Deuteronomistic History Research Articles

“Special Forces”: A Stereotype of Benjaminite Soldiers in the Deuteronomistic History and Chronicles

This article explores one point of contrast between the characterizations of Benjamin-Judah relations in the DtrH and Chronicles. The argument is that the Deuteronomist offers a stereotype of Benjaminite “special forces,” which the Chronicler then co-opts in service of his own agenda. The remarkable aspect of this cooption is that the Chronicler does not retain or adapt any of the Deuteronomistic material that contributes to this Benjaminite stereotype, only the stereotype itself—i.e., the stereotype only manifests itself in the Sondergut material. The article suggests that the Chronicler repurposes the stereotype in service of a conciliatory agenda: the reincorporation of wealthy Benjaminites into the Jerusalem temple’s sphere of influence.The irony of “Benjaminite” left-handedness is not a new observation; this essay suggests that they should be linked to the motif of “skill with long-distance weapons.” The two motifs are linked in three ways: 1) in practice, they represent a deviation from “regular” hand-to-hand warfare; 2) they overlap within the narratives; and 3) both are specifically linked to Benjaminites—left-handedness by the irony of the name, and long-distance weaponry by the fact that Benjaminites are characterized uniquely among the tribes by that skill (i.e., whenever Benjaminites are noted in a tribal list as having skill with the sling or bow, they are the only tribe that possesses that skill).

The Invention of History in Ancient Judah and the Formation of the Hebrew Bible

Summary This paper deals with the question of the origins of historiography in ancient Judah. It claims that the first historiographical work (although not in the modern sense of the term) is the so-called Deuteronomistic History (DtrH), which in its “exilic edition” seeks to explain the fall of Jerusalemand the destruction of the Temple. In doing so, it also prepares the way for a monotheistic understanding of Yhwh, who was worshipped during the Israelite and Judean monarchies as a national deity. The DtrH also marks an important step in the formation of the Hebrew Bible. In the Persian period, Deuteronomy was separated from the books of Josh-Kgs and became the conclusion of the Pentateuch, whereas Josh-Kgs were reworked to fit into the “Prophets”.

The Function of the Root śkl in Shaping the Ideal Figure of David in 1 Samuel 18

The fourfold recurrence of the root śkl in 1 Samuel 18 to describe David (vv. 5, 14, 15, 30) calls for an explanation. While David’s characterization as maśkîl would seem to refer, above all, to his success in battle, a broader analysis of śkl in wisdom-related contexts, as well as elsewhere in the Deuteronomistic History, demonstrates that maśkîl functions as an epithet, bestowing upon the holder a wider sense of “success” that is intimately linked with Divine patronage. Thus, David’s characterization as maśkîl in 1 Samuel 18 promotes a more comprehensive definition of the ideal king, in contrast to the more restricted prerequisite of military skill associated with Saul. While it is most likely that the story in 1 Samuel 18 is composed solely from pre-Deuteronomistic strands, the intensity with which the root śkl is employed with relation to David corresponds with the Deuteronomistic agenda of portraying David as the ideal king.

Ha Nāḡîḏ: A Machiavellian Reading of King David in the Deuteronomistic History

Explorations of political theory, law, power and the people who wield it have existed throughout a majority of human history. From the Code of Hammurabi to Plato’s The Republic to Machiavelli’s The Prince to Hobbes’ Leviathan, people from various times and cultures have debated the importance of government and its role in the lives of citizens. The Deuteronomist, the anonymous redactor(s) of the Deuteronomistic History (Joshua-2 Kings, with Deuteronomy affixed as a prologue), has also contributed to this vast tradition of political debate. With the retelling of the Law, the Deuteronomist uses the Book of Deuteronomy as a measure to judge the actions and efficacy of later characters according to the standards set by Yahweh. Deuteronomist 16:18–18:22 is a passage that specifically focuses on the paradigmatic governmental structure that Israel should adopt once they are situated in the Promised Land. The excerpt organizes the government into four branches – priests, judges, monarchs, and prophets – and it severely restricts the power of the chief leader, the king. Yet when Israel’s most famous king is evaluated against the rigorous criteria of the Deuteronomist, he falls short. With his aspiring nature and political desires, David instead calls to mind another political ideal – Machiavelli’s hypothetical prince. In short, Machiavelli argues, a prince must manipulate Fortune and Virtue in order to keep and maintain power, for the end justifies the means. It appears that throughout his life, David endeavors to control these two entities for political gain, and his yearning to rule over Israel and Judah justifies his actions along the way. This article will examine some of those actions, specifically those relating to his ambition, his manipulation of the people, and his exploitation of the cult, through a Machiavellian perspective. The article will then argue that David’s politics are more consistent with Machiavelli’s pragmatism than with the Deuteronomist’s Yahwism.

