Chapter Thirteen: Journeying with the Texts of Terror
***** TRIGGER WARNING***** TRIGGER WARNING***** TRIGGER WARNING
This reflection contains profuse reference to extreme sexual violence, sexual assault and violent graphic murder. Please proceed with the requisite caution and do not read if the sensitive nature of the issues is likely to cause harm or distress.
On April 1st 2024, 19-year-old Sade Robinson from Milwaukee, Wisconsin went to meet her blind date, someone she had met through a dating app. The young Miss Robinson was then reported missing. Over the course of the next several days, different parts of her body were found scattered across Milwaukee. Her blind date, 34-year-old Maxwell Anderson, was found with disturbing pictures of Miss Robinson on his phone, including images of him groping her and pulling her clothes off as she lay face down on the couch unconscious. According to police, Anderson had a makeshift “sex dungeon” in his basement. After a two-week trial, it took a jury just 45 minutes to find Anderson guilty on all counts including first degree intentional homicide. It was later discovered that Anderson had planned the gruesome murder and dismemberment some three months in advance.
It is singularly obtuse that this young woman was killed and maltreated in such a savage and motiveless crime. The evidence suggests that she was both the victim of sexual violence and gratuitous physical violence. The parallels between this grisly tale, and the story with which this reflection is most centrally concerned, imply that the depths of human depravity are as unfathomable today as they have been for millennia.
The Book of Judges ends with a note of despondency, in the recurring phrase “when there was no king in Israel” (17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25). In 17:6 and 21:25, the recurring phrase is annotated with the assertion, “everyone did what was right in his own eyes”. In many ways these closing depictions of moral apathy are manifestations of dysfunctional leadership and a nation which has averted its gaze from God. The story is as follows:
Now it came about in those days, when there was no king in Israel, that there was a certain Levite staying in the remote part of the hill country of Ephraim, who took a concubine for himself from Bethlehem in Judah. 2 But his concubine found him repugnant, and she left him and went to her father’s house in Bethlehem in Judah and remained there for a period of four months. 3 Then her husband set out and went after her to speak gently to her in order to bring her back, taking with him his servant and a pair of donkeys. And she brought him into her father’s house, and when the girl’s father saw him, he was glad to meet him. 4 His father-in-law, the girl’s father, prevailed upon him, and he remained with him for three days. So, they ate and drank and stayed there. 5 Now on the fourth day they got up early in the morning, and he prepared to go; but the girl’s father said to his son-in-law, “Strengthen yourself with a piece of bread, and afterward you may go.” 6 So both of them sat down and ate and drank together; and the girl’s father said to the man, “Please be so kind as to spend the night, and let your heart be cheerful.” 7 However, the man got up to go; but his father-in-law urged him, and he spent the night there again. 8 Now on the fifth day he got up to go early in the morning, but the girl’s father said, “Please strengthen yourself, and wait until late afternoon”; so both of them ate. 9 When the man got up to go, along with his concubine and servant, his father-in-law, the girl’s father, said to him, “Behold now, the day has drawn to a close; please spend the night. Behold, the day is coming to an end; spend the night here so that your heart may be cheerful. Then tomorrow you may arise early for your journey and go home.” 10 But the man was unwilling to spend the night, so he got up and left, and came to a place opposite Jebus (that is, Jerusalem). And with him was a pair of saddled donkeys; his concubine also was with him. 11 When they were near Jebus, the day was almost gone; and the servant said to his master, “Please come, and let’s turn aside into this city of the Jebusites and spend the night in it.” 12 However, his master said to him, “We will not turn aside into a city of foreigners who are not of the sons of Israel; instead, we will go on as far as Gibeah.” 13 And he said to his servant, “Come, and let’s approach one of these places; and we will spend the night in Gibeah or Ramah.” 14 So they passed along and went their way, and the sun set on them near Gibeah which belongs to Benjamin. 15 They turned aside there to enter and spend the night in Gibeah. When they entered, they sat down in the public square of the city, for no one took them into his house to spend the night. 16 Then behold, an old man was coming out of the field from his work at evening. Now the man was from the hill country of Ephraim, and he was staying in Gibeah, but the men of the place were Benjaminites. 