Lot's Daughters Research Articles

Lot's Daughters and Naomi and Ruth: Of “Moral Love” and National Myths

ABSTRACTThis essay argues that the book of Ruth's reopening of Israel's history and national mythology functions in such a way as to redeem, as it were, the plight of the subaltern Moabite—a plight begun with the daughters of Lot in Genesis 19. A parallel is then drawn with the 1619 Project, the recent journalistic project which posits the entire historical sweep of African slavery in North America since 1619 as the defining arc of the United States' founding. As theoretical frames, the essay draws on the work of literary critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (including her concept of “moral love”) and political philosopher Arash Abizadeh. In so doing, the essay illustrates how a “functionalist” approach to biblical ethics that balances the content of the biblical narrative with attention to how the text functions in its broader context can provide guidance for contemporary ethical application.

Other Writings/Traditions

Other Writings/Traditions Thomas Hieke, Christopher T. Begg, and Fred W. Guyette Thomas Hieke Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz Christopher T. Begg Catholic University of America Fred W. Guyette Erskine College and Seminary 2475. [Seductive Biblical Women in Rabbinic Perspective] Yuval Blankovsky, "Verführung um des Himmels willen: Verführerische biblische Frauen aus Sicht der Rabbinen," Rabbinische Literatur, 263-78 [see #2537]. B. elaborates on a hitherto unnoticed pattern of interpretation in rabbinic literature that praises non-Jewish women and criticizes men. Secondly, B. tries to explain the reason for the emergence of this pattern: Why should the rabbis praise non-Jewish women? B. presents some examples from the Midrash Bereshit Rabbah (Judah and Tamar; Tamar and the wife of Potiphar: both do what they do "for heaven's sake"; Lot and his daughters). Next, B. interprets the sugia in b. Hor. 10b dealing with Lot and his daughters, Tamar vs. Zimri (Num 25:14), and Jael and Sisera. These two works have different reasons for praising the seductive women. In Bereshit Rabbah, the rabbis ascribe seduction to biblical women for the sake of heaven, in order to convey the patriarchal message that sexual intercourse is appropriate for the purpose of procreation and that gentile women desire Jewish men because they recognize their cultural superiority. The Talmud, on the other hand, shows a concern with situating the concept of sin for heaven's sake, as suggested by the biblical Jael story, in the context of Levirate marriage. Therefore, the sugia also mentions Lot's daughters and Tamar, but not Ruth, because, according to rabbinical understanding, Ruth did not commit any sexual sin. The above women use their sexuality for the benefit of the Jewish group, and this pattern exemplifies the rabbinic idea that sins committed with good intentions are legitimate to some degree.—T.H. Google Scholar 2476. [Bibliography of Jewish Intertestamental and Early Rabbinic Literature] David W. Chapman and Andreas J. Kostenberger, "Jewish Intertestamental and Early Rabbinic Literature: An Annotated Bibliographical Resource Updated Again (Part 1)," JETS 63 (3, 2020) 559-60. This publication builds on the authors' initial bibliography for the corpora cited in their title that appeared in JETS 43 (2000) 577-618 and was itself updated in JETS 55 (2012) 235-72, 457-88. As they note in their opening remarks concerning the present contribution (p. 560): "Part 2 of this annotated bibliography is due to appear in the next issue. The structure of these two articles is Part 1: 1. General Reference Tools; 2. OT Versions; 3. Apocrypha; and 4. Pseudepigrapha; Part 2: 5. Dead Sea Scrolls; 6. Individual Authors (Philo, Josephus, Pseudo-Philo, Fragmentary Works); 7. Rabbinic Literature; and 8. Other Early Works from the Rabbinic Period."—C.T.B. Google Scholar 2477. [Priestly Violence; Zeal for Yhwh; Genesis 34; Test. Lev. 5–7] Enric Cortès, "Del sacerdoci gratuït a la violència del 'zel per YHWH'. De la Torà a la literatura intertestamentària: TestLev 5–7 [From Gratuitous Priesthood to Violence Committed Out of 'Zeal for Yhwh': From the Torah to Intertestamental Literature: Test. Lev. 5-7]," RCT 45 (1, 2020) 9-39. My article aims to discern how priestly election in ancient Israel came to be regarded in the Pentateuch and subsequently in extrabiblical testamentary literature as something [End Page 911] due to the Levites or priests who engaged in acts of violence in the name of zeal for God that resulted in their being awarded the priesthood. In this connection, I review the essay of J. Kugel in HTR 85 (1, 1992) 1-34 on the role of Levi as a priest in Test. Lev. 5–7 vis-àvis the presentation of the Levi figure in Genesis 34. My article, I believe, offers a better understanding of the related issue of circumcision, especially as this features in Jubilees, Philo, and the Book of Judith. My article also pays special attention to the midrashic elaboration of Test. Lev. 5–7 [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] Google Scholar 2478. [Epistle of Barnabas 4; Hesiod, Works and Days 106–201] Kylie Crabbe, "The Generation of Iron and the Final...

