Unholy Texts: Reading Biblical Rape Narratives

Carl Ehrlich, York University

The topic of rape appears a number of times in the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament).  It may be found broached both explicitly and implicitly in texts reflective of a number of literary genres, including legal texts, narrative texts, poetic texts, and prophetic texts.  While the violent act of rape is nowhere condoned, it was a tragic fact of life in the biblical world – as it still is in ours.  This lecture will survey biblical texts relating to rape in a number of literary genres and attempt to classify the allusions to rape according to various literary, social, theological, and legal criteria.