The Enemy in the Household
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The Enemy in the Household

Family Violence in Deuteronomy and Beyond

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The Enemy in the Household

Family Violence in Deuteronomy and Beyond

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About This Book

This fresh approach to troubling biblical texts explores the "family violence" passages in Deuteronomy, tracing their ancient interpretation and assessing their contemporary significance. Three laws in Deuteronomy command violence against a family member--the enemy in the household--who leads others away from covenantal obligations to God. This book examines such "constructive" violence carried out to protect the covenant community by investigating the reading practices of ancient Jewish and Christian interpreters of Scripture and their applications of these passages. It also helps modern readers approach biblical texts that command violence in the family, providing a model for the ethical interpretation of these difficult texts.

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1

Introducing the Enemy Within

Put no trust in a friend, have no confidence in a loved one; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your embrace; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; your enemies are members of your own household.
Mic. 7:5–6 (NRSV)
“Your enemies are members of your own household.” This is a strong, emotionally laden statement, in the context of both ancient Israel and today. You can trust no one, not even your dearest friends and family. Your spouse is a spy in your arms, and your own children rebel against you. These people are your friends and kin, living and working by your side, but they have become your enemies, those who seek your harm, not your good (cf. Mic. 2:8–9; 7:8–10). Enmity here marks the people who should be your closest companions as outsiders who have infiltrated your very home. Enmity proves itself to be a question of identity.
For biblical Israel, identity is marked by loyalty. Identifying with the people of Israel requires being loyal to the God of Israel. Identifying with a family lineage means being loyal to that family, and identifying with a household means being loyal to the relationships and common life of the household. Members of God’s people or a particular family should be loyal, obedient, and unified (e.g., Gen. 13:8; Exod. 19:3–6; Josh. 24:14–15; Ps. 133:1). Identity is fluid and changeable: when members of families are not loyal, obedient, and unified, as indeed they are not in Mic. 7:1–6, they show that they are outsiders. They do not truly belong to the people of God or the family. They are enemies disguised as kin.
Three laws in Deuteronomy address enmity in the household. A close friend, sibling, spouse, or child counsels rebellion against the God who saved Israel from Egypt (13:6–11 [7–12 MT]). A son disobeys and rebels against his parents (21:18–21). A husband slanders his wife, and a daughter and wife shames parents and husband by her sexual indiscretion (22:13–21). In each text, apparent insiders are revealed as enemies by their disloyalty to God and family. Their behavior threatens the identity of the family and of God’s people. These enemies within are just as dangerous to Israel as foreign armies drawn up for battle.
In Mic. 7:1–7 enmity in the household is cause for lamentation and awaiting God’s salvation. In Deuteronomy the response to the enemy within is rather different: the very family members who have been tempted to idolatrous worship or dishonored by a rebellious child bring the enemy—their own brother, wife, son, daughter, or dear friend—to judgment and execution. Emphasizing the household’s role in the action taken against the enemy, in Deut. 22:20–21 the execution takes place at the door of the house, and in 13:9–10 (10–11 MT), the family member even throws the stone that begins the execution. For Deuteronomy, identifying a member of the household as an enemy has deadly consequences.
These laws can seem abhorrent to modern readers, who are perhaps more likely to see the enemy within as family violence rather than as an errant family member. How could a husband raise his hand against the wife who lies in his arms? How could a mother betray her daughter? How could a man take the life of his brother, or the friend who is like his own soul? These questions and concerns are not new. Ancient readers from the second century BCE to the rabbis of the second and third centuries CE also struggled to understand the kind of family violence represented in Deut. 13:6–11; 21:18–21; and 22:13–21. Clues in the way the laws are narrated in Deuteronomy suggest that even their producers recognized their inherent offensiveness. Though for modern readers these laws are horrifying because of the emotional and nurturing significance of the family and the value of individual freedom, for their earliest readers the family was the social, economic, and theological center and source of life. In this context, laws that require violence against a family member are ever more troubling.[1]
The demands of these texts sound a harsh, discordant note in ancient and modern ears alike.[2] Considering the value of family in the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel, how should the legislation of the execution of family members in Deut. 13:6–11; 21:18–21; and 22:13–21 be understood? Given a modern understanding of family violence itself as the enemy within, how should—perhaps simply, should—these texts be read today? In this book, I seek to answer these questions through an intensive study of the three laws in Deuteronomy and their ancient interpretations, adaptations, and applications. I read these texts critically, recognizing the serious ethical questions they raise, but also faithfully, recognizing their place as sacred Scripture in the traditions of Judaism and Christianity. This study of family violence in Deuteronomy and beyond is an exercise in the practice of a hermeneutic of trust.