17 And he raised his eyes and saw the traveller in the public square of the city; and the old man said, “Where are you going, and where do you come from?” 18 And he said to him, “We are passing from Bethlehem in Judah to the remote part of the hill country of Ephraim, for I am from there, and I went to Bethlehem in Judah. But I am now going to my house, and no one will take me into his house. 19 Yet there is both straw and feed for our donkeys, and also bread and wine for me, and your female slave, and the young man who is with your servants; there is no lack of anything.” 20 Then the old man said, “Peace to you. Only let me take care of all your needs; however, do not spend the night in the public square.” 21 So he took him into his house and fed the donkeys, and they washed their feet and ate and drank. 22 While they were celebrating, behold, the men of the city, certain worthless men, surrounded the house, pushing one another at the door; and they spoke to the owner of the house, the old man, saying, “Bring out the man who entered your house that we may have relations with him.” 23 Then the man, the owner of the house, went out to them and said to them, “No, my brothers, please do not act so wickedly. Since this man has come into my house, do not commit this vile sin. 24 Here is my virgin daughter and the man’s concubine. Please let me bring them out, then rape them and do to them whatever you wish. But do not commit this act of vile sin against this man.” 25 But the men would not listen to him. So the man seized his concubine and brought her outside to them; and they raped her and abused her all night until morning, then let her go at the approach of dawn. 26 As the day began to dawn, the woman came and fell down at the doorway of the man’s house where her master was, until full daylight. 27 When her master got up in the morning and opened the doors of the house and went out to go on his way, then behold, his concubine was lying at the doorway of the house with her hands on the threshold. 28 And he said to her, “Get up and let’s go,” but there was no answer. Then he put her on the donkey; and the man set out and went to his home. 29 When he entered his house, he took a knife and seized his concubine, and cut her in twelve pieces, limb by limb. Then he sent her throughout the territory of Israel. 30 All who saw it said, “Nothing like this has ever happened or been seen from the day when the sons of Israel came up from the land of Egypt to this day. Consider it, make a plan, and speak up!”
In what follows I will attempt to carefully unpick some of the issues that this disturbing narrative raises. I want to forewarn you that we are dealing with the dark, ugly and debased part of the human constitution, and yet we do so in a religious and spiritual atmosphere that I still maintain, as I did in part one of this reflection, will prove ultimately redemptive. Very occasional reference will be made to the Hebrew text, but only as is very relevant to considering the narrative and as it serves to clarify parts of the story obscured by difficulties in English translation.
The narrative opens with the declaration that there was no king in Israel; as earlier suggested, this motif is an expression of the moral anarchy that reigned in the land. It is not just the author's way of saying that David's monarchy had not been established yet (though this is clearly implied), but as McCann expertly surmises:
Because stories of the abuse of women serve to pass judgment on male-dominated institutions, the no-king formula in 19:1 and 21:25 cannot be construed as simply a setup for the monarchy, Davidic or otherwise. Especially when Judges 19–21 and the entire book of Judges is heard in its larger canonical context, readers will know that the male-dominated institution of kingship failed as miserably as did the office of judge [Jerry Clinton McCann, Judges (Louisville KY: John Knox Press, 2002), 126].
Let this sink in: there is no king in Israel - not even Yahweh.
One of the saddest and most poignant parts of this sordid tale, is that the victim is never named. Daniel Block makes the rather interesting observation that in fact none of the characters are named in the story. He cogently observes:
Their anonymity invites the reader to generalize. The Levite represents every Levite; the concubine, every woman; the father-in-law, every host; the old man residing in Bethel, every outsider living in a Benjamite town. Every guest could be mistreated, and every woman was a potential victim of rape, murder, and dismemberment… The namelessness of the characters also reflects the dehumanization of the individual in a Canaanized world. To have a name is to be somebody, to have identity. And since names are given and used by others, to have a name is to have significance within the community… By means of anonymity, namelessness, the narrator has depicted a sinister world of alienation, denigration, and deconstruction [Daniel I Block, OT317 Book Study: Judges (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016. Electronic Version].
