Thesiss

God is markedly absent in the three rape narratives in the Hebrew Bible (Genesis 34, Judges 19, and 2 Samuel 13). Drawing on methodologies from literary criticism and gender studies, this dissertation situates rape in its historical context, then analyzes a pattern of four eleme…

Tamar, Judah's daughter-in-law (Genesis 38) is an important and enigmatic biblical figure. The enigma stems from the dichotomy between Tamar's daring, unconventional behavior and her elevation to prominence in the Bible and later Jewish tradition. Despite her transgressive behav…

This dissertation demonstrates that the narrators of Genesis 34 and 2 Samuel 13 cast the sexual violations of Dinah and Tamar similarly. Chapter 1 attends to the words that link the two narratives. It also examines other Hebrew Bible (HB) passages containing inah, nevalah, and h…

Sexual Abuse is neither new nor limited to the current century. Interest in the efficacy of preaching about sexual abuse to enlighten congregational listeners and to convey the healing message of the Gospel has evolved alongside church educational programs designed to prevent se…

Deep in the sacred epic literatures of Judaism and Hinduism, the reader comes across two surprising female figures. Both of these entities flout the predominant scholarly view that these are misogynist or man-centered texts in two important ways. Firstly, by standing in extreme …