It was another morning with scholars of Tanakh (what academics call the Hebrew Bible). I was reading the work of a sober scholar, or so it seemed, when I came across these two sentences:
“While David remains in exile outside of Jerusalem, Absalom sleeps with his father’s concubines as an expression of royal authority. He performs this act to show all Israel he is in charge in place of his father.”
Ugh. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
David leaves Jerusalem with “a small nation of thousands,” as another sober scholar, J.P. Fokkelman, puts it. David takes “all the people,” all his servants and followers, all the Cherethites, the Pelethites, and the Gittites (2 Sam. 15:17-8). Even children are part of the king’s entourage (2 Sam. 15:22).
He also decides to leave ten of his “secondary wives” in Jerusalem, charged with the obligation to “protect” the palace (2 Sam. 15:16). When a king commands, you must obey. Unlike David, and his enormous retinue, these women may not flee from an invading army.
Absalom rapes each one of them. On the roof where David once ogled Bathsheba. In public, before all of his men (2 Sam. 16: 20-22).
Absalom sleeps with his father’s concubines?
The words scholars choose are important.
I tried to explain why, in my article in the Journal of Biblical Literature, “Taking Biblical Authors at Their Word: On Scholarly Ethics, Sexual Violence, and Rape Culture in the Hebrew Bible.” In it, I attempt to analyze why scholars avoid using the terms rape and rape culture. Here are some of their arguments:
- We must understand the world biblical authors describe on their terms, in “historical context.” This is the way things were “back then.”
- Biblical authors do not understand taking a woman as a violent act but rather as a male right, one only limited by the rights of other men. Their legal world excludes rape because they have no concept of the same.
- There is no “lexical equivalent” in biblical Hebrew to the word rape. One cannot use a modern term to describe the ancient texts. (A side note: never mind the fact that scholars have been using the term “marriage” in their discussions of biblical texts for millennia, despite the fact that there is no “lexical equivalent” to be found here, either.)
Here are some of my arguments:
- Are any ideologies which justify or rationalize oppression, enslavement, sexual assault, or wholesale destruction, off bounds to interrogation? Simply reproducing toxic ideas is an act of collusion.
- Denying a woman power of any kind of consent is a defining feature of rape culture.
- Likewise, the very lack of a specific term for rape is evidence of a rape culture par excellence, not of its absence. Not having a name for sexual assault ensures that it cannot be challenged.
Of all the things I have written, this piece may remain the most important to me personally. I wrote about the ethical project we engage in as scholars. I spoke to our obligations. We must hold academics to account; they must be able to interrogate biblical literature and call out the many ways in which it has contributed to toxic hegemonic masculine systems.
Feminist research is about resisting and naming what is wrong. It is about giving every victim of sexual harassment and sexual assault their due. Whether they exist in the pages of our Bibles or in the offices next to ours, whether they are next to us or across the globe, whether they belong to our time or some other, their suffering and their pain may not be ignored.
Thiede, Barbara. 2024. “Taking Biblical Authors at Their Word: On Scholarly Ethics, Sexual Violence, and Rape Culture in the Hebrew Bible.” Journal of Biblical Literature 143.2: 185–205. DOI: 10.15699/jbl.1432.2024.1.
* Thanks to Erik Henning Thiede who told me back in 2024: “You have to write this thing.”