Indeed as v.1 implies, the Levite’s wife was in fact a concubine, translating the awkward Hebrew word pilegesh, which could imply something like “secondary wife”. This is to be understood in terms of a woman whose life was to pleasure a male figure and quite likely bear children for him without the standard protections afforded to wives, although as Susan Niditch rightly suggests, probably ranked higher than prostitutes. The husband figure in her life was a Levite, someone from the priestly class of Israel with incredibly important intercessory responsibilities for God's people. Levites were to be ‘holy’ in the truest sense of the word - set apart by God for his special purposes (Deut. 10:8–9). The first issue that moves the narrative along is the concubine leaving her husband - but here we encounter a problem - why exactly did she leave?
The concern is with the use of the Hebrew word zānâ, which is normally translated “to be unfaithful” (see NIV) or more literally “play the prostitute”. As you can see in the translation above (New American Standard), it is rendered “found him repugnant” and the NRSV has “became angry with him” (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (OT) reads “became angry with him”). Given the welcome she receives in her father's house, it is difficult to imagine that she had been unfaithful; it is remotely possible as one or two writers have suggested by combining both meanings that she was angry because he had passed her around “to play the whore” with his friends. However, this reads far too much into the text; whilst we cannot say why, it does appear that for some reason the concubine was angry with her husband and so fled the marital home to return to her father. This is corroborated by verse 3, which outlines the Levite’s intention to go after her and speak gently to her – literally ‘speak gently to her heart’ – to persuade her to return – hardly something a spurned husband would do (I don't think Hosea is comparable - he knew Gomer was a prostitute when he married her, as Hos. 1:2). Readers concerned that the concubine’s actions might appear an unusually bold and brassy move by a woman in such a culture, should be reminded that such women are not strangers to the Book of Judges (1:11–15; 4:1–5:31; 11:37–40).
The next instalment of the narrative along with the numerous connections with a similar story in Genesis 19 (which we will return to) has persuaded many to argue that this is a narrative at whose heart is not the question of sexual violence but inhospitality. Of course, with reference to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19, the prophet Ezekiel is explicit that the sin at the heart of the story was inhospitality (Ezek. 16:49). Frank M. Yamada argued the definitive case that homoeroticism was not the fundamental crime at Sodom and Gomorrah, but the unreasonable treatment of strangers [see Frank M. Yamada, Configurations of Rape in the Hebrew Bible: A Literary Analysis of Three Rape Narratives, StBibLit 109 (Peter Lang, 2008)]. The awkward position of hospitality in this narrative helps to compound Israel’s moral failure.
The concubine heads to her father’s house in Bethlehem, and four months later the Levite has gathered himself and so pursues her there in an attempt to win her back - literally, ‘to speak to her heart’ as the Hebrew of 19:3 reads. Instead, and at the indulgent behest of his father-in-law, he eats and drinks and enjoys himself (19:4–6). The request of the concubine’s father, clearly intended to be a contrast to verse 3, is literally ‘to stay all night and let your heart be cheerful’ (Judg. 19:6). Instead of speaking to the concubine's ‘heart’, the Levite simply indulged his own ‘heart’. Although English translations will vary, the Hebrew in fact has four references to the Levite’s heart being sustained and refreshed (19:5, 6, 7, 8) as if to magnify the neglect of the concubine. The author is not exaggerating when he said everyone was doing what is right in his own eyes (Judg. 21:25).
