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"Bathsheba (...Biblical figure...)"
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Song of songs : a novel of the Queen of Sheba
\"Lift the veil of legend for the untold story of Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, and Bathsheba, wife and mother of Israel's first kings. When Makeda, the slave-born daughter of the chieftain of Saba, comes of age, she wins her freedom and inherits her father's titles along with a crumbling earthwork dam that threatens her people's survival. When she learns of a great stone temple being built in a land far to the north, Makeda leads a caravan to the capital of Yisrael to learn how to build a permanent dam and secure her people's prosperity. On her arrival, Makeda discovers that her half-sister Bilkis (also known as Bathsheba) who was thought to have died in a long-ago flash flood, not only survived, but has become Queen of Yisrael. Not content with her own wealth, Bilkis intends to claim the riches of Saba for herself by forcing Makeda to marry her son. But Bilkis's designs are threatened by the growing attraction between Makeda and Yetzer abi-Huram, master builder of Urusalim's famed temple. Will Bilkis's plan succeed or will Makeda and Yetzer outsmart her and find happiness far from her plots and intrigue?\"-- Amazon.com.
Book
A woman's place is in the house : royal women of Judah and their involvement in the House of David
Archaeological discoveries have increasingly brought to light evidence of women's involvement in the royal houses of the ancient Near East, yet such evidence has not fundamentally altered the perception of monarchy as an exclusively male-gendered theological, political, and social institution.
eBook
Biblical Bathing Beauties and the Manipulation of the Male Gaze: What Judith Can Tell Us about Bathsheba and Susanna
The famous baths of two biblical women, Bathsheba and Susanna, captured the lust of their respective onlookers. Despite what is not a hint of seductive intent in their stories, many interpreters have portrayed these two characters as, essentially, “asking for it.” Feminist scholars have worked to rehabilitate Bathsheba and Susanna's reputations. Curiously, though, neither traditional scholars portraying the characters as femmes fatales nor feminist interpreters defending them have brought a third biblical bathing woman, Judith, into the discussion. This paper argues that Judith is the only one of the three to whom the biblical text actually does attribute seductive motives. Judith uses the idea that a bathing woman is an irresistible object of desire to her advantage and so arranges semipublic baths while she is in an Assyrian military camp. Using close readings of the three texts and feminist interpretive strategies, Tamber-Rosenau argues that Judith, unlike the other two bathing women, choreographs her exposure for maximum effect. Judith's baths, unlike those of Bathsheba and Susanna, are a calculated part of a larger seduction routine.
Journal Article
Sex Scandal and the Politics of David's Throne
This essay examines the literary and compositional inclusion of the story of David and Bathsheba in 2 Sam 11–12, in the stretch of narrative concerning David's court in 2 Samuel, particularly in light of current debates surrounding the so-called Succession Narrative. I argue that the sex-and-murder scandal of 2 Sam 11–12 functions within a Judahite ideology of kingship to legitimize and strengthen the power of the Davidic dynasty and was inserted in rejection of northern notions of a monarchy legitimized through popular support and agency. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt and recent studies on sex scandals in politics, I highlight three ways in which the insertion of the scandal in 2 Sam 11–12 is an effective way of transforming the monarchic ideology of 2 Sam 13–20 and casting the narrative favorably for the Davidic kings: the location of the transgression in an incontestable space, analogous to Arendt's notion of the private realm; the salaciousness of the narrative effecting enjoyment in the audience; and the distinction between scandal and corruption, where David's transgression is a single aberration, compared to the northern kingdom portrayed as systemically corrupt.
Journal Article
Conversation in the Succession Narrative of Solomon
Reading 1 Kings 1-2, the account of the succession of Solomon, one is left with a strange impression. On the one hand, in its current telling and context it clearly seeks to offer a favourable account of the process. On the other hand, one just has to scratch the surface of this story to see an underlying and less favourable account. The paper notes the importance role that private conversations play in the story to argue that an earlier telling of the story was largely fabricated by a party opposed to the Davidic monarchy and Solomon in particular. According to this telling, a cloud stood over Solomons legitimacy; David was hoodwinked by Nathan and Bathsheba into believing that he had made an earlier promise that Solomon would succeed; Solomon came to the throne by means of a palace coup; Abishag was not David s concubine and Adonijah's request for her was quite innocent; however, his approach and private conversation with Bathsheba was manipulated by Solomon and his supporters to remove significant personal opponents.