The Rhetoric of Convention: The Foundational Saul Narratives (1 Samuel 9–11) Reconsidered

Biblical scholars have applied new methodologies to the royal narratives in the Deuteronomistic History (Joshua–Kings) as viable resources for recovering authentic historical information regarding the monarchic cultures of ancient Israel and their impact on the development of Israelite religion. The present study considers anew the narratives regarding Israel's first king, Saul son of Kish. A recurring motif in these narratives is the appeal to socio‐religious convention, which is suggestive of a rhetorical strategy among the authors that sought to situate the Saulide royal lineage in familiar traditions that the institution of kingship was perceived as disrupting.

Approaches to the “Chosen Place”: Accessing a Biblical Concept.By Rannfrid I. Thelle.

T he theory of a Deuteronomistic History has come under sustained criticism in recent years, and Thelle’s book is a further attempt to consign Noth’s theory to history. Rather than proposing an alternative diachronic theory, Thelle seeks to read the history’s constituent books on their own terms with a synchronic reading stategy. This attempt to look with ‘fresh eyes’ requires disentangling the concept of the chosen place from three other issues: dating biblical books, Josiah’s reform, and the idea of a deuteronomistic school and editing. Thelle’s key observation is that Deuteronomy’s idea of the chosen place should not be harmonized with Kings’ idea of the chosen city. In Deuteronomy the chosen place is the centralized location where cultic activity takes place, whilst in Kings the chosen city is associated with privileged divine protection and the unique position of David. These key observations lead Thelle to develop two lines of argument. First, she argues that Deuteronomy’s legislation on cultic matters, such as sacrifice, Sabbath, and the festivals, brings it closer to the rest of the Tetrateuch than is usually recognized. Since Deuteronomy says very little about crucial cultic issues, such as a sanctuary and an altar, these can justly be assumed from the previous books, which say far more about these matters. Secondly, Thelle argues that Deuteronomy’s relationship to the Former Prophets is rather more tangential than a theory of a Deuteronomistic History would suggest. An analysis of 2 Kings 22–3 does not support the view that Josiah undertook a reform inspired by Deuteronomy, and an examination of the presentation of kingship in the Former Prophets highlights a number of differences from Deuteronomy’s law of the king.

요시야 개혁과 한반도 통일 : 신명기 역사서에 나타난 요시야 개혁운동을 중심으로

요시야 개혁과 한반도 통일 : 신명기 역사서에 나타난 요시야 개혁운동을 중심으로

The Two Prostitutes or the Two Kingdoms? A Critical Reading of King Solomon’s Wise Ruling (1 Kgs 3:16-28)

The familiar story of King Solomon and the two prostitutes is often assumed to showcase the wise arbitration of King Solomon through the help of the divinely—endowed wisdom of Yahweh. In this standard reading of the passage, there is a quick intellectual fixation to show the relationship between the passage and the preceding divine encounter at Gibeon. Against the limitations of these traditional readings, the paper resituates the ideological/theological importance of the two prostitutes beyond its immediate literary landscape to encompass the entirety of the Deuteronomistic History (DtrH). Through verbal resonance and symbolic connections to the rest of the DtrH, the work underscores that the presence of these two prostitutes, at the opening of the book of Kings, is a significant prelude to the Dtr’s narratives on the subsequent demise of the two kingdoms.

