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| Class Prep |
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The Levite's Concubine
 - In the last class, we read what second-wave feminist Phyllis Trible called a "text of terror" in the Hebrew Bible, the story of Jephthah's rash vow and sacrifice of his daughter.
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- Today, we read a second "text of terror"—the story of a Levite’s concubine, who is gang-raped and killed by fellow Israelites in place of the Levite himself, when the couple stops overnight in an Israelite town and expects more hospitable treatment. (A Levite is a member of the tribe or clan of Levi, one of the twelve "tribes" of ancient Israel. The Levites were responsible for many duties related to the worship of God.)
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- Second-wave feminist Phyllis Trible will guide us through her reading of the text, and Michael Coogan will provide background on rape and prostitution in ancient Near East.
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- We will want to recall this story in a few weeks, when we read the story of Sodom from Genesis 19, since the two stories share much in common.
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- Assigned Readings
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- Primary:
- Secondary:
- Phyllis Trible, "An Unnamed Woman: The Extravagance of Violence," in Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Overtures to Biblical Theology; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 65-91 (Camino)
- Michael Coogan, God & Sex, 143-60 (course textbook)
- online class prep
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- Seminar Leadership Summary and Questions
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- Slides for Lecture
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- Today's Authors
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Phyllis Trible has retired from her academic career, though still serves occasionally at her alma mater, Union Theological Seminary in New York City, as Visiting Professor of Old Testament. She taught at Wake Forest University, Andover Newton Theological School, and Union Seminary, and served as Associate Dean and University Professor at Wake Forest. Trained in rhetorical criticism, she was one of the pioneers of second-wave feminist biblical studies, applying feminist questions to the literary and rhetorical analysis of the Hebrew Bible. |
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Michael D. Coogan is a lecturer on the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament at Harvard Divinity School, Director of Publications for the Harvard Semitic Museum, editor-in-chief of Oxford Biblical Studies Online, and professor emeritus of religious studies at Stonehill College. He has published an introduction to the Old Testament, and has served as editor of The New Oxford Annotated Bible and The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible. |
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- Further Reading
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- Ao, Imlienla. "Dehumanization of the Woman in Judges 19: Through the Eyes of an Indian Woman." Religion and Society 58:1-2 (2013) 1-18.
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- Bembry, Jason. "The Levite's Concubine (Judg 19:2) and the Tradition of Sexual Slander in the Bible: How the Nature of Her Departure Illustrates a Tradition's Tendency." Vetus testamentum 68:4 (2018) 519-39.
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- Hamley, Isabelle. "'Dis(re)membered and Unaccounted For': פילגש in the Hebrew Bible." Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 42:4 (2018) 415-34.
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- Harding, James E. "Homophobia and Masculine Domination in Judges 19–21." The Bible and Critical Theory 12:2 (2016) 41-74.
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- Korpman, Matthew J. "Can Anything Good Come from Sodom?: A Feminist and Narrative Critique of Lot's Daughteres in Gen. 19:30-38." Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 43:3 (2019) 334-42.
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- Kuja, Ryan. "Remembering the Body: Misogyny through the Lens of Judges 19." Feminist Theology 25:1 (2016) 89-95.
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- Parker, Julie Faith. "Re-membering the Dismembered: Piecing Together Meaning from Stories of Women and Body Parts in Ancient Near Eastern Literature." Biblical Interpretation 23:2 (2015) 174-90.
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- Scholz, Susanne. Sacred Witness: Rape in the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010.
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- Stiebert, Johanna. Rape Myths, the Bible, and #MeToo, Rape Culture, Religion and the Bible. New York: Routledge, 2019.
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- Smith, Mitzi J. "Reading the Story of the Levite's Concubine through the Lens of Modern-day Sex Trafficking." Ashland Theological Journal 41 (2009) 15-33.
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- Waters, Sonia. "Reading Sodom through Sexual Violence against Women." Interpretation 71:3 (2017) 274-83.
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- Acknowledgements
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