The narrator continues to give clear indications of the time, as if to slowly build up to the catastrophic events that take place in Gibeah. The Levite keeps trying to leave with his concubine, but her father insists that the Levite stay and enjoy refreshments and hospitality. It is not until day five when the Levite and his slave-wife eventually leave. Their attempt to leave on the morning of day five is thwarted by the woman's father (19:8) but despite his attempt to get them to stay for a sixth day, the Levite finally resists and chooses to leave, with his wife and an unnamed servant, as the sun is setting. Once more the author's attention to the passing time seems crucial; had the Levite not opted to leave as darkness was setting in, they could probably have made it back to Ephraim and had no cause to be in Gibeah. In all this, the silence regarding how the concubine was feeling, is deafening.
As they approach Jerusalem, the servant suggests that they spend the evening in Jebus, a Canaanite town near Jerusalem. The Levite insists that staying in a non-Israelite city is not on; as such, they continue on to the Benjamite territory of Gibeah. A terrifying sequence of events then unfolds. They enter the town square hoping to encounter hospitality amongst their kinsfolk; but unlike the extravagant hospitality of the concubine’s father, the narrator tells us that no one would give them lodging (19:15). Eventually an old farmer who is also from Ephraim meets the Levite and his concubine in the town square and offers them lodging and food. Whilst they are eating, the unthinkable happens:
22 While they were celebrating, behold, the men of the city, certain worthless men, surrounded the house, pushing one another at the door; and they spoke to the owner of the house, the old man, saying, “Bring out the man who entered your house that we may have relations with [Lit: ‘know’] him (Judges 19:22, NASB).
‘Worthless men’ translates the Hebrew בְנֵֽי־בְלִיַּ֗עַל (b’ney b’liyal) – ‘sons of Belial’. The term ‘Belial’ eventually came to be associated with the Satan (see 2 Cor. 6:15). The term ‘sons of Belial’ is used throughout the Hebrew Bible to refer to the worst kind of criminals, those who disregard God and perpetrate all manner of social evil. Needless to say, the term is entirely appropriate here. At this point the author does something fascinating - he very deliberately models his account of what takes place on the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (down to the precise number of words used in each account – sixty-six)! Note the following parallels:
(1) Travelers arrive at a town in the evening.
(2) A host urges the guests not to spend the night in the town square.
(3) The host is a sojourner, not a native of the city.
(4) All of the men in the city surround the house.
(5) The men of the city make the same demand of the host.
(a) Genesis 19:5: “Bring them out to us, that we may know them.”
(b) Judges 19:22: “Bring out the man who came into your house, that we may know him.”
(6) The host goes out to the men of the city and leaves the visitors in the house.
(7) The host pleads with the men of the city not to do this wicked thing.
(a) Genesis 19:7: “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly.”
(b) Judges 19:23: “No, my brothers, do not act so wickedly.”
(8) The host offers two women as a substitute for the men.
(a) Genesis 19:8: “Do to them as you please.”
(b) Judges 19:24: “Do with them what seems good to you.”
(9) The men of the city do not want the women as a substitute.
(10) All the inhabitants of the city are eventually destroyed, and the city is burned with fire [Sourced from Van Pelt, M. V. (2021). “Judges”. In I. M. Duguid, J. M. Hamilton Jr., & J. Sklar (Eds.), Deuteronomy–Ruth: Vol. II (pp. 664–665). Crossway].
Deirdre Brouer, a Hebrew Bible specialist and herself a survivor of sexual abuse, in her brilliant article intuitively observes the following regarding the similarities with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis:
Like the men of Sodom, the men of Gibeah beat violently on the door of the house (cf. Gen 19:9) and demand to know the Levite sexually (cf. Gen 19:5). Knowing another sexually refers to the creation mandate to be fruitful and multiply (Gen 1:28), just as Adam knew Eve (Gen 4:1). However, the men of Gibeah seek to reverse the creation mandate into fruitlessness and death. The narrator highlights the Ephraimite host’s condemnation of their intention to rape as “evil” and an “outrage.” These words reveal the narrator’s view of rape as an abominable, godless, and life-threatening act that violates God-ordained, life-sustaining order [Deirdre Brouer, “Voices of Outrage against Rape: Textual Evidence in Judges 19,” Priscilla Papers 28:1 (2014): 25].