Female Labor in the Bible: Recognizing its Value While Exposing Reader Assumptions

Female Labor in the Bible:Recognizing its Value While Exposing Reader Assumptions Rannfrid Thelle A review of Women at Work in the Deuteronomistic History. By Mercedes L. García Bachmann. Pp. xv + 413. International Voices in Biblical Studies 4. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013. Paper, $54.95. This book is Mercedes García Bachmann’s revised doctoral thesis, which she completed at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (1999). The topic concerns lower class female labor in the Bible, in particular in the Deuteronomistic History (DtrH). This is a timely study on an important topic, which pursues a neglected field of inquiry involving the role and contribution of marginal women characters in the biblical world. The book challenges the conventional portrayals of women in ancient Israel, and ultimately seeks to revise the shame-honor scheme as an analytical model. Bachmann brings a perspective from the global “south,” with a liberation feminist approach that takes as its point of departure the intersection of gender and class. The book consists of nine chapters (an introductory chapter plus chapters 1–8). The introductory chapter is fairly short and functions more as a preface, in that it is a reflection shared with the readers that looks back on the writing process, while providing a rationale for the book’s organization and the use of analytical concepts such as “work,” “slave,” and “free.” Chapters 1–3 are introductory in the more traditional sense and discuss methodological and theoretical issues and history of research impacting the subject of the study. Chapters 4–7 explore women’s occupations and “work,” approached through various designations used to refer to or describe what these women are or do. Chapter 8 presents final reflections. The “Introduction: On Female Labor in the Hebrew Bible” begins by calling attention to the fact that many biblical characters, particularly women, function in narratives by virtue of their place as “dependents” and “expendables.” In fact, although the Bible portrays the ideal society as one which offered individuals socio-economic protections such as land ownership and free status, Israel acknowledged that this was not always the case, and even traced its own beginnings to one of bondage, from which they were delivered by YHWH. This observation sets the tone of the book by highlighting the existence of numerous figures that are overlooked or taken for granted, yet who contribute at key junctures in biblical narratives precisely because of [End Page 403] readers’ assumptions about these characters. After pointing out that the commonly applied shame-honor paradigm is not adequate in accounting for how the biblical texts assess all women, and that the descriptions usually offered of ancient Israelite women are too one-note and in fact resemble the modern middle class, Bachmann sets out to challenge what she refers to as the “dominant view” of what is honorable. The chapter also contains a discussion of the semantic field of “work” and a rationale for why female labor in the realms of religion and politics is not included in this study. Chapter 1, “The Challenge of Studying Working Women,” says Bachmann, “lays bare the main assumptions and choices made in this study in terms of the body of research, methodology, and the lens through which I read,” (p. 5). Presenting her work as an “exegetical study from a liberation feminist perspective,” (p. 17), she discusses a variety of challenges associated with the task of studying lower class women’s labor, and proceeds to account for her methodologies. Bachmann outlines her reasons for choosing to focus on the Deuteronomistic Historian, one of which is that the narrative material “allows for a sample of terms inserted in believable contexts,” (p. 23). Further, she surveys a number of terms describing women’s work and the grammatical features of these, thereby demonstrating the elusive nature of these terms. Her critique of a number of models from social scientific research (the concept of “peasantry” as a social model, the “Mediterranean Basin culture” model) develops into a large section devoted to a discussion of the difficulties involved in applying the shame-honor paradigm if, as she insists, a focus on the categories of gender and class are to be maintained as...

The Book of the Torah in Joshua 1 and 23 and in the Deuteronomistic History

In its Deuteronomistic edition, Deuteronomy refers to itself as »the book of the Torah«, written by Moses himself. In Jos 1 and 23, this book is introduced as an element of the subsequent ›history of Israel‹ narrative. Despite other differences, current hypotheses of the formation of the Deuteronomistic History (DH) almost unanimously agree that these as well as other references to the book of the Torah in Deut – II Reg must be regarded as secondary additions. Contrary to thisDas dtr edierte Deuteronomium bezeichnet sich selbst als »das Torabuch«. Niedergeschrieben von Mose, wird dieses Buch in Jos 1 und 23 als Element der anschließenden ›Geschichte Israels‹ eingeführt. Diese und weitere Erwähnungen des Torabuchs in Deut – II Reg gelten gegenwärtigen Hypothesen zur Entstehung des dtr Geschichtswerks (DtrG) unabhängig von allen sonstigen Unterschieden nahezu einmütig als sekundäre Ergänzungen. Entgegen dieserDans son édition deutéronomiste, le Deutéronome se présente comme »le livre de la Torah« écrit par Moïse lui-même. En Jos 1 et 23, ce même livre est introduit comme un élément du récit de »l’histoire d’Israël« qui suit. Les différentes hypothèses actuelles sur la formation de l’histoire deutéronomiste (HD) sont presque unanimes pour considérer ces références – ainsi que d’autres renvois – au livre de la Torah dans Deut –II Reg comme des ajouts secondaires. Contrairement à cette

