Abstract
Male violence against women is at shocking levels in South Africa. According to Faul, ‘A woman is killed by an intimate partner every eight hours, a probable underestimate because no perpetrator is identified in 20 percent of killings’, whilst ‘More than 30 percent of girls have been raped by the time they are 18’. Reeva Steenkamp’s killing by her partner, Oscar Pistorius, came ‘the day before she planned to wear black in a “Black Friday” protest against the country’s excruciatingly high number of rapes’ (Faul). The purpose of this article is to reread a key biblical text regarding male violence against women in order to highlight how Jesus would want us to respond to such violence. The text is John 7:53–8:11. The NRSV: Catholic Edition entitles the story ‘The woman caught in adultery’. However, this title is problematic as it can lead to misleading readings of the text, as I will show, and so I have given it a different title, namely ‘The woman threatened with stoning’.
Highlights
Whilst male violence against women is one of the most disturbing realities in our world, its pervasiveness in South Africa is truly shocking
In South Africa, ‘A woman is killed by an intimate partner every eight hours, a probable underestimate because no perpetrator is identified in 20 percent of killings’ (Faul 2013)
The purpose of this article is to reread a key biblical text regarding male violence against women in order to learn from Jesus how to respond to it
Summary
Whilst male violence against women is one of the most disturbing realities in our world, its pervasiveness in South Africa is truly shocking. In South Africa, ‘A woman is killed by an intimate partner every eight hours, a probable underestimate because no perpetrator is identified in 20 percent of killings’ (Faul 2013). The purpose of this article is to reread a key biblical text regarding male violence against women in order to learn from Jesus how to respond to it. The NRSV: Catholic Edition entitles the story ‘The woman caught in adultery’. This title is problematic as it can lead to misleading readings of the text. It will be more helpful to you, the reader, if I give the text verbatim rather than paraphrasing it
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