Introduction and General

Introduction and General Christopher T. Begg, Gerald A. Klingbeil, OP Carol J. Dempsey, David A. Bosworth, Katherine E. Brown, Brent A. Strawn, Andrew W. Litke, Fred W. Guyette, Bradley C. Gregory, Joseph E. Jensen, and Mark S. Smith 1191. Rachel E. Adelman, The Female Ruse: Women's Deception & Divine Sanction in the Hebrew Bible (HBM 74; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2015). Pp. xvii + 256. $95, £60, €80. ISBN 978-1-909597-94-2. From Eve to Esther, the Hebrew Bible is replete with gendered tales of trickery. A lie is uttered, a mask donned, a seduction staged, while redemption is propelled forward, guided by the divine hand. With the first biblical "female ruse"—Eve presenting the fruit of the tree of knowledge to Adam—humanity becomes embodied, engaged in history, moving from the Garden to exile, from wandering to homeland and redemption (and back again). Subsequently, Rebekah dresses her beloved son in goatskins to steal the blessing from his blind father; Lot's daughters lie with their drunken father, and then conceive the founding fathers of Ammon and Moab; Leah and Rachel, the mothers of the twelve tribes of Israel, dupe Jacob on their wedding night; Tamar seduces Judah her father-in-law and then bears the progenitor of the Davidic line; Naomi sends Ruth to the threshing floor to seduce Boaz by night; Bathsheba invokes an oath supposedly made by King David in order to advance her son Solomon to the kingship, and Queen Esther conceals her Jewish identity in the Persian imperial court. A. traces these narratives of female deception over the course of her volume, noting that in each case, God is depicted as "in cahoots" with these feminine agents in their respective promotions of the providential plan. A recurrent tension thus holds between "the best laid plans" of the male characters and the divine will as advanced by women. Drawing on classical rabbinic sources and modern literary exegesis, A. highlights [End Page 376] the conflict in the Hebrew Bible between simple genealogical progression and the process of selection by way of family and kin alliances. Women are at the crux of this conflict, being seemingly compelled to choose the indirect route of deception, even as the deity appears to endorse their lies. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 1192. Peter Altmann, Economics in Persian-Period Biblical Texts: Their Interactions with Economic Developments in the Persian Period and Earlier Biblical Traditions (FAT 109; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016). Pp. xii + 342. €119. ISBN 978-3-16-154813-0. A.'s study is a "lightly edited" version of his Habilitationsschrift, accepted in 2015 at the University of Zurich. Following a brief introduction, noting the immense economic changes in the eastern Mediterranean region during the Persian period (sixth to fourth cents. b.c.e.), A. discusses the history of relevant scholarship and the methodology of his research. The next chapter looks at the tradition of royal involvement with economics in Mesopotamia (discussing prices, wages, debt, and interest). Chap. 3 reviews the connection among economics, cult, and society in preexilic biblical texts, while chap. 4, the longest chapter of the book, focuses on the economic background of the Persian period, both in relationship to the larger empire and to the province of Yehud. The next chapter appraises other larger blocks of biblical material (including Chronicles, P, H, Deutero-Isaiah, and Haggai and Zechariah), highlighting important trends in these materials. Chap. 6 offers suggestions regarding the historical and composition-critical setting of Ezra–Nehemiah. Chaps. 7 and 8 deal with economic topics (e.g., payments of tithes, taxes, commerce, and debt) in Ezra and Nehemiah respectively. Rounding off the volume is a brief conclusion, a bibliography, and several indexes. As A. notes, economical considerations are an important element in Persian-period texts intended to "forge a unified Jewish-Judean community" (p. 303).—G.A.K. 1193. Elizabeth Michael Boyle and Carol J. Dempsey, The Bible and Literature (Theology in Dialogue Series; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2015). Pp. vii + 216. Paper $30. ISBN 978-l-62698-127-0. This volume is the third to appear in the Theology in Dialogue Series. Like...

