hong Kong: Divinity School of Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010, Tan, Nancy. “Judith’s Embodiment as a Reversal of the Unfaithful Wife of YHWH in Ezekiel 16.” JSP 21, no.1 (2011): 21–35. Tan, Nancy. “Hong Kong Sex Workers: Mothers Reading 1 Kgs 3:16–28.” Pages 157–78 in Honouring the Past, Looking to the Future: Essays from the 2014 International Congress of Ethnic Chinese Biblical Scholars. Edited by Gale A. Yee and John Y. H. Yieh. Hong Kong: Divinity School of Chung Chi College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2016, Tiemeyer, Lena-Sofia. For the Comfort of Zion: The Geographical and Theological Location of Isaiah 40–55. VTSup 139. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Tiemeyer, Lena-Sofia. “Review of Reinoud Oosting: The Role of Zion/Jerusalem in Isaiah 40–55: A Corpus Linguistic Approach.” JHS 13 (2013). Tomkins, Silvan. “Shame-Humiliation and Contempt-Disgust.” Pages 133–78 in Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins Reader. Edited by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Adam Frank. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995. Tull Patricia, K., Remember the Former Things: The Recollection of Previous Texts in Second Isaiah. SBLDS 161. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997. Tull, Patricia K. Esther and Ruth: Interpretation Bible Studies. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003. van Dijk-Hemmes, Fokkelien. “The Metaphorization of Woman in Prophetic Speech: An Analysis of Ezekiel XXIII.” VT 43, no. 2 (1993): 162–70. van Dijk-Hemmes, Fokkelien. “The Metaphorization of Woman in Prophetic Speech: An Analysis of Ezekiel 23.” Pages 167–76 in On Gendering Texts: Female and Male Voices in the Hebrew Bible. Edited by Athalya Brenner and F. van Dijk-Hemmes. BIS 1. Leiden: Brill, 1993. Van Houten, Christiana. The Alien in Israelite Law. JSOTSup 107. Sheffield: JSOT, 1991. Van Wijk-Bos, Johanna W. H. Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. WBC. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998. Van Wijk-Bos, Johanna W. H. Ruth and Esther: Women in Alien Lands. Nashville: Abingdon, 2001. Voss, Barbara L. “Sexual Effects: Postcolonial and Queer Perspectives on the Archaeology of Sexuality and Empire.” Pages 11–28 in The Archaeology of Colonialism: Intimate Encounters and Sexual Effects. Edited by Barbara L. Voss and Eleanor Conclin Casella. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012. Voss, Barbara L., and Eleanor Conclin Casella. The Archaeology of Colonialism: Intimate Encounters and Sexual Effects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 170

10/19/2017 8:04:08 PM

171

Bibliography

171

Voutira, Eftihia, and Barbara E. Harrell-Bond. “In Search of the Locus of Trust: The Social World of the Refugee Camp.” Pages 207–24 in Mistrusting Refugees. Edited by E.V. Daniel and J. C. Knudsen. Berkley : University of California Press, 1995. Ward, James Mace. “Legitimate Collaboration: The Administration of Santo Tomas Internment Camp and Its Histories, 1942–2003.” PHR 77 (2008): 159–201. Watanabe, Kazuko. “Trafficking in Women’s Bodies. Then and Now: The Issue of Military ‘Comfort Women.’” WSQ 27 (1999): 19–31. Weems, Renita. “Gomer: Victim of Violence or Victim of Metaphor?” Semeia 47 (1989): 87–104. Weems, Renita. Battered Love: Marriage, Sex, and Violence in the Hebrew Prophets. OBT. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995. Westermann, Claus. Isaiah 40–66: A Commentary. OTL. London: SCM Press, 1969. Westermann, Claus. Genesis 12–36: A Commentary. Translated by John J. Scullion S. J. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1985. White, Sidnie Ann. “Esther: A Feminine Model for Jewish Diaspora.” Pages 161–77 in Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel. Edited by Peggy Day. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989. Whybray, R. Norman. Isaiah 40–66. NCB. Greenwood, SC: Attic, 1975. Williams, Bernard. Shame and Necessity. Berkeley : University of California Press, 1993. Willis, John T. “National Beauty and Yahweh’s Glory as a Dialectical Key to Ezekielian Theology.” HBT 34, no. 1 (2012): 1–18. Wills, Lawrence M. The Jew in the Court of the Foreign King: Ancient Jewish Court Legends. HDR 26. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990. Wills, Lawrence M. The Jewish Novel in the Ancient World. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995. Wills, Lawrence M. Not God’s People: Insiders and Outsiders in the Biblical World. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. Wills, Lawrence M. “Jew, Judean, Judaism in the Ancient Period: An Alternative Argument.” JAJ 7, no. 2 (2016): 169–93. Wolfe, Lisa M. Ruth, Esther, Song of Songs, and Judith. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2011. Yee, Gale A. Poor Banished Children of Eve: Woman as Evil in the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2003. Yoshiaki, Yoshimi. Comfort Women: Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II. Translated by Suzanne O’Brien. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Ziarek, Ewa Płonowska. An Ethics of Dissensus: Postmodernity, Feminism, and the Politics of Radical Democracy. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. Zimmerli, Walther. Ezekiel: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel. Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979. Zobel, Hans-Jürgen. “‫ ָגּלָה‬.” TDOT 2: 476–88.