Surviving the Agagites: A postcolonial reading of Esther 8-9

From a postcolonial perspective, the Jews in the book of Esther not only resist against and survive the Agagites, they also re-appropriate colonising impulses from their cultural memory. This article argues that the battles in Esth 8-9 contain several appropriations from holy war in the Deuteronomistic History, and, as a result, the said narrative can be identified as written to fit within the trajectory of the Jews' own imperium. This literary intertextuality is underpinned by three expressions of holy-war language and protocol: fear falling on the Jews' enemies, the Jews refraining from plundering, and the postwar hanging of corpses on trees.

The Legal Blend in Biblical Narrative (Joshua 20:1–9, Judges 6:25–31, 1 Samuel 15:2, 28:3–25, 2 Kings 4:1–7, Jeremiah 34:12–17, Nehemiah 5:1–12)

In the 1980s scholars identified the “legal blend”—the phenomenon in Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles whereby the practice of a law is expressed as a conflation of two earlier iterations of the law as found in the legal corpora of the Pentateuch. The phenomenon is thought to reflect upheaval in Israel’s history and the need to reach a great compromise between competing strands of legal tradition. Discussions have identified legal blends in the books of Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles in descriptions of normative practice. This study claims that we also find the legal blend employed toward “haggadic” or rhetorical ends, whereby the law is extracted from its original focus and emerges within a new configuration of meaning. This study identifies seven narratives that blend iterations of the same law from across what are normally construed as distinct legal corpora. These examples are found in a broad range of narrative texts, most from the so-called Deuteronomic History. Trends that emerge from these examples are identified. The findings complicate the claim that the legal blend was exclusively a postexilic phenomenon.

The Legal Blend in Biblical Narrative (Joshua 20:1–9, Judges 6:25–31, 1 Samuel 15:2, 28:3–25, 2 Kings 4:1–7, Jeremiah 34:12–17, Nehemiah 5:1–12)

In the 1980s scholars identified the “legal blend”—the phenomenon in Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles whereby the practice of a law is expressed as a conflation of two earlier iterations of the law as found in the legal corpora of the Pentateuch. The phenomenon is thought to reflect upheaval in Israel's history and the need to reach a great compromise between competing strands of legal tradition. Discussions have identified legal blends in the books of Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles in descriptions of normative practice. This study claims that we also find the legal blend employed toward “haggadic” or rhetorical ends, whereby the law is extracted from its original focus and emerges within a new configuration of meaning. This study identifies seven narratives that blend iterations of the same law from across what are normally construed as distinct legal corpora. These examples are found in a broad range of narrative texts, most from the socalled Deuteronomic History. Trends that emerge from these examples are identified. The findings complicate the claim that the legal blend was exclusively a postexilic phenomenon.

Israelite Prophecy and the Deuteronomistic History: Portrait, Reality, and the Formation of a History. Edited by Mignon R.Jacobs and Raymond F.PersonJr. Society of Biblical Literature Ancient Israel and Its Literature, 14. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013. Pp. x + 243. $32.95.

Israelite Prophecy and the Deuteronomistic History: Portrait, Reality, and the Formation of a History. Edited by Mignon R.Jacobs and Raymond F.PersonJr. Society of Biblical Literature Ancient Israel and Its Literature, 14. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013. Pp. x + 243. $32.95.

Heather Blurton and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, eds., Rethinking the “South English Legendaries”. (Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture.) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011. Pp. 517; 8 black-and-white figures and 6 tables. £70. ISBN: 978-0-7190-8434-8.