Lot's Daughters

Lot's Daughters

Gleaning Ruth: A Biblical Heroine and Her Afterlives (review)

Reviewed by: Gleaning Ruth: A Biblical Heroine and Her Afterlives Amanda Beckenstein Mbuvi Gleaning Ruth: A Biblical Heroine and Her Afterlives, by Jennifer L. Koosed. Studies on Personalities of the Old Testament Series. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2011. 173 pp. This exciting book delivers far more than its title might suggest to the untutored reader. It is a work of biblical scholarship that displays close attention to textual nuance, careful historical reasoning, and a command of both traditional and contemporary commentaries. However, the way in which it accomplishes these conventional tasks is of as much interest as its exegetical findings. Koosed succeeds not only in producing a wonderfully textured portrait of the biblical Ruth, but also in reimagining the scholarly vocation. Relationships structure the book, which has chapters devoted to Ruth and Orpah, Ruth and Naomi, Ruth and Boaz, and (Ruth) and Obed. Interspersed among these chapters are "agricultural interludes" exploring the book of Ruth's most central and most overlooked relationship: the one between the characters and their food. Under the influence of Agnès Varda's documentary film The Gleaners and I, Koosed describes her work as "gleaning." She explains, "My task in this study is to take the source material—the Hebrew and Greek texts, the traditional commentaries, the modern monographs, the literary allusions, the peer-reviewed articles, the artistic representations, the [Jewish and Christian] liturgical practices—and arrange, edit, juxtapose. My method is eclectic as befits a gleaner, employing such criticisms as feminist, literary, postcolonial, and queer, and also availing myself of the full harvests of historical, archaeological, and sociological methods" (10). Koosed's eclecticism is anything but haphazard. Each source and method is carefully and thoughtfully engaged and skillfully and accessibly presented to the reader. Eschewing both easy piety and cheap cynicism, Koosed highlights the ambiguity in the biblical portrayal of Ruth (and of God). This ambiguity lends credence to many of the divergent interpretations of Ruth and her story, such as whether and how Ruth loved Naomi or Boaz. It also suggests some unexplored aspects of Ruth's character. For example, Koosed finds an element of tricksterism at work in Ruth's enigmatic speeches. In general, Koosed presents an unflinching portrait of the difficult circumstances that Ruth had to negotiate, but also allows room for Ruth to have agency, raising the possibility that her disappearance from the end of the book may reflect an exercise of autonomy rather than an experience of victimization. Koosed compellingly challenges the assumption of most interpreters that the story of Lot's daughters in Genesis and the anti-Moabite [End Page 195] law of Deuteronomy demonstrate the existence of an anti-Moabite attitude on the part of the Bethlehemites in the story and the book's earliest "readers." However, it was unclear to me why the historical argument about the relationship between Deuteronomy and Ruth led Koosed to question the status of Moabites in the community (33), but not the existence of gleaning as a "right under the law" (76). Koosed does not make mention of contextual )or, better, contextually conscious( biblical scholarship. Nevertheless, her work is a welcome contribution to that conversation, particularly for its intellectually rigorous ways of utilizing experience. Mindful of the ways in which her experience shapes her encounter with the biblical Ruth, she shares that experience with the reader in ways that move beyond simple self-disclosure. The relationship between Koosed and Ruth underlies and enhances the exploration of all the other relationships. Koosed makes fruitful connections to her own experience of pregnancy, motherhood, and agricultural work, as well as her encounter with certain contemporary films and novels. Some of these films and novels belong to the category of Ruth's afterlives, but Koosed does not limit her engagement of them to analysis of their use of the biblical text. Instead, she highlights the ways in which they help attune her to different possibilities within the book of Ruth itself. As she explains with reference to The Gleaners and I, "the interpreter is the nexus where the film is brought into dialogue with the Bible" (8). By making visible the ways in which she is formed and informed as an intellectual studying...

Lot's Daughters and the Mothers of Davidic Dynasty in the Zohar: The Enigma of the Term “Tiqla”

Lot's Daughters and the Mothers of Davidic Dynasty in the Zohar: The Enigma of the Term “Tiqla”

Women Novelists and the Ethics of Desire, 1684-1814: In the Voice of Our Biblical Mothers (review)