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 171

10/19/2017 8:04:08 PM

172

9780567668424_p1-172.indd 172

10/19/2017 8:04:08 PM

173

A UTHOR I NDEX Abma, R. 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 98 Abraham, K. 153 Ackerman, S. 12, 68, 72, 73 Adams, J. W. 80 Adams, S. L. 36 Ahn, J. J. 95 Albertz, R. 123 Alcoff, L. 67, 69, 74, 75, 76 Andersen, T. D. 89 Anderson, G. A. 84 Armstrong, E. A. 150 Attias, J. C. 44 Bach, A. 99, 100, 105, 114, 119, 124, 125 Baker, C. 50, 51 Bakhtin, M. 24, 25, 40 Bal, M. 16 Baltzer, K. 79, 84 Barton, J. 120 Bates, S. 146, 147 Batto, B. F. 13 Bauer, A. 42, 70 Baumann, G. 42 Beal, T. 105, 120, 121, 124 Bechtel, C. 104, 119 Beck, A. B. 136 Benbassa, E. 44 Benjamin, D. C. 86, 87 Berges, U. 16 Berlin, A. 26, 103, 117, 122 Beuken, W. A. M. Bhabha, H. 45 Biddle, M. E. 13, 21 Black, R. 55 Blenkinsopp, J. 50, 79, 81 Boda, M. J. 97 Bodel, J. 68 Boer, R. 33 Bohak, G. 9 Booth, W. 24

9780567668424_p173-176.indd 173

Brenner, A. 8, 9, 13, 33, 130, 145, 147 Brett, M. G. 21 Brooke, G. J. 36 Brownmiller, S. 101, 102 Brubaker, R. 96 Brueggemann, W. 75, 81, 83, 84, 90, 98 Burchard, C. 9 Burrus, V. 19 Camp, C. 70 Carr, D. 8 Carson, A. 18 Carter, A. 145 Castles, S. 53 Certeau, M. 27, 32, 37 Chapman, C. 8, 68 Chatty, D. 55 Childs, B. S. 85, 89 Claassens, J. M. 70 Clements, R. E. 81 Clines, D. J. A. 62, 63 Code, L. 74 Cohen, R. 96 Cohn, R. L. 42, 44 Collins, J. J. 69 Colson, E. 55, 56, 57 Conczorowski, B. 23 Connell, R. 92 Cook, S. L. 132 Costas, O. E. 121 Cotton, H. M. 51 Crawford, S. W. 104, 110, 111, 115, 119, 120, 122, 126 Creangă, O. 71 Creech, D. 104 Crenshaw, K. 42 Crossan, J. D. 24 Croucher, S. 117, 118 Cuéllar, G. L. 92, 98 Currie, M. 24, 28

