Historical Books

Abstract

Historical Books Rhiannon Graybill and Christopher T. Begg 2062. [Judges 16] Caroline Blyth, Reimagining Delilah’s Afterlives as Femme Fatale: The Lost Seduction (LHB/OTS 652; London/Oxford/New York/New Delhi/Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2017). Pp. x + 198. $114. ISBN 978-0-567-6-7312-1. B. offers a comprehensive exploration of Delilah vis-à-vis the figure of the femme fatale. First, B. introduces the femme fatale as a cultural trope and traces iterations in art, literature, and film in the nineteenth century Fin de Siècle, the hardboiled noir of the 1920s–1950s, and late twentieth century neo-noir. Next, B. provides an overview of biblical scholarship on Delilah, with particular emphasis on sex and death, as well as the story’s “gaps” that interpreters fill. Her account of the scholarly “afterlives” of the biblical character is followed by a study of her cultural “afterlives” in art, film, and literature. B. also explores in detail the relationship between Samson and Delilah and two modern femme fatale stories: Raymond Chandler’s novel Farewell my Lovely (1940) and an episode from the BBC series Sherlock entitled “A Scandal in Belgravia” (2012).—R.G. [End Page 721] 2063. [Ruth] Stephanie Day Powell, Narrative Desire and the Book of Ruth (LHBOTS 662; London/Oxford/New York/New Delhi/Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2018). Pp. xii + 201 + illus. $118, £85. ISBN 978-0-5676-7875-1. P. presents a reading of the Book of Ruth that explores the workings of “narrative desire” (a phrase used by her to describe the desire of both readers and writers. She focuses in particular on “woman-identified” desire, a category roughly akin to “lesbian.” After introducing theoretical work on narrative desire drawn from psychoanalysis, literary criticism, and feminist criticism, P. offers a close reading of the Ruth story that draws out its many productive ambiguities. She then reads the biblical story with and against three modern works with lesbian themes: Fannie Flagg’s novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe (and the film version, Fried Green Tomatoes), Jeanette Winterson’s novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, and Amos Gitaï’s film Golem, The Spirit of Exile. Deryn Guest’s work on lesbian biblical hermeneutics (e.g., When Deborah Met Jael: Lesbian Biblical Hermeneutics [London: SCM, 2005]) is also a major influence.—R.G. 2064. [2 Samuel 22] Magdalena Lass, … zum Kampf mit Kraft umgürtet: Untersuchungen zu 2 Sam 22 unter gewalthermeneutischen Perspektiven (BBB 185; Göttingen: V & R Unipress/Bonn University Press, 2018). Pp. 410. €55. ISBN 978-3-8471-0816-0. This monograph on 2 Samuel 22 originated as L.’s 2015 dissertation at the “Private University” in Linz, Austria (Susanne Gillmayr-Bucher, director). The text that is its focus, a celebratory poem attributed to David that has a largely verbatim parallel in Psalm 18, features divine and human violence to a disturbingly marked degree. Accordingly, L. concentrates on this aspect of the passage in her treatment of this. In so doing, she devotes three initial chapters to a consideration, respectively, of violence in the Bible overall, the range of hermeneutical strategies for dealing with this phenomenon, and perspectives on violence in the social sciences. On this basis, she then turns to the textual analysis of 2 Samuel 22 itself, here paying particular attention to how it represents, in its terminology and thematic unfolding, the violence of both the divine and human protagonists as this is brought to bear on their common “enemies.” A brief summation of L.’s findings and reflections on these concludes the work. Overall, L. advocates a differentiated approach to a text like 2 Samuel 22 in which the passage is not simply excluded from the prayer life of the church and of individual Christians, but is rather allowed to function as a source of reflection on our image of God and the reality of violence around and inside all of us, even as it needs to be clearly recognized that the violence literarily portrayed in the text is not meant for “real world” emulation/imitation by any of its hearers or readers.—C.T.B. 2065. [1 Kings 16–2 Kings 10] Paulo...