Reviewed by: Women Novelists and the Ethics of Desire, 1684-1814: In the Voice of Our Biblical Mothers Jesse Molesworth Elizabeth Kraft , Women Novelists and the Ethics of Desire, 1684–1814: In the Voice of Our Biblical Mothers. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2008. Pp. vii + 199. Elizabeth Kraft's book defends a thesis that, on the face of it, seems absurd: the amorous fictions of women writers like Aphra Behn, Delarivier Manley, and Eliza Haywood, which created scandal in their own day, have at their core a strong ethical component, one that is absorbed and re-articulated in later fictions by Sarah Fielding, Charlotte Smith, Frances Burney, and Elizabeth Inchbald. Instead of tantalizing and titillating, such matriarchs of the English novel — increasingly seen as feminine counterparts to the patriarchal triad of Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, and Henry Fielding — were articulating a specifically feminine form of desire, which is responsive to the demands of an other. Within an exchange of "double desire," such writers therefore anticipate the ethical utopia envisioned later by, for example, Immanuel Kant: a realm of universal subjectivity, free from the dehumanizing force of objectification. If these women could not find a reasonable model of ethical desire within the writings of contemporary men, Kraft argues, they did have models within Scripture. Turning especially to three Biblical women — Sarah, Rebecca, and the anonymous speaker of the Song of Songs — Kraft traces what she describes as a feminine erotics, which refuses the possessive inequalities of male desire. Sarah's enigmatic laugh within the tent of Abraham, for example, is shown to represent "the gift of laughter and joy in love" (20). Rebecca's marriage to Isaac embodies an ideal, in which "self and other meet without possession" (27). And the speaker of the Song of Songs possesses the freedom and individuality to speak openly "of mutual passion and of sexual difference and of transcendence through erotic love" (29). Taken as a threesome, such women exemplify a desire that is redemptive rather than demeaning. According to the theory of Emmanuel Levinas, the philosopher whose ethical writings underpin Kraft's book, desire offers a means of experiencing the infinite — but only when it is "chiastic," symmetrically overlapping in the manner of a Greek "X." Some of the best moments in the book come as Kraft, aided by commentary from Luce Irigaray, traces the ramifications of this chiastic desire: "the point of crossing is really a moment of surrender, an admission of inadequacy or vulnerability, in which one voice demands of the other voice 'interrupt me'" (26). The bulk of the book extends this examination of chiastic desire to the case of the eighteenth-century novel, more particularly to works written by women about women. (The only exception is a brief look at Richardson's novels, which are seemingly too important to ignore — but even this discussion focuses strongly [End Page 409] on female reactions to his work.) The analysis, which is often quite illuminating, proceeds by viewing certain Biblical heroines as antecedents, or in Kraft's words "paradigms," for heroines of the long eighteenth century. Thus, Deborah, the paradigmatic woman of politics, models the political struggles of Isabella within Behn's "History of the Nun." Esther, the great interpreter of signs, models the type of "hieroglyphics of desire" found within works by Manley and Haywood. Hagar's sufferings model those of Ellis within Burney's The Wanderer. And Lot's daughters, who find themselves in an erotic quagmire, model the situation faced by Miss Milner and her daughter Matilda in Inchbald's A Simple Story. The argument is not that Biblical texts were directly influential: "The older texts are not mined as source material, but are invoked as records that speak to perennial concerns, especially about love, sexual desire, and spiritual longing" (1). This assertion will no doubt invite methodological questions: could not the links be drawn more strongly, perhaps by demonstrating the cultural capital of Biblical narratives as a model for ethical thought? And, if these ethical concerns are "perennial," especially for women, then do they not compromise the uniqueness of the answers offered by such writers? But such questions may misread the intentions of the project, and the present reviewer, for...

The Sexual Abuse of Lot's Daughters: Reconceptualizing Kinship for the Sake of Our Daughters

Using feminist psychoanalytical perspectives as frames of reference, Low analyzes the story of Lot’s daughters (Gen 19:30–38 nrsv) in terms of sexual abuse and sexual taboo. She reads Gen 19 parallel to her unique perspective as a daughter of a sexually abused mother. Her personal account mingles with academic insights on the text, while she explores feminist psychoanalytical scholarship, the complexity of remembering sexual abuse, and biblical and societal kinship structures. The essay then offers alternative kinship theories than those from psychoanalysis, in conjunction with an interpretation of Lot’s daughters that coincides with the author’s personal experience as a new mother. Autobiographical Interpretive Frame My mother called my brother and me to sit with her in the living room when I was eight years old. In preparation for a visit from my grandparents, she warned us not to walk around the house in our T-shirts and underwear. We were to dress completely before exiting our rooms in the morning. We were to lock our doors at night. I remember my feelings of confusion since, as a child, I never locked my bedroom door, and I enjoyed waking up on Saturday mornings to watch television in my pajamas. My grandfather, she said, did not respect body boundaries and we were to protect ourselves. This was the first time I remember hearing about my mother’s sexual abuse. Carol Smith suggests that whoever reads a text, “does so from a particular personal standpoint in terms of upbringing, education, and experience.” 1 Today,

Lot's Daughters: Sex, Redemption, and Women's Quest for Authority (review)

Lot's Daughters: Sex, Redemption, and Women's Quest for Authority (review)

Lot's Daughters: Sex, Redemption and Women's Quest for Authority

As a genre, the reception history of the single biblical story has come a long way from the days of Samson-through-the-Ages, with authors offering increasingly focused and often paradigm-driven studies of their subject. Robert Polhemus uses the term ‘the Lot complex’ to describe the outworking of the reception history of the story of Lot, his wife, and his daughters, in the shape of the relationship of fathers and daughters, older men and younger women, in Western culture. It remains to be seen whether feminists will be grateful for an alternative to the Freudian Oedipus complex. This ambitious survey proceeds from an analysis of the story in Genesis 19, through early Christian exegesis, the commentaries of Luther and Calvin, Renaissance art, and on to the treatment of the theme in Shakespeare, Jane Austen, the Bröntes, Lewis Carroll and James Joyce. In addition, the theme is documented as a feature not...

