Marriage by Capture in the Book of Judges

Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-1-107-14524-5
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 280 Seiten, Format (B × H): 145 mm x 222 mm, Gewicht: 532 g

Reihe: Society for Old Testament Study Monographs

In this book, Katherine E. Southwood offers a new approach to interpreting Judges 21. Breaking away from traditional interpretations of kingship, feminism, or comparisons with Greek or Roman mythology, she explores the concepts of marriage, ethnicity, rape, and power as means of ethnic preservation and exclusion. She also exposes the many reasons why marriage by capture occurred during the post-exilic period. Judges 21 served as a warning against compromise - submission to superficial unity between the Israelites and the Benjaminites. Any such unity would result in drastic changes in the character, culture, and values of the ethnic group 'Israel'. The chapter encouraged post-exilic audiences to socially construct those categorised as 'Benjaminites' as foreigners who do not belong within the group, thereby silencing doubts about the merits of unity.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Southwood, Katherine

Southwood, Katherine E.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Bibelwissenschaften Altes Testament: Exegese, Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kultur- und Sozialethnologie: Allgemeines

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Methods, considerations, and recent approaches to Judges 21; 2. Contextualised outline of the causes for and consequences of marriage by capture; 3. Virginity, marriage, and rape in the Hebrew bible; 4. Judges 21 as an example of marriage by capture in the Hebrew bible; 5. Marriage by capture within an ethnic narrative: Judges 21 as a social critique of superficial unity in the Persian period; 6. Conclusions.

Über Autor(innen)

Southwood, Katherine E.
Katherine E. Southwood is University Lecturer in Old Testament and Fellow and Tutor in Theology and Religion at St John's College, Oxford. Her research focuses on and promotes interdisciplinary approaches to the Hebrew Bible through engagement with social anthropology to understand Israelite marriage practices and the impact of forced and return migrations on Israelite identity. She is the author of Ethnicity and the Mixed Marriage Crisis in Ezra 9-10: An Anthropological Approach (2012).