Preliminary Matters: Working Definitions
Three major topics are brought together in this book: family, violence, and reading. Each of these areas has spawned its own growing library of research. Before we begin the specific study of family violence in Deut. 13:6–11; 21:18–21; 22:13–21 and beyond, it will be helpful to set out basic guidelines for understanding each of these topics. What does “family” mean in the biblical, Second Temple, and rabbinic periods, and equally important, what does it not mean? What is violence? Can legislated punishment be properly called violence? Finally, how do we read difficult texts? What method of reading is most appropriate, in light of the power of texts to influence and even determine belief and behavior?
Finding the Family and Families in the Ancient World
Because of the ubiquity of family life in our world, it is easy to interpret ancient texts based on our own understandings of real and ideal families. Before we begin the study of violence in the family in the Bible and other ancient texts, then, it is quite important to survey the contours of the ancient family and families encountered in the texts.[3] “The family” in the biblical worlds has become a major area of research in recent years, drawing on ancient texts, archaeology, economic and sociological models, and comparative anthropology to reconstruct the ideals and realities of family life.[4] While I am not engaged in reconstructing the social history of the family at the time of Deuteronomy or later interpreters, I will draw on the insights of this field to understand the practical function and theological significance of households in the focus texts. As a brief, general introduction, the following survey outlines three basic assumptions regarding what family is and is not in antiquity.
First, a family in antiquity was not a mother, father, two kids, and a dog. Ancient families were household units that could incorporate relatives, slaves, and otherwise unattached people.[5] The life cycle of a household, the needs of the wider community, and economic status would shape the particular configuration of a household at any one time, as is obvious from the range of families pictured in the Bible (Gen. 13:1–12; Exod. 20:10; Lev. 18:6–18; Mark 1:29–30; John 11:1; Eph. 5:21–6:9; etc.). In general, households were patrilocal, centered around a male lineage and inheritance. They were often multigenerational, incorporating grandparents, parents, and children. They were connected to local communities and the nation through widening circles of kinship (cf. Josh. 7:16–18).[6] Households in the biblical worlds included much more than nuclear families or blood relations.[7]
Second, a family in antiquity was not solely nor even primarily concerned with nurturing and emotionally supporting its members. Households were focused on and dedicated to subsistence. In ancient agricultural and market-based societies, it was essential for all members of a household to work together to provide for their common life. Everyone capable of working, from the oldest to the youngest, would have responsibilities in the house, fields, or family business.[8] Texts like 2 Kings 4:18; Prov. 10:5; Matt. 21:28–31; and Luke 15:25 reflect this persistent reality. The necessary sharing of the burden of providing for the household has important implications. For one, childhood in the biblical world was not all fun and games; children were expected to do their part for the family. Second, the needs of the group took priority over an individual’s desires or personal freedoms. Third, the contributions of wives and children to the household would balance patriarchal power and its potential abuse: a man would find life difficult if he alienated his coworkers.[9] Household life depended on the participation of all its members.
Finally, family life in the ancient world was not private and personal, hidden away in a house surrounded by a lawn behind a hedge. Families lived, worked, and aired their dirty laundry in public.[10] Because of the importance of individual households to the functioning of society as a whole, the public was aware of families. In the biblical worlds, the family was the foundation of society and economy. It was understood to be a microcosm of the state and, for Israel, of the national relationship with God.[11] Households that reflected social order and lived according to traditional social expectations supported the life of broader society and were rewarded with honor; households that failed to do so were identified as threats and subjected to dishonor. The family was a public entity.
Families centered life in the ancient biblical worlds. They were the social, economic, political, and theological cornerstones of existence. Their importance is emphasized by their omnipresence in ancient narratives, laws, and other texts. The significance of family life in antiquity makes violence against members of the household in Deuteronomy and other biblical texts more surprising, but it also provides a framework for understanding this violence.
Understanding Violence in the Hebrew Bible and Today
Perhaps unsurprising in light of all that has happened around the world since September 11, 2001, interest in defining, identifying, and interpreting violence in the Bible has burgeoned over the past decade.[12] Modern scholars have categorized a range of acts and words in the Bible as violent: in addition to the obvious culprits (rape, fighting, murder, war), everything from sacrifice and circumcision to warnings of eschatological judgment and even sowing and harvesting crops has been called violent.[13] In this study, I define violence more narrowly as action taken against a person in order to cause their injury or death.[14] This definition is simple and flexible, able to cover a variety of situations (or perhaps a multitude of sins?), but also limited enough to keep the study helpfully focused.