Lot's Daughters: Sex, Redemption and Women's Quest for Authority. By Robert M. Polhemus. California: Stanford University Press, 2005.

As a genre, the reception history of the single biblical story has come a long way from the days of Samson-through-the-Ages, with authors offering increasingly focused and often paradigm-driven studies of their subject. Robert Polhemus uses the term ‘the Lot complex’ to describe the outworking of the reception history of the story of Lot, his wife, and his daughters, in the shape of the relationship of fathers and daughters, older men and younger women, in Western culture. It remains to be seen whether feminists will be grateful for an alternative to the Freudian Oedipus complex. This ambitious survey proceeds from an analysis of the story in Genesis 19, through early Christian exegesis, the commentaries of Luther and Calvin, Renaissance art, and on to the treatment of the theme in Shakespeare, Jane Austen, the Bröntes, Lewis Carroll and James Joyce. In addition, the theme is documented as a feature not...

Lot's daughters: sex, redemption, and women's quest for authority

Table of Contents for Lot's Daughters Preface Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: The Lot Complex PART I: THE HERITAGE OF LOT AND HIS DAUGHTERS 2. Telling Examples: The Growing Authority of Lot's Daughters 3. Faithful Interpretations: Lot and His Daughters from the Bible to the Reformation 4. A Family Museum: Visions of Lot and His Daughters 5. Embracing the Daughter: The Riddle of Lot, Shakespeare, and the English Heritage PART II: GENERATING AND REPRESENTING MODERN DAUGHTERS OF LOT 6. Reflections from the Cave: Jane Austen's Mansfield Park and Mary Shelley's Mathilda 7. The Cave and the Mask: The BrontAs 8. The Maiden Tribute: Lot's Daughters Through the Victorian Looking-Glass 9. The Lot of Freud and Dora 10. Shirley Temple: The Daughter as Childstar 11. Woody Allen and Mia Farrow: Lot in the Era of Deconstruction PART III: LOT'S DAUGHTERS AT THE MILLENNIUM: POTOMAC TESTAMENTS 12. Complete Darkness: Carolivia Herron and Thereafter Johnnie 13. The Impeachment of Lot: The Clintons, Lewinsky, and Tripp Notes Index

Lot's Daughters: Sex, Redemption, and Women's Quest for Authority (review)

Reviewed by: Lot's Daughters: Sex, Redemption, and Women's Quest for Authority Alison Booth (bio) Lot's Daughters: Sex, Redemption, and Women's Quest for Authority, by Robert M. Polhemus; pp. xiv + 432. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005, '29.95. Most of us know something of the story of Lot and his womenfolk in Genesis 19. Robert Polhemus presses the unwelcome realization that we have also reenacted it. The parts are [End Page 179] as classic, indeed as compulsory as other versions of family romance, from the Oedipal complex to the Passion. The story mixes motives and motifs that, according to Polhemus, characterize centuries of relations between older men and younger women, fathers and daughters. In the Bible, Lot, to defend his two houseguests from being seized and raped by the Sodomite men at his door, offers his virgin daughters to the mob instead. Fortunately the guests, revealed as angels, rescue Lot, his daughters, and his wife from the damned cities, which are consumed in fire and brimstone. Lot's wife disobediently looks back at the burning cities of the plain and is turned into a pillar of salt. Father and daughters, seeking refuge in an isolated cave, appear to be the last earthly survivors, and the daughters fear that the race will die out. The eldest daughter plots with the younger to ply their father with wine so that each of them in turn can have sex with him and conceive a son—each son the father of a lasting people. Polhemus acknowledges the squeamishness provoked by this story, but without encouraging tolerance of incest or exploitation of girls, he finds surprising potential in the "Lot complex" as it develops in recent centuries. The narrative centered on the father desperate to gain immortality (or self-gratification) through his daughters gives way to the recognition of young women's strategies to appropriate the patriarch's potency and to carry forward a cultural legacy. Polhemus is right to emphasize that the daughters often take pleasure in the power of seduction, and that a patriarchal culture will often represent its potential for progress or immortality in the figure of the young girl while directing hostility toward the older woman. And this rich volume convinces readers that the biblical narrative condenses scenarios that have been reenacted throughout the cultural history of the west. Lot's Daughters ranges across millennia and media, from early Christian commentaries to 1930s film and contemporary scandals. The discussions are inventive as well as learned, presented in brief segments cleverly titled and peppered with wordplay. Lot's Daughters has something in common with comparative myth criticism and psychoanalytic criticism, recalling the work of Dorothy Dinnerstein and Northrop Frye, Frederick Crews and Harold Bloom. Myth criticism has fallen by the wayside, perhaps ossified because it looks back. But it has continuing potential and can be refreshing in contrast with the labored materialism and contextualization, the disciplinary hair-splitting of many studies in the humanities today. The volume is handsomely, even seductively designed, with fine illustrations. I was less pleased by the sparse endnotes, the scanty index, the lack of a bibliography, and the unusually frequent misprints. The lightness of documentation suggested oversights, particularly for this reader in regard to feminist or Victorian studies. Biblical scholars, art historians, or other specialists might have comparable queries about their own fields. Polhemus strives for the beauties of exegesis, and his conjunctions of texts and life histories can have the brilliant intentional excess of metaphysical conceits. But the historical narrative he writes is too eager to integrate the lives of real people with myth, and it invites contrary examples and arguments. In the chapter on Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, and Soon-Yi, Farrow's adopted daughter who became Allen's lover and wife, Polhemus recapitulates his historical argument: The Lot-Scripture had daringly suggested that civilization and the future—the father's seed—would be preserved through the agency of daughters....But that story was compromised by illicit sexuality and the revulsion of incest. The Victorians [End Page 180] ...tried to salvage and use the great potential of Lot's daughters by purging the story of sex and imagining innocent young girls as...

