SEXUAL OFFENCES
P.W. Coxon, "A note on 'Bathsheba' in 2 Samuel 12, 1-6",
Biblica 62 (1981), 247-250. - C. supports the LXX reading of shivatayim
in 2 Sam. 12:6 for arbatayim on the basis of an elaborate
word play throughout 2 Sam. 11 and 12 and the final irony
of Nathan's judgment, shivatayim, as a word play on the name of David's
mistress, batsheva (cf. bt in v.3). (K.W.W.)
Gershom Frankfurter and Rivka Ulmer, "Über Homosexualität
im jüdischen Gesetz", Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte
43/1 (1991), 49-68.
H. McKeating, "A Response to Dr Phillips", JSOT 20
(1981), 25-6. - McKeating offers a brief reply to the article by Phillips
in JSOT 20 (1981), 3-25 (below). (J.D.)
A. Phillips, "Another look at Adultery", JSOT 20
(1981), 3-25. - "In conclusion, then, this 'another look at adultery'
in the Old Testament confirms the assertion of Greenberg, Paul and myself
that the law covering adultery in Israel was unique in the ancient Near
East, adultery being treated as a crime and not as a civil offence. Consequently
it demanded community - not private - action leading to the execution of
the adulterer, and, after the Deuteronomic reform, of the adulteress too.
The husband could neither pardon the criminal(s), take any private act of
revenge, nor settle for damages, since adultery was a crime and not a civil
offence for which damages would properly be paid. The only thing which concerned
him, as it did the community at large, was that the criminal(s) should be
publicly tried, convicted and executed, though in the post-exilic period
excommunication from the cult community replaced exaction of the death penalty.
In my view this situation could only have arisen because ancient Israel
came into being through accepting a distinctive law which, regardless of
any covenant theology, made her a peculiar people among the other ancient
Near Eastern peoples. This could only have been the Decalogue." (J.D.)
A. Phillips, "A Response to Dr McKeating", JSOT 22
(1982), 142-3. - Phillips offers a brief reply to the criticisms levelled
at his earlier article by H. McKeating in JSOT 20 (1981), 25-6. (J.D.)
G.J. Wenham, "Why Does Sexual Intercourse Defile?", ZAW
95 (1983), 432-34. - The distinction of life and death is fundamental to
Israel's concept of holiness. God who is perfect life is the ultimately
holy. All the conditions described in Lev. 12 & 15 are polluting
because they incur loss of "life liquids", for example blood (17:11,14),
which is why a woman in menstruation is unclean. In the same way male semen
must be seen as a "life-liquid" and so its loss, whether long-term
(15:1-15) or temporarily (15:16-18) is polluting. (R.A.M.)
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