For Brouer, the contrast between the rape of the concubine and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is a vehicle for depicting rape as an act of anti-creation. Genesis variously deals with the creation of the world and the creation of the elect people Israel, but to couch this dastardly act in the language of this one act of savagery within the creation narratives is to fully depict this act of abuse as against the very creative work of God. The concubine may well be nameless, lacking status, any real agency in the text and be treated in completely compassionless fashion by her own husband, father and host. However, this gross violation of her dignity and personhood is so severe an affrontery to God that it takes up a key aspect of the divine identity – His creative prowess – and trashes it. This act of evil might have meant nothing to the men in the narrative, but it meant everything to the creator God. At this point, however, the parallels with Genesis 19 cease; this is almost certainly so the narrator can convey that what happened to the concubine was even worse than the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. This is what ensued:
23 Then the man, the owner of the house, went out to them and said to them, “No, my brothers, please do not act so wickedly. Since this man has come into my house, do not commit this vile sin. 24 Here is my virgin daughter and the man’s concubine. Please let me bring them out, then rape them and do to them whatever you wish. But do not commit this act of vile sin against this man.” 25 But the men would not listen to him. So, the man seized his concubine and brought her outside to them; and they raped her and abused her all night until morning, then let her go at the approach of dawn (Judges 19:23–25).
Where does one begin? The story actually gets worse after this, but as difficult as it is, we must consider the above. When in verse 24 the above translation reads ‘do to them whatever you wish’, the Hebrew ought to have been translated literally because it makes a very significant point. When the host is about to sell out his own virgin daughter and the concubine, he instructs the worthless men surrounding his house to do to them whatever is good in their eyes. The phrase repeated in Judges 17:6 and Judges 21:25 is “In those days there was no king in Israel. Each man did that which was right in his own eyes”. For the host to do this and for the worthless men to even consider it is an indication of the state of Israel - there is no king - not even God himself and the people were in moral freefall. Each individual decided what reasonable ethical behaviour looked like; for it to look like this exemplified the depravity of the land.
The patriarchy is depraved and obtuse; the host insists that these worthless men do not do a vile, wicked thing and have sexual relations with the Levite, but effectively gives them a free pass to sexually abuse a young virgin – his own daughter – and a concubine. Schwab rightly observes:
This was not about homosexual lust—they finally did take his concubine instead. It was about humiliation and power; it was about shaming [George M. Schwab, Right in Their Own Eyes: The Gospel according to the Book of Judges (Philipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2011), 203].
The concubine's father was only concerned with the Levite’s merry making when they lodged at his house. The second host showed similar contempt for his daughter’s welfare and safety by offering her up as a sexual sacrifice to a worthless mob of rapists.
Judges 17–18 have painted a miserable portrait of Levites; the Levite in Judges 17–18 sets up an idolatrous shrine and sells his services to the highest bidder. The Levite in chapter 19 is painted in equally bleak light, and although there is no indication that the worthless men knew he was a Levite, it does seem apparent that the author wants to demonstrate the connection between the corruption of Israel spiritual leadership and her ethical bankruptcy.