10/19/2017 8:17:13 PM

174

174

Author Index

Daniel, E. V. 57 Darr, K. P. 85, 88, 92 Daube, D. 87 Davidovich, T. 117 Davis, E. F. 21 Day, L. M. 104, 111, 114, 122, 136, 140 Day, P. L. 73, 144, 148 Demos, V. P. 93 Desjardins, M. 9 Dijk-Hemmes, F. 130, 141, 142, 145 Dijkstra, M. 85, 88, 152 Dille, S. J. 82, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 95, 97, 98 Donato, K. M. 93 Dor, Y. 24 Doran, R. 100 Douglas, M. 41 Drandaki, A. 12 Edwards, D. 51 Eilberg-Schwartz, H. 42 Emmott, C. 31 Engel, H. 9, 20 Eskenazi, T. C. 26, 28, 36 Esler, P. 56, 64 Exum, C. 16, 17, 55, 63, 64, 65, 66, 130 Fanon, F. 116 Fentress-Williams, J. 26 Fewell, D. N. 29, 33, 37 Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. 55, 58 Firmage, E. B. 15 Fisch, H. 10 Fischer, K. W. 19 Fitzgerald, A. 13 Fludernik, M. 24, 26, 27, 29 Fox, M. V. 102, 104, 111, 115, 119, 120, 122 Frank, A. 23, 37 Franke, C. 68 Frankfurter, D. 44 Freedman, D. N. 136 Frerichs, E. S. 42 Fretheim, T. 72 Freud, S. 43, 44 Frevel, C. 23, 24 Friesen, I. D. 88 Frymer-Kensky, T. 13, 26, 36 Fuchs E. 69

9780567668424_p173-176.indd 174

Galambush, J. 8, 14, 17, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 151 Geiger, J. 51 Gera, D. 50, 51 Gibson, E. L. 42 Gingrich, A. 42 Giri, B. P. 96 Goldingay, J. 79, 81, 83, 85, 89, 90, 92 Gombrich, E. H. 10 Gordon, P. 13 Greenberg, M. 136, 137, 139, 140, 141, 152 Greenspoon, L. 111, 115, 119, 120 Grillo, J. 17 Grossman, J. 104, 110, 111, 112, 120, 123, 125 Grosz, E. 69, 74 Gruen, E. 50 Grütter, N. 17 Guenther, A. 28 Guest, D. 71, 72 Gunn, D. M. 29, 33, 37 Gur-Klein, T. 112, 113 Hacham, N. 121 Hallo, W. W. 13 Halperin, D. M. 18 Halvorson-Taylor, M. A. 85, 86, 87, 88, 91, 92, 95, 120 Hamilton, L. T. 150 Hancock, R. S. 113 Hanson, P. D. 79, 84, 85 Haran, M. 81 Harding, S. 75 Harrell-Bond, B. 57, 58, 59, 64 Hearn J. 71 Heffelfinger, K. M. 79, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 98 Herman, D.24, 26, 27, 31, 39 Herrera, G. 94 Hoeder, D. 93 Holladay, W. L. 12 Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. 92 Hornsby, T. J. 71, 72 House, P. R. 15 Humphrey, E. M. 9 Humphreys, W. L. 100, 119 Ilan, T. 125

10/19/2017 8:17:13 PM

175

Author Index Jacobsen, K. 58 Japhet, S. 47 Johnstone, B. 29 Joyce, P. M. 142 Kabbani, R. 102 Kagwanja, P. M. 58 Kamionkowski, S. T. 143 Kelly, B. E. 142 Kiefer, J. 15, 16 Kimmel, M. 71 Knudsen, J. C. 57 Koller, A. 112, 113, 114, 122, 126 Konstan, D. 17 Koosed, J. L. 33, 37 Kraemer, R. 9 Kristeva, J. 43 Kruschwitz, J. 54 LaCocque, A. 104, 115, 119, 120 Laniak, T. S. 14, 119 Lapsley, J. E. 18 Leach, E. 41 Leisering, C. 8, 10, 12, 20, 21 Lemos, T. M. 42, 68, 69, 142, 145, 153, 154 Lessa, W. 41 Levenson, J. D. 103, 105, 109, 110, 113, 119, 120 Levine, A. J. 8, 9 Linafelt, T. 29, 105 Lipschits, O. 28 Lo, L. K. 55 Loader, W. G, 17 Loland, H. 82, 83, 98 Longino, H. 76 Lubitch, R. 110, 120 Lundbom, J. 72 Magdalene, F. R. 13 Maier, C. 18, 15, 18, 21, 70, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 89 Mandolfo, C. 87 Martinez, A. E. 116, 118 Matthews, S. 42 Matthews, V. H. 86, 87 McKenzie, S. L. 42 Mein, A. 153 Meinhold, A. 100