After Lot's Daughters: Kathryn Harrison and the Making of Memory

(1999). After Lot's Daughters: Kathryn Harrison and the Making of Memory. a/b: Auto/Biography Studies: Vol. 14, EXTREMITIES: MEMOIRS AT THE FIN DE SIECLE, pp. 51-70.

Titian's Pastoral Scene: A Unique Rendition of Lot and His Daughters

AbstractTitian's drawing called Pastoral Scene or Landscape with a Sleeping Nude and Animals is no ordinary landscape, its unordinariness underscored by an unusual combination of elements, which I maintain reveals a new and unique version of Lot and His Daughters. I contend that the large, naked woman in the right foreground is one of Lot's daughters; the two small figures resting or sleeping beneath the trees are Lot and his other daughter; the thatched houses in the middle left represent the little town of Segor where Lot first fled; the sheep represent livestock that Lot brought out of Sodom, as do the boar and goat; the boar and goat, however, also serve as symbols of lust and lechery; and the distant city with burning buildings in the city's right quarter is Sodom. Titian's inventiveness created an iconographic variation of an ancient theme.

The Phallacy of Genesis: A Feminist-Psychoanalytic Approach (review)

Hebrew Studies 37 (1996) 161 control by the Israelite rulers and cult officials, rather than the divine care of the people of the land. On the whole, this is an excellent book, accomplishing what it sets out to do economically and effectively. Students will be led to consider key issues of biblical scholarship, past and present, under the guidance of an openminded mentor. Heather A. McKay Edge Hill College. Ormskirk Lancashire L39 4QP UK THE PHALLACY OF GENESIS: A FEMINIST-PSYCHOANALYTIC APPROACH. By Ilona N. Rashkow. Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation. Pp. 144. Louisville: Westminster/lohn Knox, 1993. Paper, $15.99. Overlaying feminist psychoanalytic Freudian theory and a version of reader-response criticism, Ilona Rashkow in the role of reader/analyst offers readings/interpretations of Genesis passages as psychoanalytic processes . Aware that a reading of a "reading of [a/]this reading" flirts with the danger of double distancing, this reader/reviewer tries to resist the temptation of psychoanalyzing reader/writer and reading yet again. Chapter I explores parallels between reading the Bible and "the psychoanalytic process." "See[ing] reading as a replication of the psychoanalytic process itself' (p. 22), Rashkow utilizes such Freudian categories in her analysis/reading of the Bible as the reader's "unconscious" and "selfconsciousness ," "identification," "wish gratification," and openness to "the process" as a prerequisite for possible change. For example, she links Aristotle's "catharsis" with "pleasurable relief' via readers' identification with (biblical) narrative. Chapter 2 offers a reading/analysis of Gen 12:10-20 and 20:1-18 in the context of the psychoanalytic concept of "transference" (and by implication "countertransference," I would think), tracing the transference between reader and text in a "constant exchange." It is this interdependence that Rashkow identifies as constituted by intertextuality. "A reader re-creates a text. combining intertextual episodes with his or her own characteristic process of mind (transference)" (p. 37). A triangular schema of "powerful male"t'powerless female"/"sexual exploitation" ensues. Transference supposedly results in empathy with the silencing of Sarah on all levels of the Hebrew Studies 37 (1996) 162 Reviews story (narrative, textual, lexical, and editorial) and/or in identification with Pharaoh who opposes sexual exploitation by refusing her. Understanding "the immorality of adultery" probably better than Abraham, the main actor himself, indeed, "a reader's innocence cannot remain intact" (p. 48) (if that was a desirable goal in the first place). Freudian dream analysis functions as a model for reading Abimelech's dream (Gen 20) in Chapter 3. Interpretation of dreams as symbolic fulfillment of unconscious wishes leads Rashkow to read Gen 20:3 as Abimelech's "unconscious desire" for "sexual possession of Sarah" (p. 54). His skilled use of "regression in the service of progression" in the secondary process of dreamwork (20:4-5) and waking action (20:6-7), however , allows the king to "rebuke" Abraham and "vindicate" himself by avoiding the divine punishment, which he had anticipated by gUilt (according to Freud)-all thanks to sensitivity to dream analysis. In Chapter 4, Freud and the biblical narrator(s)/editor(s) play musical chairs as Rashkow parallels "the narrative erasure of biblical daughters" in Genesis with "Freud's rejection of the seduction-theory of hysteria" (p. 66). Noting the "conspicuous absence of daughter" in Leviticus 18 incest taboos (pp. 70-71), she shows biblical (Deut 22) and Freudian instances where the female filial threat leads to paternal abandonment and accusation of seduction. The most daring (and somewhat confusing) interpretation cites Genesis 1-3 as another example where "seduction is displaced first onto the (phallic) serpent" (p. 76) (implying Adam as "father" of the first woman, thus reorganizing somehow the creation events). An interpretation of the fate and relationships of Lot's daughters in Genesis 19 serves as the final biblical reference in a chapter where the intriguing thesis of psychoanalytic parallelism of erasure of biblical daughters with Freudian rejection of seduction-theory of hysteria loses some of its power due to added cognitive dissonances. Various issues regarding female sexuality as problematic for Freud as well as for the Hebrew Bible are addressed in Chapter 5 under the umbrella of "Oedipus." Rashkow sees the Freudian Oedipus conflict as "strikingly parallel to the family...

