Configurations of Rape in the Hebrew Bible

The Author: Frank M. Yamada is Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary and has published several essays in the areas of postmodernism, ethics of interpretation, violence in the Hebrew Bible, culturally-contextual hermeneutics, and Asian American biblical interpretation.

"Yamada's work is a rich resource for thinking theologically about issues of violence against women today. It reveals a shared pattern in the larger context of the narratives of rape in Genesis 34, Judges 19, and 2 Samuel 13: the rape of a woman is followed by excessive male violence and social fragmentation. Yamada astutely analyzes all aspects of this underlying pattern and its relevance for thinking about violence against women from the perspective of the biblical narrative." (Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, Eisenberger Professor of Old Testament, Director of Ph.D. Studies, Princeton Theological Seminary) "In a well wrought literary study, Yamada exposes the politics of rape. By probing tensions between male biases and female depictions in the details of texts, he illuminates the commonalities of violence and its consequences. This insightful contribution speaks to past and present." (Phyllis Trible, Union Theological Seminary)