Abstract
This is a brave book. A Cambridge doctoral dissertation written under James Carlton Paget, it focuses in on three passages in Deuteronomy in which violence against family members is sanctioned – respectively, the apostate relative (13:6-11), the rebellious son (21:18-21), and the foolish daughter (22:13-21). In a lengthy discussion of these discourses, Caryn Reeder considers the function of what she terms ‘constructive family violence’ (CFV), namely those instances where violent action is validated through its (apparent) destruction of the enemy within. Reeder acknowledges the essential, horrific violence of such acts, yet recognizes that they remain within the canonical or sacred testimony, and therefore seeks to understand both their function within the canonical text, and also their appropriation by subsequent interpreters. Thus whilst not completely eschewing a hermeneutic of suspicion, Reeder instead adopts an alternative, more sympathetic hermeneutic of trust, seeking both to identify any internal tensions within the Deuteronomic testimony and to discern also how subsequent interpreters engaged with the difficult CFV discourses.
As such, the book’s content is not so much an exegetical study of the passages concerned – though it certainly has such exegetical analysis – but is rather an exercise in reception history, and particularly the way in which the given passages are utilized within early Jewish and Jewish-Christian traditions. Reeder begins by considering the function of the texts within Deuteronomy itself, observing that, in the canonical text at least, they reflect the way in which the family unit preserves and upholds Israelite identity, it being the focal point of the covenant community. In the following three chapters, she considers the reception of the CFV passages within Hellenistic Palestinian literature, within Philo, Josephus and the rabbis, and finally in early Christian literature. In so doing, she uncovers different conceptions of CFV within these interpreters; Philo and Josephus, for example, are shown to be more reticent about the application of the full extent of CFV legislation, and are found to be more ambiguous in seeing the laws outworked. A final chapter synthesizes her arguments more generally, and she also teases out some possibilities for making (contemporary) sense of the CFV testimony, particularly its implications for underscoring the importance of community life.
The nature of the subject matter makes for interesting analysis, and Reeder is to be commended for her approach; the book has value not just for seeking to address these controversial texts, but also for engaging with them via a hermeneutic of trust. The bibliography on the topic is comprehensive, and is useful not just for CFV concerns, but also for secondary literature on second temple Judaism more generally. However, the primary value of the text is as an exercise in reception history, the way in which it demonstrates how texts get appropriated, interpreted and re-interpreted over the course of time. Not everyone will agree with Reeder’s conclusions, but in a brave book, that will invariably be the case.