The Women of Genesis: From Sarah to Potiphar's Wife (review)

Hebrew Studies 32 (1991) 146 Reviews THE WOMEN OF GENESIS: FROM SARAH TO POTIPHAR'S WIFE. By Sharon Pace Jeansonne. pp. xi + 152. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1990. Paper. This book is a very sympathetic reading of the biblical narratives regarding women in Gen 12-50. Jeansonne begins by arguing that "until recently most modem interpreters of the Book of Genesis have displayed patriarchal bias" (p. 1). In particular, previous readers of Genesis have considered women "chiefly in their function of supporting men." Her book is an attempt to correct these previous patriarchal misreadings through focusing on the inherent significance of biblical portraits of women's lives. In order to do this she draws heavily on the work in literary approaches to biblical narrative by Robert Alter (The Art of Biblical Narrative) and particularly Meir Sternberg (The Poetics ofBiblical Narrative). Most of the first chapter is useful summary of her methodology, narrative criticism. This includes short, well-written sections on the following topics: characterization and dialogue. perspective and authority. ambiguity and gaps, repetition, combination and sequence of narratives, type scenes and conventions, names and epithets, and diction and setting. Chapters two through eight are each devoted to interpretation of biblical texts regarding women in Genesis: Sarah. the daughters of Lot, Hagar. Rebekah. Rachel and Leah. Dinah, Tamar. and Potiphar's wife. In each case Jeansonne argues that the biblical "narrator" leads the "reader" into a portrait of these women as (1) central and (2) at least as worthy of respect as the men in the story. Sarah. Rebekah, Rachel, Leah. and Tamar emerge as resourceful matriarchs, protectors of the promise, and recipients of God's blessings. Likewise, the narrator portrays Lot's daughters sympathetically , while depicting Lot himself as a brutal and neglectful father. Though Hagar appears in Genesis as the mother of an enemy nation, she is not caricatured, but rather portrayed as a powerless woman receiving divine blessing and protection. Dinah is a central character in a tragic and yet nuanced portrayal of rape and revenge. Even the negative portrayal of Potiphar's wife is partially explained by her status as "foreigner," and its xenophobic tendencies are balanced by the account of Joseph's subsequent marriage to an Egyptian woman, Asenath, the mother of Ephraim and Manasseh. Many interesting readings are interspersed throughout these chapters. For example, Jeansonne radically reinterprets the story of Sarah's laughter at overhearing God's promise that she would have a son (Gen 18:9-15). Hebrew Studies 32 (1991) 147 Reviews Many previous interpreters have seen this as a story about Sarah's doubting laughter and her denial of that doubt. Jeansonne (pp. 23-24), however, argues persuasively that when seen in the context of Abraham's prior reception of the promise (Gen 17), this story can be read as God's confrontation of Abraham for failing to tell Sarah of the promise (18:13-14) and Sarah's attempt to defend him (18:15). The above example illustrates some of the possibilities opened up by Jeansonne's decision to read the biblical narratives in their final form. In the above case she coordinates a story traditionally assigned to "J" (Gen 18:9-15) with one assigned to "P" (Gen 17). But such a focus on fmal form is not the only virtue of the readings in the book. Rather, it is full of interesting observations about narrative repetition, gaps, characterization, allusions, and other literary characteristics. Moreover, she judiciously refers to the Hebrew of her passages (transliterated and translated) in order to point out nuances, word-plays, and connections between stories. Finally, her special focus on female characters in their own right makes it possible for her to observe a number of new things about biblical characterizations of women in Gen 12-50. Within the context of that overall positive evaluation, some reservations are in order: (1) The entire book seems built on the presupposition that the Bible can say no wrong about women. As such it is most appropriate for those interpretive contexts where some kind of theological inerrancy of the Bible is presupposed. (2) At a number of points she is only able to secure a reading of these texts as...