Reviews Malory adopted stylistic features of the Bible does not hold. Indeed, like the Bible, Malory employs both narrative and syntactical parataxis—stringing together episodes in the nar- rative and phrases and clauses in its syntax without the use of connectors in the narrative or subordinating conjunctions in the syntax. But these techniques are not original to Mal- ory, they were carried over from Malory’s sources, and they are so common in medieval writing that it is difficult to say whether they are features of biblical style specifically, or whether they are features of orality that emerged coincidentally in different places and in different historical periods. What does emerge from this chapter—and what deserves closer analysis—is the debt of the Arthuriad, in whatever language, to the Old Testament’s profound study of the human aspirations and failures that led to the tragedy of empire in the Deuteronomistic history (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings). Although this is not that book, at least Biblical Paradigms points the way for it. Michael W. Twomey, Ithaca College Heather Blurton and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, eds., Rethinking the “South English Legendaries”. (Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture.) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011. Pp. 517; 8 black-and-white figures and 6 tables. £70. ISBN: doi:10.1017/S0038713414002309 A ny new work on a tradition as extensive and relatively understudied as that of the South English Legendary/-ies (SEL) is welcome: with “over sixty manuscripts and some three hundred separate items in circulation in various textual combinations and types of books” (3) from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, of which no two are exactly alike, the SELs can certainly lay claim to considerable interest in their own time. This has begun to be matched in modern criticism, and the present volume makes a valuable contribution thanks to its breadth, its combination of new essays and reprinted classics, and its engagement with key predecessors, particularly Manfred G orlach, Klaus Jankowsky, Annie Samson, and Anne B. Thompson (who contributes the volume’s afterword). Throughout, as the title suggests, the volume aims to do justice to the complexity and multifariousness of the SEL tradition, with its combination of saints’ lives and temporale material on other church feasts. It acknowledges, both explicitly and implicitly, the “philological vertigo” (190) induced by sustained contemplation of the SEL’s textual manifestations, and attempts not to master or map these, as some valuable earlier work has done, but rather to think with them, taking account of variety while also considering what holds this “congeries of narrative” (4) together as something we can provisionally call the SEL(s). While the nineteen essays are as wide-ranging as their objects of study, they show a consistent and timely interest in audiences, reception, and manuscript culture; the vexed question of the “Englishness” or nationalistic tendencies of the SEL tradition is another recurrent theme, though as a whole the collection stresses regional, urban, and civic alle- giances rather than a coherent national identity, with particular attention to lay affinities (see, for example, the essays by Chloe Morgan, Thomas J. Heffernan, and Sarah Brecken- ridge, as well as Wogan-Browne, “Locating”). The strong first group of essays, “(Re-)situating the South English Legendary,” lays the groundwork for a more respectful and capacious attention to this “first multi-part nar- rative in Middle English” (212) by considering the tradition as a whole: we get incisive treatment of liturgical sources (Sherry Reames), style (Oliver Pickering), and vernacular manuscript culture (John Frankis), as well as Thomas R. Liszka’s very useful scene-setting chapter, which provides helpful definitions of key terms and an orientation to the phe- nomenon of the SELs. Throughout this section the idea of “open texts” is important (see, Speculum 89/4 (October 2014)

Book Review: Women at Work in the Deuteronomistic History: Mercedes L. Garcia Bachmann, Women at Work in the Deuteronomistic History

Book Review: Women at Work in the Deuteronomistic History: Mercedes L. Garcia Bachmann, Women at Work in the Deuteronomistic History

The Prophet, the Witch and the Ghost: Understanding the Parody of Saul as a ‘Prophet’ and the Purpose of Endor in the Deuteronomistic History

This study engages the ironic representation of Saul as a ‘prophet’ and his later characterization at Endor, noting the subversion of his original prophetic introduction in 1 Samuel 9–10 and the parody of this same representation through his identification with witchcraft/divination in 1 Samuel 28. The parody sabotages the royal aspirations of the Saulides because it associates them with the forbidden practice of witchcraft. The study also shows the underlying importance of Saul's characterization at Endor within the Deuteronomistic history, especially in the quest subtly to associate Saul with the major villains of this same history who are not only connected to these same banned cultic practices but also blamed for the exile. Saul is thus intentionally implicated and further criminalized as the prototype of subsequent kingship's failure, and the Endor incident becomes an ominous sign of doom not only for the Saulides but also for the entire nation of Israel.