My working definition of violence is broad enough to include the use of punitive force in Deut. 13:6–11; 21:18–21; and 22:13–21.[15] Beatings, executions, or other uses of physical force demanded by law as punishment for certain crimes are not always considered violence, which would consequently be limited to illicit activities. In the Hebrew Bible, violence is almost entirely the purview of the unrighteous. The words used for “violence” refer primarily to physical action and sometimes speech associated with oppression, injustice, and wickedness.[16] Rarely is the punishment of the wicked or other injury or harm justified by the demands of God described as violence, and when it is, the punishment is on a large scale (e.g., the destruction of cities and nations).[17] As a general rule in biblical thought, just or holy war, beating, or stoning and other forms of legal execution are not identified or described as violent acts.[18]
I have chosen to include legislated punishment in my definition of violence for several reasons: (1) the recognition that there can be coexisting interpretations of an act as violence and as a use of legitimate force, (2) the reactions of ancient and modern readers to the demands of the three focus texts in Deuteronomy, and (3) the connection of violence with identity in modern research. First, identifying an act as violent depends on one’s viewpoint. There are multiple sides to every story (is a suicide bomber a terrorist or martyr? Is Abraham in Gen. 22 the ultimate example of devotion to God, or is he a child abuser?). What is violence from the perspective of the victim may look very different from the perspective of the perpetrator, and a third party may have a different perspective altogether (cf. 2 Sam. 18:9–15, 32; 21:1–14). The problem of perspective is exacerbated by our own distance from the texts. For modern Western readers in particular, the value of personal freedom influences our understanding of Deuteronomy’s laws.[19] It is assumed that an individual has the right to choose what gods to worship, when and with whom to engage in sexual intercourse, or to be independent of parental authority, and this assumption of individual rights increases readers’ discomfort with the laws that deny them. The laws can be classified as examples of violence because the reader sympathizes with the oppressed victim of the system.
Second, while the concern with individual rights is not an issue in ancient interpretations developing within cultures that valued the group over the individual, ancient readers also struggled with these three texts and others like them. In the early first century CE, Philo’s commentary on Deut. 21:18–21 (Spec. Laws 2.232) reveals his disquietude with the demands of the law. For parents to initiate the execution of their son is a very serious, troubling matter. Several centuries later, the rabbis claim that Deut. 21:18–21 and 13:12–18 (13–19 MT) are laws that could never be put into practice (t. Sanh. 11.6; 14.1). More recently, John Calvin marks the severity of the three laws of Deuteronomy and admits that they sound cruel to readers (Harmony of the Law 2–3).[20] Modern scholars label these laws as “ritualized atrocity,” child abuse, “disturbing,” “abhorrent,” and “draconian initiatives.”[21] In my definition of violence, the inclusion of legislated punishment recognizes the reactions of ancient and modern readers to the demands of Deut. 13:6–11; 21:18–21; and 22:13–21.
Within Deuteronomy, these laws represent the just, legislated punishment and execution of errant family members; but according to many readers, the location of the punishment within the family makes the actions taken against the errant violent. The pervasive recognition of Deut. 13:6–11; 21:18–21; and 22:13–21 as violent texts across the millennia suggests that more is at work here than modern scruples. Readers’ reactions to the demands of these laws can be taken into account in interpretation, and the witness of the centuries, accelerated in our own day but certainly not new, is that these laws are shocking, troubling, and potentially abusive. Deuteronomy legislates family violence.
Third, describing punishment in Deut. 13:6–11; 21:18–21; and 22:13–21 as violence develops from the connection of violence with identity formation.[22] Biblical texts are engaged in the construction of the identity of the people of God, and this process requires determining both what the people of God should look like and what they should not look like.[23] Constructing identity, in other words, involves defining the identity of the group and of “others”: the Israelites are defined in opposition to the Canaanites, Egyptians, Greeks, or other people groups.[24] In Deuteronomy, this process is apparent in the laws forbidding behavior that imitates “the nations,” including idolatry, polytheism, child sacrifice, divination, and other practices (cf. 12:2–7, 29–31; 18:9–14). The people of Israel instead find their identity in living according to the ways God has commanded: “Keep silence and hear, O Israel! This very day you have become the people of the Lord your God. Therefore obey the Lord your God, observing his commandments and his statutes that I am commanding you today” (27:9–10 NRSV).
In addition to obeying God’s law, the people of Israel are instructed to destroy other nations. “You shall annihilate them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as the Lord your God has commanded, so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they d...

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