The Daughters of Lot

Lot went up from Zoar and settled in the hill-country with his two daughters, because he was afraid to stay in Zoar; he lived with his two daughters in a cave. The elder daughter said to the younger, 'Our father is old and there is not a man in the country to come to us in the usual way. Come now, let us make our father drink wine and then lie with him and in this way keep the family alive through our father.' So that night they gave him wine to drink, and the elder daughter came and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down and when she got up. Next day the elder said to the younger, 'Last night I lay with my father. Let us give him wine to drink again tonight; then you go in and lie with him. So we shall keep the family alive through our father.' So they gave their father wine to drink again that night, and the younger daughter went and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down and when she got up. In this way both Lot's daughters came to be with child by their father. The elder daughter bore a son and called him Moab; he was the ancestor of the present Moabites. The younger also bore a son, whom she called Ben-ammi; he was the ancestor of the present Ammonites.'

The Orchard, and: Reading Your Poems

TWO POEMS by Mary Ellen Miller THE ORCHARD A sudden hissing of the sensesstung by the monotone of summer beeschurns nostalgia for the orchard, and I am there climbing apple trees gnarled as the hands of patriarchs; breathing the plum, the pear heavy drippling a warm mosaic in the lush and emerald park; squeaming the brown slick-shine of fallen peaches ravished to rot by life ancient as earth; smelling the dead sea quiet of primal beaches in the orchard summer scent of Eden's birth. I am full forever of the orchard, stained in the blood-beat rhythm of its carnal song of pale child dark fruit dreaming in the branches, yet why is the orchard memory feel so hard, so strong? Is the smell of rotting apples the archetypal smell? Or is the pulsing orchard memory made of lonely farm child only, strange and solitary re-creating what was read in Genesis and fairy tales of witches' houses pebbled with peppermint and figs old as Lot's daughters crawling into the cave for what I never dared to ask but cared in secret and in pain from make-guess knowledge all pulse and heat and wishes ripened on evil wolves and prophets writhing in the sweetly guilty mind? Or is it merely green felt summer and the pure taste there? No. It is not loss of innocence that growing up must bring. I grow toward purity in sunlight, sterilized of childhood's heady sins but hungry for the orchardits rich and filling guilt's primeval charmshade and mist swarming in the senses, naked and darkly knowing in the orchard on the farm. 78 READING YOUR POEMS That's all rightI mean the way the clank of the washing machine leftover Me on the dining table multiple beeps and whines of the house Beat in your poems like a pulse. You go to sleep in stale arms of smoke in a bed of paper fodder. And wake to notes and books due at school yesterday. The kids and I: our breath kills flies. The click of our boots frightens mice out of the house forever. Only your dreams you say in one way or another bear still the wonder of frost in the light of the stars hounds barking waist-deep in cold water. You sit with us a stranger still cold from the hunt. Your own eyes look at you from the faces of your childrenfull of tangled thoughts. My hands shake sorting the socks. It's all right. I move like an old film jerky and dated and funny in you through you and beyond walking the future. At night we turn you over in your sleepthree little elves and big mama working quietly together the smallest slithers under furniture to retrieve your socks. We huddle without sounds happy the four of us together. The glow of our faces lights the dark cave of your open mouth. A small girl pats your naked thigh. 79 We have stopped your snoring— odd roars over your dreams of wild honey in a mountain pasture. I fold the cover over your hills of bone and muscle. Row after row of neat black hair on your legs and chest wave like spring grass in the future dreams of my children. What I want is mine. I also know it is the dream that matters. TWO POEMS by Albert Stewart THE UP RIVER TRAIN At work we heard the whistle blowing Miles over crinkled hills, the sound Bird-clear and sweet with distance. My father looked up: Listen, he said, listen, The Up River Train above Chavies. Listen, he said, You can hear it shuffle-puff and pound on the rails. Listen, he said, holding his hand for attention, You can hear it enter the Walkertown tunnel. Listen. The shush of sound. Listen. The return of sound. Now she's blowing for Hazard, he said. He stood as if reflecting. Then: You'll not hear the likes of that often, Maybe once or twice in a lifetime if you're lucky. Wind and air have to be just right, he said, And, you have to be in the right place. Bending to...