Ideologies of Attachment in the Story of Naboth's Vineyard

According to 1 Kings 21:1–16, Ahab sought to purchase the vineyard of Naboth, which adjoined the royal estate in Jezreel. Although Ahab offered a fair price or replacement land, Naboth declined: “Yahweh forbid that I should sell you the inheritance of my ancestors!” Commentators explain the force of Naboth's reply by comparing attitudes toward land in one of two complexes of biblical literature. According to the Deuteronomistic History, the land was a divine gift allotted by Yahweh to individual clans, and according to the Holiness Code, land could not permanently be sold outside the family. In this context, Naboth's reply seems appropriate. These approaches, however, tend to overstate the case by proposing an overly narrow framework for understanding land rights in the story. They make unwarranted assumptions about the relationships between biblical texts, and they are inconsistent with the narrative logic of the episode. I argue that Naboth's refusal is better understood within the context of a much broader theme in ancient Israelite tribal life—what anthropologist Parker Shipton has called in another context “ideologies of attachment,” connecting households, ancestors, and land. An examination of this theme in a wide variety of biblical literature and in the archaeological record offers a more robust framework within which to appreciate the rhetorical force of Naboth's refusal.

Samson the Man-Child: Failing to Come of Age in the Deuteronomistic History

In recent decades, biblical scholars have shown convincingly that a key feature of the narrative depiction of Samson is the hero's liminality, his status as a character caught betwixt and two different worlds or states of being. Most often the discussion of Samson's liminality draws attention to his perpetual location at the border between nature and culture or the worlds of men and women-freely crossing these borders, but never staying long on one side or the other. This article shows that a central aspect of Samson's liminality has yet to be illuminated: the failure of this man-child ever definitively to cross the threshold into adulthood. The character's impressive strength, rhetorical eloquence, and long hair are telling marks of manhood in ancient Israelite literature, as recent work on masculinity in the Hebrew Bible has recognized. However, alongside these manly traits Samson simultaneously demonstrates characteristics associated with boyish immaturity that point to a failure to transition to manhood. The article identifies the indicators of Samson's immaturity through a close reading of the Samson cycle informed by the depiction of boyhood in the Hebrew Bible and by socialscientific research on male maturation. It then offers suggestions inspired by folklore studies on the possible purpose of tales of arrested development such as this one and its potential Sitz im Leben in an ancient Israelite context at the time of its original composition. The study concludes with a discussion of the literary function of Samson's failure to come of age in Judges and the larger Deuteronomistic history.(ProQuest: ... denotes non-USASCII text omitted.)Few biblical characters capture the imagination more than Samson. Bibbcal scholars in particular seem unable to resist the urge to reexamine and reanalyze this most fascinating and confounding figure. Recent decades have seen a proliferation of articles and monographs on Samson, but few have illuminated the bibbcal text more than Gregory Mobley's Samson and the Liminal Hero in the Ancient Near East} For Mobley, the most significant feature of the narrative depiction of Samson is not his famous hair or renowned strength but rather his liminality: his status as a character caught betwixt and two different worlds or states of being. The liminal hero Samson straddles borders, at once occupying the ground on both sides and moving unabated and carefree between them.2Mobley's study is noteworthy for its thoroughgoing application of the concept of liminality to Samson's character, but Samson's transcending of social, political, and even gender borders did not escape earlier readers. For instance, Hermann Gunkel drew attention to Samson's perpetual location at the border of nature and culture-a wild marked as much by animalistic traits (beastly ferocity, untamed hair) as by the trappings of human society.3 Susan Niditch also anticipated certain features of Mobley's argument by showing that Samson straddles both the border between nature and culture and that between man and woman. Samson, the once masculine and mighty warrior, is effectively feminized by the Philistines when they capture him (Judg 16:21-25), but later this feminization is overturned by his reassertion of manly might in his final act of vengeance ( 16:29-30) .4This emphasis on liminality common to recent scholarly readings of the Samson cycle provides a useful lens for interpretation. However, the concept has yet to be applied to one of the most significant facets of Samson's character. Among the many borders that Samson is unable to cross permanently is that separating boyhood and manhood. Samson, in other words, is a perpetual man-child.At first glance, it may seem odd to posit that Samson's depiction in the text of Judges is anything less than hyper-masculine. Samson is not just any man; he seems to be an Ubermensch: the embodiment of idealized machismo. In some ways, this is true. …

Mercedes García Bachmann, Women at Work in the Deuteronomistic History. Atlanta, Society of Biblical Literature, 2013, 413 pp.

Mercedes García Bachmann, Women at Work in the Deuteronomistic History. Atlanta, Society of Biblical Literature, 2013, 413 pp.