Sleeping with the Enemy: Recent Scholarship on Sexuality in the Book of Judges

Abstract

Reviewing the publications of the last three decades, this article demonstrates that the period in question has been predictably marked by sharply increased attention to the sexual aspects of the book of Judges, and especially by sustained attempts to discover sexuality in the texts that had been commonly read with little to no reference to it. Refreshing as it is in many respects, this trend suffers from multiple vulnerabilities, including the exegetes' tendency to stretch semantics of the biblical lexemes, ignore the syntactic layout and context of the discussed fragments, rely on problematic sexual symbolism, and produce interpretations that are less than edifying for contemporary Western audiences. As a result, much, although by no means all, of the recent quest for sexuality in Judges is unsustainable, as far as both the text and the reader are concerned.

Matrices of motherhood in Judges 5

“… 25. The fact that ‘יתד‎’ is a feminine word (as Frolov appropriately points out) does not, in my opinion, preclude seeing it as a phallic instrument (Frolov, 2013: 319), but in fact enhances the irony of the fact that the honor for the killing is bestowed on a woman. Seeman (2004: 19) proposes that killing with a tent-peg might be seen as a typically ‘motherly’ way to kill. …”

“… 23. Sasson (2012) critiques this tendency, arguing that there ‘is nothing to encourage a sexually fraught interpretation’, (275) See also (Frolov, 2013: 321). A thoughtful and thought provoking discussion of feminist discussions of Jael can be found in Guest’s (2011) development of a lesbian/queer reading. …”

“… 33. Which seems to be a reason to question why feminists so often insist upon sex having happened between Jael and Sisera (Frolov, 2013: 321). Would this not just be buying into a patriarchal agenda? …”