Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan, Katie B. Edwards

   Pages 1-11

3. For Precious Girls Everywhere: Lamentations, HIV, and Precious

   • Lu Skerratt

   Pages 13-30

4. Brother, Sister, Rape: The Hebrew Bible and Popular Culture

   • Johanna Stiebert

   Pages 31-50

5. Queering the Virgin/Whore Binary: The Virgin Mary, the Whore of Babylon, and Sexual Violence

   • Teguh Wijaya Mulya

   Pages 51-65

6. Rape Culture Discourse and Female Impurity: Genesis 34 as a Case Study

   • Jessica M. Keady

   Pages 67-82

7. Andrea Dworkin on the Biblical Foundations of Violence Against Women

   • Julie Kelso

   Pages 83-101

8. Twelve Steps to the Tent of Zimri: An Imaginarium

   • Yael Klangwisan

   Pages 103-115

9. Abandonment, Rape, and Second Abandonment: Hannah Baker in 13 Reasons Why and the Royal Concubines in 2 Samuel 15–20

   • David Tombs

   Pages 117-141

10. “To Ransom a Man’s Soul”: Male Rape and Gender Identity in Outlander and “The Suffering Man” of Lamentations 3

    • Emma Nagouse

    Pages 143-158

11. Homophobia and Rape Culture in the Narratives of Early Israel

    • James E. Harding

    Pages 159-178

12. Marriage, Love, or Consensual Sex? Feminist Engagements with Biblical Rape Texts in Light of Title IX

    • Susanne Scholz

    Pages 179-199

13. Tough Conversations: Teaching Biblical Gender Violence in Aotearoa New Zealand

    • Emily Colgan, Caroline Blyth

    Pages 201-207

14. Back Matter

    Pages 209-220

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This book explores the Bible’s ongoing relevance in contemporary discussions around rape culture and gender violence. Each chapter considers the ways that biblical texts and themes engage with various forms of gender violence, including the subjective, physical violence of rape, the symbolic violence of misogynistic and heteronormative discourses, and the structural violence of patriarchal power systems. The authors within this volume attempt to name (and shame) the multiple forms of gender violence present within the biblical traditions, contesting the erasure of this violence within both the biblical texts themselves and their interpretive traditions. They also consider the complex connections between biblical gender violence and the perpetuation and validation of rape culture in contemporary popular culture. This volume invites new and ongoing conversations about the Bible’s complicity in rape-supportive cultures and practices, challenging readers to read these texts in light of theglobal crisis of gender violence.

• domestic violence
• trauma
• consent
• rape
• patriarchy
• religion and gender
• sexual behaviour

“The book will be used for its individual essays rather than as a textbook on ‘rape culture and the Bible’. Each of the essays warrants careful reading and intentional sharing, particularly in a world reshaped by the Covid-19 pandemic in ways that have made rape cultures and their consequences even more evident.” (Gerald O. West, Journal of Theology for Southern  Africa, Issue 167, July, 2020)

• University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

  Caroline Blyth

• Trinity Methodist Theological College, Auckland, New Zealand

  Emily Colgan

• University of Sheffield, Sheffield, United Kingdom

  Katie B. Edwards

Caroline Blyth is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Auckland. Recent publications include Reimagining Delilah’s Afterlives as Femme Fatale (2017). She is co-editor of the Bible and Critical Theory journal, and founding member of the Shiloh Project, an interdisciplinary research group studying gender violence and religion.


Emily Colgan is Lecturer in Theology at Trinity Methodist Theological College, Auckland, and contributor to the Shiloh Project.


Katie B. Edwards is Director of the Sheffield Institute for Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies and Senior Lecturer in the School of English, University of Sheffield. She is current co-editor of the Biblical Reception journal, and founding member of the Shiloh Project.

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