There is another note here of the sin of inhospitality, probably deriving from the host’s desire not to be shamed and lose honour. Somewhere in his thinking, the demand of the worthless men to sexually assault another man, was singularly worse than the sexual assault of two women – even if one of those women was his own daughter! This lurid willingness to sacrifice daughters for the sake of not being shamed by a warped sense of inhospitality, does not only reflect Lot’s embarrassing decision in Gen. 19:8, but also the calamitous story of Jephthah, who for the sake of not breaking his vow to sacrifice the first thing that came to greet him if God would give the Ammonites into his hand (Judges 11:30–31), felt compelled to sacrifice his own daughter when she, and not one of his animals, was the first to greet him upon his return (Judges 11:34–35). There seems to be an inherent conflict in this story for, on the one hand, reneging on vows to God was anathema (e.g., Ecc. 5:4–5), but on the other, Israelites knew that sacrifices meant nothing without the right heart (1 Sam. 15:22; Hosea 6:6; Amos 5:21–24). Indeed, even Jesus took up this rallying cry (Matt. 9:9–13). The narrator of the Jephthah story cannot even bring himself to say what happened to Jephthah’s daughter - only that the vow was carried out. Whilst his foolish vow-making is set in contrast to his daughter's own willingness and submissiveness in not breaking this vow to God (Judges 11:36), it is difficult not to think of the story of Abraham and Isaac. Why was there no eleventh-hour reprieve for Jephthah’s daughter? Here, I agree with Creach:
Although she acquiesces to her father’s vow, nevertheless she expresses her opinion, makes a request of her father, and creates the ritual that is passed on to the daughters in Israel. In the end the story does not really highlight male privilege or leadership. Rather, it shows Jephthah’s weakness and the daughter’s faithfulness [Jerome F. D. Creach, Violence in Scripture (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 141–142].
It is not that daughters are expendable; rather it is that men are vacillating and weak when there is no king in Israel – not even God – and everyone does what is right in their own eyes.
The concubine, having been raped and abused, managed to make her way back to the host's house and slumped at the front door. Trible’s bleak assessment is pertinent:
Of all the characters in scripture, she is the least. Appearing at the beginning and close of a story that rapes her, she is alone in a world of men. Neither the other characters nor the narrator recognizes her humanity. She is property, object, tool, and literary device. Without name, speech, or power, she has no friends to aid her in life or mourn her in death. Passing her back and forth among themselves, the men of Israel have obliterated her totally. Captured, betrayed, raped, tortured, murdered, dismembered, and scattered—this woman is the most sinned against [Phylis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives 40th Anniversary Edition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2022), 80–81].
The narrator informs us that the Levite found her there after he got up in the morning – that the Levite was able to sleep whilst his concubine was being violated all night, adds to the overall horror of the story and the abject moral failure of the male figures in the narrative. With the same cold, heartless disposition by which he allowed her to be shoved into the lion's den in the first place, all the Levite can say is “Get up and let’s go”. The concubine does not answer - this editorial note is probably the narrator’s embarrassed way of articulating that she was dead. It is unthinkable to assume that what occurred in verse 29 could have happened whilst she was still breathing.
In Judges 19:29, the Levite takes a knife and dismembers his dead concubine’s body into twelve parts and sends one part of her body to each of the twelve tribes of Israel (we assume on the basis of the language). There is a dark significance to the response of the people according to the narrator: All who saw it said, “Nothing like this has ever happened or been seen from the day when the sons of Israel came up from the land of Egypt to this day (Judges 19:30). There is a very specific time reference, one which I think is to deliberately bring the exodus to mind. Think about how the concubine was found; dead and leaning on the doorway. At the exodus, the Passover lamb was killed and its blood was spatted on the doorway so the angel of death would not destroy the Israelite first born. Even the dismemberment scene uses the language of sacrifice to describe the concubine's fate. Not only is this an anti-creation story; it is an anti-Passover story. I once more turn to the genius of Brouer:
As the narrator describes the dismemberment, he uses sacrificial language that appears elsewhere only in reference to sacrificial animals and burnt offerings. By dismembering [the concubine], the Levite offers an anti-sacrifice. Her broken and divided body is the antithesis of the creation mandate to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28)…The narrator concludes by stating, “Nothing like this had happened since the days the Israelites came out of Egypt.” Nothing like this had happened since the eve of the exodus, when a lamb was sacrificed and its blood smeared on the doorway of a house in order to prevent death from entering the house (Exod 12:21–23). By referring to the exodus from Egypt and by highlighting [the concubine], fallen at the doorway with her hands on the threshold, the narrator portrays the rape, death, and dismemberment of [the concubine] as an antithesis of the Passover sacrifice [Brouer, “Voices”, 26].