9780567668424_p173-176.indd 175

175

Melugin, R. F. 21 Meyers, C. L. 68, 120 Milne, P. J. 126 Mittmann-Richert,U. 10 Mobley, G. 47 Moi, T. 44 Moore, C. A. 11 Morgan, D. 71 Mosala, I. J. 111, 113, 125 Moughtin-Mumby, S. 8, 135 Muddiman, J. 120 Mulvey, L. 17 Nägelsbach, C. W. 88 Nawyn, S. J. 92, 93, 94 Nelson, L. H. 75 Neusner, J. 42 Newman, Jesse 58 Newman, Judith 9 Niditch, S. 57, 58, 59, 64, 65, 69, 100, 137, 138 Nielsen, K. 34 Nowell, I. 103, 104 O’Brien, J. M. 68, 70 O’Brien, S. 101 Odell, M. S. 18, 130 Oeming, M. 28 Olyan, S. M. 42, 47, 68, 69, 145 Oosting, R. 81, 83, 85, 95, 96 Orr, G. 77 Osgood, S. J. 36 Oswalt, J. 79, 82, 83, 84, 86, 87, 89, 90 Papanikola-Bakirtzi, D. 12 Patton, C. 130, 131, 132, 133, 154 Paul, S. M. 15, 16, 18, 79, 81 Pedraza, S. 93, 94 Peristiany, J. G. 18 Pervo, R. 9 Pitt-Rivers, J. 18, 19 Pope, M. H. 135, 136 Porter, S. E. 80, 96 Potter, E. 67, 69, 74, 76 Powell, S. D. 31 Reinhartz, A. 9 Renkema, J. 15

10/19/2017 8:17:13 PM

176

176

Author Index

Rigg, B. M. 45 Ritchel, F. 142 Rogerson, J. 130 Rom-Shiloni, D. 29, 95, 133, 134 Rooke, D. W. 68 Rosenthal, L. 100 Rothenbusch, R. 24 Safran, W. 96 Sakenfeld, K. D. 104, 111, 114, 122 Salters, R. B. 16 Sandoval, T. 87 Sawyer, D. F. 124 Sawyer, J. 86 Schmidt, D. 101 Schmitt, J. J. 83 Schwartz, R. 42 Schwartz, S. 51 Scott, James 123 Scott, Joan W. 67 Sedgwick, E. K. 18, 19 Seeley, J. L. 150 Segal, M. T. 93 Seitz, C. R. 82, 91 Sen, A. 44 Setel, T. D. 130, 145 Shectman, S. 58, 59 Shepherd, D. 33 Shields, M. E. 14, 130, 139, 148, 150 Silberstein, L. J. 42 Smit, P. B. 71 Smith, G. V. 89 Smith, J. Z. 42, 43 Smith-Christopher, D. L. 21, 57, 64, 132, 133, 154 Soh, C. S. 101, 106, 107, 108, 109, 115, 116, 121, 123, 124 Song, A. 111, 114, 121, 122 Southwood, K. E. 28, 41, 47, 48, 50, 134, 137 Sparks, K. L. 133, 134 Spolsky, E. 10 Steck, O. H. 13 Stiebel, G. D. 51 Stiebert, J. 8, 14, 147 Stone, K. 71 Stromberg, J. 81, 82 Strong, J. T. 18