Journal Article
Looking and Listening Differently: Crimes and Misdemeanors, II Samuel 11–12 and #MeToo
This article sets out to look back at and “rehear” a film, Woody Allen's
Crimes and Misdemeanors, and a biblical text, the story of
David and Bathsheba in II Samuel 11-12, in the aftermath of the Trump presidency
and in light of the #MeToo movement. Employing the interpretive method used in
my book, Movies and Midrash, as well as the feminist
epistemological insights of Evelyn Fox Keller and Miranda Fricker, the article
concentrates on and critiques the would-be throwaway, comic, #Metoo-relevant
moments of the Woody Allen film, those not typically addressed in critical and
Jewish interpretations of the film, including my own book. It then offers a
contemporary, #MeToo, feminist, midrashic close reading of the David and
Bathsheba story. Throughout the David and Bathsheba narrative, men and a
masculine God are depicted as seeing, often broadly and from a distance, but
only Bathsheba actually hears. The aim of the article is to engage in an
exercise in self-observation, re-listening and constructive re-interpretation
that also speaks to the kind of broader historical, epistemological and
hermeneutical shifts that allow us as a culture to read differently.
Journal Article
Reexamining 2 Samuel 10-12: Redaction History versus Compositional Unity
The account of David's adultery with Bathsheba and its condemnation by the prophet Nathan in 2 Sam 11:1c–12:25 has long troubled commentators and historians, who have often denied the text's unity, if not its coherence. In this article, I argue that the account is both a unified composition (with the possible exception of 12:11–12) and an essential part of the larger story told in 2 Samuel 10-12 (the \"comprehensive narrative\"). Although redaction critics have regularly suggested that some or all of 11:27b–12:24a is secondary—and that originally Solomon was not Bathsheba's second son at all, but her first, and therefore illegitimate—there are significant problems with their approach. Accordingly, I show that not only are such redactional reconstructions unfounded, but they overlook numerous literary, structural, stylistic, and theological features that span the whole of chaps. 10–12, demonstrate authorial intent, and provide thematic unity. In particular, the narrative is structured in a manner that moves from the external matters at the periphery of the kingdom to the internal and intimate matters at its heart, making the birth of Solomon the center and climax of the whole account. This is framed within an inclusio and is structured around five concentric circled stories each of which leads to, or is the result of, the other. It begins with David's delegation to console Hanun (10:2), which leads to war (10:3-5), and closes with David's consoling Bathsheba (12:24) and the resolution of the war (12:26-31). Finally, the whole sequence in 11:1–12:25 embodies a theological structure that closely parallels and inverts that seen in 1 Samuel 15, establishing a clear contrast between Saul's failure and David's rehabilitation. This additionally confirms the text's essential unity, authorial intent, and theological coherence.
Journal Article
Was Bathsheba the Original Bridget Jones? A New Look at Bathsheba on Screen and in Biblical Scholarship
This article addresses the reception in text and cinema of the story told of the biblical character Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11; specifically, it addresses the scholarly interpretations of Bathsheba and the portrayals of her story in the films David and Bathsheba (1951) and King David (1985), and in the NBC mini-series Kings (2009). I shall examine the ways in which each medium fills the gaps left by 2 Samuel 11 and investigate how the rise of feminism and feminist biblical scholarship has changed the reception of Bathsheba's story. Recognizing that people participate in a reading that speaks to them on a personal level, the article concludes with a postfeminist interpretation of 2 Samuel 11, one that represents Bathsheba as an “ancient” Bridget Jones. Such a reading is missing, as made clear by the review of scholarship and film. This new interpretation is important, because it has the potential to resonate with today’s generation of young women.
Journal Article
Was it Rape? The David and Bathsheba Pericope Re-examined
In view of the academie debate on whether David raped Bathsheba, this article takes a new approach to 2 Sam 11-12. Using narrative analysis, it reinterprets 2 Sam 11-12 with the Hebrew biblical definition of rape in mind. This new approach reveals that some of the opposing views of exegetes on this pericope are caused by the imposition of today's definition of rape upon the narrative of 2 Sam 11-12. Our conclusion questions, on the one hand, the basis upon which some scholars suggest that David raped Bathsheba. Are they talking about 'biblical-rape' or are they using a contemporary concept of rape to judge the Hebrew bible? On the other hand, it disagrees with those scholars who accuse Bathsheba of seducing David for whatever motive.
Journal Article