Chapters 20 and 21 of the Book of Judges conclude with a civil war where the Israelites almost wipe out the tribe of Benjamin, for the godless rapists from Gibeah were Benjamites (20:1–48). The people of Israel then tried to find wives for the remnant of Benjamin, by allowing them to effectively kidnap women from the city of Shiloh. As Williams notes:
Any Benjaminite who did not get a wife is encouraged to watch for the girls of Shiloh when they come out to dance at a festival and then perform what is commonly called marriage by rape [Jenni Williams, God Remembered Rachel: Women’s Stories in the Old Testament and Why They Matter (London: SPCK, 2014), 53].
It is little wonder the book ends as it does in 21:25. Depravity begat depravity and this was a low point in Israelite history. We must conclude, however, as we concluded the first instalment. For the narrator in Judges 19 issues a chilling proclamation: “Nothing like this has ever happened or been seen from the day when the sons of Israel came up from the land of Egypt to this day. Consider it, make a plan, and speak up!”
In the third and final post in this trilogy, I will address the critical question with which we began. For those thinking about Christ centred deconstruction, how might the biblical text be an ultimately redemptive text? To conclude this section, we will make some closing comments about the readers’ interaction with biblical rape culture and how that speaks to the question of abuse. So many who are deconstructing, irrespective of the trajectory of the deconstruction journey, are doing so in response to some manner of abuse related trauma - either that which they have experienced themselves or that which they have seen experienced by those they are close to.
Firstly, biblical rape culture almost invariably acts as a severe judgement on male-led institutions – whether that is the Levitical priesthood, the Israelite military or the Davidic monarchy. The victims are always presented as innocent collateral damage in the midst of the religious, political, moral or social failure of Israel's leaders. Make no mistake about it; rape culture ancient and modern is an indictment of male influence in our institutions. Throughout these posts, there have been sharp critiques of power - we will revisit how a key element of the redemptive nature of the biblical text is in its ability to subvert power structures. For now, I want to remind readers that the challenge of Judges 19:30 is aimed at every right thinking, Spirit filled, Christ imitating, God worshipping male in Christian communities. If sexual violence against women is tolerated in any fashion, the consequence is a divine indictment of Christian masculinity in leadership. We must wrestle with the cultural distance between the contemporary church and the period of the Judges, as Rodd rightly proposes:
The sexual violation of women in the Old Testament has to be understood within an androcentric and patriarchal culture which viewed women from the perspective of their relation to their fathers and husbands. This means that there was no true ‘rape’ in our sense, since the harm done to the woman was viewed in terms of the way she had been shamed, the honour of her male relatives had been damaged, and the fact that the possibility of her marriage to anyone but her rapist was negligible [Cyril S. Rodd, Glimpses of a Strange Land: Studies in Old Testament Ethics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001), 268].
Secondly, Judges 19 allows us to see that rape is anti-creation and anti-liberation; it is thus inherently anti-God. You will recall from the previous post Eugene Hung’s Mutuality Magazine article, “Defending My Daughters against Rape Culture”, where he decried some of the sordid excuse making embedded in modern western rape culture. As a number of the maxims he outlined suggest, there is a particular kind of social atmosphere which emboldens men to sexually dehumanise women. I want to suggest that it is not just the act of sexual violence, but the very development of this social atmosphere which is inherently anti-creation, anti-liberation and anti-God. In Hung’s article, he referenced a number of debased excuses and acts of gaslighting typical of rape cultures, which variously blame the victims, offer justifications for the perpetrators, minimise the seriousness of the crimes and even try to protect the perpetrators on the grounds that they hold some high rank or status within their social world. Even within ecclesiological settings, it is this same philosophy which props up religious spaces which are unsafe for the vulnerable. It is sadly all too common (even in some fairly recent cases) for victims to be accused of having enticed their assaulters in some way. Criminal sexual deviancy is explained away on the grounds that perpetrators of abuse have being under immense stress or pressure - one recent example even blaming a mixture of prescription sedatives and alcohol for his behaviours. Eileen Gray, whose husband was convicted of child and adult sexual abuse, was persuaded by leaders at Grace Community Church to stay with her abusive husband on the grounds that divorce was impermissible for anything other than adultery, and publicly ashamed in front of the congregation for challenging this maladjusted counsel. If Christ believing spaces are to be fonts of new life and places where people experience perfect freedom, then the kind of masculinity which breeds rape culture will only yield death and slavery. This is an utter undoing of the work of God in creation, in liberation and ultimately His work in Christ. This leads nicely into the third inference.