9780567668424_p173-176.indd 176

Stroud, S. R. 146, 147 Suriano, M. J. 333 Sweeney, M. A. 21 Tan, N. 9, 55 Tanaka, Y, 101, 102, 105, 106, 108, 109 Tanenbaum, L. 149, 150 Tangney, J. P. 19 Tiemeyer, L. S. 85, 86, 95, 96 Tomkins, S. 18, 19 Tourta, A. 12 Tull, P. K. 21, 104, 111, 113, 114 Tull Willey, P. 80, 84, 87, 91 van Houten, C. 24 VanderKam, J. C. 9 Vermeylen, J. 81 Vogt, E. 41 Voutira, E. 57 Washington, H. C. 13 Watanabe, K. 101, 106, 109 Weems, R. 8, 130 Weiss, B. G. 15 Welch, J. W. 15 Westermann, C. 58, 59, 79, 86 Westfall, C. L. 80 Whybray, R. N. 89 Wijk-Bos, J. W. H. 104, 110 Williams, B. 14, 17, 18 Willis, J. T. 139 Wills, L. M. 11, 47, 50, 100 Wilson, S. G. 9 Winkler, J. J. 18 Wolfe, L. M. 103, 126 Wright, J. 42, 142 Yee, G. A. 42, 55, 131, 132, 133, 138, 140, 141, 142 Yieh, J. Y. H. 55 Yoshiaki, Y. 101, 106 Younger, K. L. 13 Zeitlin, F. I. 18 Zhang, Y. 55 Ziarek, E. P. 73, 76, 77, 78 Zimmerli, W. 139, 143, 151, 152 Zobel, H. J. 15

10/19/2017 8:17:13 PM

177

S UBJECT I NDEX 2 Baruch 9 4 Ezra 9, 10 Abishag 114 Abraham 33, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 64, 76 Adam 114 adoption 38, 39, 136 agency 40, 49, 53, 54, 62, 64, 65, 70, 71, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 115, 116, 118, 121, 124, 126, 127 Ahasuerus 113, 114 anxiety 36, 43, 65, 133, 138, 139, 153 assimilation 24, 26, 27, 39, 133, 137 Babylon 7, 10, 13, 14, 16, 26, 28, 29, 33, 76, 80, 81, 82, 96, 131, 132, 133, 140, 142, 143, 152, 153 barren 80, 83, 85, 86, 91, 95 Bethlehem 24, 26, 27, 30, 31, 35, 36, 39, 77 birth 25, 39, 46, 47, 60, 81, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 135 blame 16, 90, 131, 132 bonds 43, 64, 94 boundaries 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 38, 39, 41, 53, 134, 135, 136, 138, 142, 149, 151, 152, 153 concubine 7, 70, 116, 117, 118, 121 crisis 76, 105 Cyrus 79, 80 Daniel 7, 12, 13, 20, 21, 114, 119, 122, 124 David 25, 27, 28, 39, 76, 77, 114, 115 Delilah 114 Deuteronomy 12, 45, 46, 49, 84, 137, 138 Dinah 9, 70, 112 discontinuity 97 disruption 97, 98 divorce 24, 83, 84, 88, 90

9780567668424_p177-180.indd 177

Egypt 9, 47, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 72, 75, 76, 77, 119, 123, 125, 139, 140, 141, 142, 151 Elkanah 114 Esther 8, 13, 70, 71, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127 ethnic 21, 23, 28, 42, 101, 129, 130, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142, 144, 148, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154 Eve 114 Ezekiel 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 17, 18, 20, 51, 69, 70, 78, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154 Ezra 9, 10, 24, 26, 27, 28, 38, 41, 43, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 78, 124, 134 family 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 31, 33, 36, 38, 53, 54, 58, 60, 61, 62, 64, 66, 70, 81, 82, 85, 88, 89, 90, 91, 82, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 106, 107, 110, 131, 134, 136, 138 foreign 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 44, 45, 46, 47, 60, 61, 62, 66, 74, 77, 89, 100, 102, 112, 121, 122, 125, 129, 130, 132, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154 forsaken 79, 83, 87, 88, 89, 90 Genesis 8, 30, 53, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 64, 65, 86, 112, 113 Hannah 114 home 25, 28, 34, 37, 94, 96, 97, 98, 100, 107, 108, 111, 116, 123, 124, 125, 137, 142 Hosea 8, 10, 11, 12, 20, 51, 70, 135, 136, 138, 139, 145, 150

