Marriage by Capture in the Book of Judges: An Anthropological Approach (Society for Old Testament Study Monographs)
Cambridge University Press, 3/24/2017
EAN 9781107145245, ISBN10: 1107145244
Hardcover, 280 pages, 22.6 x 14.5 x 2.2 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
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.
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.