Part of what we must ‘consider and speak up’ about is the devaluing of female voices. The uncomfortable silence of the concubine’s pain and disconnection, the complete lack of empathy and compassion shown to her by the two most significant male figures in her life and one, who in the narrative, is presented as a rescuer and a hero, is deeply disturbing. The contrast between pampered men and abused women ought to press us into thinking deeply about vulnerable classes within our congregations. I know of women who escaped violent and abusive relationships and found comfort, value and liberation in Christ. That comfort and freedom is sacrosanct; it is deeply embedded in the gospel of the one who calls forth the weighed down, burdened and needy, summoning them to let go of their own load and take up his, which is weightless, nourishing and life giving (Matt. 11:28–30). It is part of our duty as believers to protect that sacred, healing space where voices often silenced by society are magnified and shown to be of infinite value to the Creator God. Let it never be said in Christ-believing communities that the experience of Christian womanhood was marginalising, oppressive or devaluing.
Fourthly, the stern challenge of Judges 19:30 was issued such that “all Israel will hear about it and be afraid and will not do such a wicked thing among you again” (Deut. 13:11). When we consider moral failure within believing communities, part of our response must surely be educational, preventative and committed to safeguarding. As long as sinful people congregate, there will always be discord, un-healthiness in relationships and the need to recalibrate the borders of our social worlds. This is to be expected because we are human. However, as God's people, we are not just human, but in Christ. We have a responsibility to learn from the effects of our sinful behaviour; “consider it, make a plan, and speak up”, and take the steps necessary to ensure that destructive and dehumanising behaviours are not repeated. There is no room for ‘protecting the brand’, or for trying to ensure that reputations stay intact. Safeguarding is not just the purchase of secular institutions; it is the responsibility of all shepherds who care about the sheep.
The call to “consider it, make a plan, and speak up”:
…can be explained by what often happens in oral cultures. Whenever something scandalous and particularly horrifying takes place, people in a community engage in a lot of village chitchat to dissect the event and forcefully express their sentiments about what should be done, and soon a public opinion is formed about the matter [Athena E. Gorospe, & Charles Ringma, Judges (Carlisle: Langham Global Library, 2016) 263].
We do not live in an oral culture, and our discussions can be far more deliberate, intentional and purposeful. The earliest Catholic council to denounce sexual immorality of clergy did not convene recently to address the spate of sexual abuse scandals involving children; it in fact dates back to the beginning of the fourth century and the 81 canons of the Council of Elvira, a synod held in Spain possibly around 309 CE. Canon 71 reads: “Men who sexually abuse boys shall not be given communion even at the approach of death” (in early Catholic circles, denial of communion was the equivalent of eternal damnation). Alas, it was not considered, there was no plan and people with power chose to cover up rather than speak up. We are undoubtedly grieved that this should even be something that we must speak of. It remains, nonetheless, far too rampant to turn a blind eye towards. Not only must we speak up, we must work to create that kind of environment where speaking up is not scarier than staying silent. In speaking up, it is my hope that Christians will turn to scripture and demonstrate boldly where God stands, and where His revelation can be seen to be ultimately redemptive.
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