10/19/2017 8:17:59 PM

178

178

Subject Index

identity 10, 22, 23, 24, 26, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 39, 43, 46, 50, 51, 58, 61, 67, 70, 71, 72, 73, 82, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 122, 124, 133, 134, 136, 137, 138, 139, 142, 148, 153 infidelity 129, 131, 149, 150 Isaac 53, 54, 60, 61, 62, 64 Isaiah 8, 10, 12, 18, 16, 21, 34, 39, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 95, 96, 97, 98, 135 Israel 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20, 21, 36, 38, 47, 48, 49, 51, 63, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 73, 74, 75, 80, 81, 82, 86, 98, 119, 126, 131, 133, 136, 137, 138, 139, 142, 144, 148, 152, 153, 154 Jacob 53, 54, 60, 76, 79, 80, 81, 82, 114 Jeremiah 8, 11, 20, 49, 51, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 135, 136, 138, 139, 143, 145, 150 Jerusalem 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 25, 27, 39, 47, 48, 50, 79, 80, 81, 85, 87, 89, 90, 95, 96, 97, 125, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 143, 144, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152 Jezebel 46, 70 Job 33, 36 Joseph 100, 105, 119, 123, 125 Joseph and Aseneth 9 Joshua 49, 51 Judith 8, 9, 10, 50, 51, 101, 105, 114, 115, 123, 124, 125, 126 Kings 49 Lamentations 7, 8, 10, 15, 18, 21, 97 land 15, 16, 26, 27, 28, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 56, 60, 61, 74, 89, 94, 95, 96, 97, 100, 103, 123, 124, 125, 133, 134, 135, 142, 152 Leah 38, 114 Maccabees 50, 51, 121, 124 marriage 8, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 35, 37, 38, 39, 60, 70, 84, 86, 88, 89, 90, 98, 110, 112, 113, 129, 130, 131, 132, 134, 135, 156, 138, 139, 140, 142, 148, 150, 152, 153, 154 masculinity 64, 65, 67, 69, 70, 71, 72, 94, 98, 105, 107, 108, 130, 132, 133, 140, 142, 143, 148, 153, 154

9780567668424_p177-180.indd 178

migration 15, 25, 28, 32, 33, 41, 43, 47, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 82, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98 Mordecai 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 116, 119, 120, 121, 122, 124 naked 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20, 25, 129, 132, 136, 137, 144, 148, 147, 149, 150, 151 Nehemiah 24, 26, 27, 38, 41, 43, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 78, 124 power 14, 37, 51, 53, 56, 58, 61, 62, 64, 65, 67, 68, 69, 71, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 93, 94, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 121, 122, 124, 125, 130, 133, 139, 140, 142, 143, 147, 148 privilege 112, 118 property 31, 34, 36, 38 purity 23, 27, 45, 70, 71, 124, 126, 136, 137 Rachel 38, 114 rape 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 25, 102, 107, 108, 131, 146, 147, 148, 149 Rebekah 54, 55, 60, 61, 62 redemption 25, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 85, 87, 88, 91, 96, 97 remnant 20, 29, 77, 133, 134 Ruth 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 62, 70, 71, 77, 115, 137, 138 Salome 114 Sarah 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 112 shame 8, 9, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 37, 73, 85, 86, 87, 117, 143, 144, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151 Song of Songs 21, 62, 63, 115 strategy 39, 58, 64, 65, 69, 112, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 144, 148 survival 25, 26, 28, 31, 39, 53, 54, 57, 58, 60, 65, 100, 112, 113, 115, 118, 121, 125 Susanna 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 115, 125 Tamar 38, 86, 115 Tobit 100 trauma 29, 73, 76, 131, 133, 138, 140, 154

10/19/2017 8:17:59 PM

179

Subject Index

179

unfaithful 12, 14, 131, 142, 147

womb 81, 82, 83, 91

Vashti 105, 106, 109, 114 violence 33, 65, 73, 75, 77, 107, 108, 129, 130, 131, 132, 143, 145, 146, 147, 148, 153 virgin 89, 91, 109, 111, 115, 140

Zechariah 50 Zion 10, 13, 21, 75, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 95, 96, 97, 98

9780567668424_p177-180.indd 179

10/19/2017 8:17:59 PM

180

9780567668424_p177-180.indd 180

10/19/2017 8:17:59 PM