Abstract
Despite the existence of biblical laws pertaining to women, Cheryl Anderson, in her work Ancient Laws and Contemporary Controversies, observes that these same laws do not take into account the perspectives of women. Instead, they are formed from a “male perspective” with which female readers learn to identify through “immasculation.” Anderson proposes an alternative, liberationist, and inclusive approach, in which the realities of the marginalized serve as the point of departure, and suggests that one way to perform this task entails observing innerbiblical development between texts, drawing on the work of Terence Fretheim. Similar innertextual changes are also observable between interpretations of scriptural law, in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This essay therefore expands on the work of Anderson to compare certain biblical laws concerning women with examples of rewriting within the Scrolls. In this way, contemporary readers can observe a range of responses that may spark readings in which the marginalized voices of women are included.
Keywords
Introduction
In Ancient Laws and Contemporary Controversies: The Need for Inclusive Biblical Interpretation, Cheryl Anderson (2009) points to exclusions within biblical law, observed in laws that do not take into account the perspective of the other, whether those others are women, enslaved individuals, or foreigners. Anderson argues instead for a liberationist and inclusive approach, one in which the voices of these marginalized individuals are part of the conversation, and addresses examples of laws in the Covenant and Deuteronomic Codes pertaining to such individuals that nevertheless exclude their various perspectives.
Concerning laws regarding women in particular, it is in identifying the human interest in these laws, namely, the interest of the male, that a liberationist reading subsequently becomes possible, when we as readers shift our focus to the marginalized voices (Anderson, 2009: 49), transforming them from “subordinate objects” into “human subjects” (Anderson, 2009: 55). Drawing on the work of Terence Fretheim (2005), Anderson suggests that one manner in which this task can be performed is through the act of observing innerbiblical development, for example, when earlier traditions are reshaped, such as noting the shift from wife qualified as property in Exod. 20.17 to noting the wife’s removal from such qualification in Deut. 5.21 (Anderson, 2009: 56; Fretheim, 2005: 153). Indeed, Fretheim (2005: 153) articulates that various inconsistencies between laws in adjacent canonical legal codes point to “link[ing] the law to life in ever new times and places.” Developments between texts need not appear as glaring divergences; they may also appear “in the guise of continuity with the past” (Levinson, 1997: 16), thinking once more of the manner in which Deuteronomy relies upon the Covenant Code’s authority.
So, too, is Scripture seen as instructional and relevant to contemporary settings, for other ancient interpreters (Kugel, 1997: 19). For that reason, observing changes and developments between the biblical legal canon of the Hebrew Bible in the Torah against various rewritten laws can also benefit the liberationist task. Case in point, certain Dead Sea Scrolls rework and reinterpret these same passages: Temple Scroll 66.8–11 appears to conflate Exod. 22.16–17 and Deut. 22.28–29, both passages that describe the consequences for a man having sexual relations with a woman to whom he is not engaged to be married. Meanwhile, 4Q159 Ordinancesa frags. 2–4, lines 8–9 reworks Deut. 22.13–21, a passage that describes the consequences in a situation of a husband questioning the virginity of his new bride. While contemporary readers and interpreters should not expect these ancient Scrolls interpreters of the second and first centuries BCE to apply a liberationist approach (an approach in which the “realities of the marginalized” function as the “point of departure”) in the same vein as that described and suggested for use by Anderson (2009: 54–55), nevertheless, comparing the Hebrew Bible Masoretic Text of the passages under scrutiny with these interpretations from within the Dead Sea Scrolls offers a vehicle by which to see the texts through different prisms and to ask new questions. 1
These new viewpoints can serve as a preliminary step for contemporary readers in establishing an inclusive approach that brings the voices of the marginalized into the conversation and leads to what Anderson (2009) defines as a “just biblical ethic” (p. 31). This essay looks at these and other biblical law reinterpretations, observing scribal responses that enable contemporary readers to see the women within the passages exhibiting a range of perspective and agency, whether evident or absent. I should note that this essay will discuss matters concerning sexual violence toward women, as they arise in the biblical laws under scrutiny.
An Overview of the Passages in Exodus and Deuteronomy and Anderson’s Proposals
In addition to the three biblical passages from the Covenant and Deuteronomic Codes identified earlier, we will also consider one additional text within Pentateuchal law (Torah) concerning women, namely, Num. 5.11–28. We will discuss each passage briefly in turn, prior to looking at the rewritten versions from within the Scrolls.
The first text under consideration is Exod. 22.16–17:
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When a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged to be married, and lies with her, he shall give the bride price for her and make her his wife. 17 But if her father refuses to give her to him, he shall pay an amount equal to the bride price for virgins.
Anderson (2009) argues that although the use of the verb “to seduce” may imply the woman’s consent, the text is problematic as it makes clear that a woman must be under the control of a man and that she cannot make decisions pertaining to her own sexuality (pp. 32–33). At issue appears to be the father’s honor, which is at stake. Generally, the woman is not an active agent, although Anderson notes the woman’s perspective may be heard indirectly through her father, if the father’s refusal of marriage is a response to his daughter’s wishes.
While similar, Deut. 22.28–29 reworks this situation somewhat differently: If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are caught in the act, 29 the man who lay with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the young woman’s father, and she shall become his wife. Because he violated her he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives.
In the case of this text, Anderson (2009: 33) calls to attention the fact that the woman is not able to state her own preference and must marry this man, even if she does not want to. Anderson (2009: 34) argues that these laws privilege the male perspective, for the sake of “ensuring the legitimate paternity of descendants” of the male (Anderson, 2009: 35, citation from 52).
This notion of privileging the male perspective to ensure the paternity of descendants is furthermore evident in Deut. 22.13–21, which regards a husband’s distrust of his new wife’s virginity: 13 Suppose a man marries a woman, but after going in to her, he dislikes her 14 and makes up charges against her, slandering her by saying, “I married this woman; but when I lay with her, I did not find evidence of her virginity.” 15 The father of the young woman and her mother shall then submit the evidence of the young woman’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate . . . Then they shall spread out the cloth before the elders of the town. 18 The elders of that town shall take the man and punish him; 19 they shall fine him one hundred shekels of silver (which they shall give to the young woman’s father) because he has slandered a virgin of Israel. She shall remain his wife; he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives. 20 If, however, this charge is true, that evidence of the young woman’s virginity was not found, 21 then they shall bring the young woman out to the entrance of her father’s house and the men of her town shall stone her to death.
The husband may make a claim questioning her virginity, to which she must be subjected to the scrutiny of having the bedsheets examined by the elders of the city at the gate. Here, Anderson (2009: 36) identifies two problems: first, that the woman is denied protection against a false witness, and second, that even if she is cleared of the charge, she must remain married to this man.
One final text to bring into consideration, relating to the idea of a rule fashioned to deal with the occasion of a husband’s distrust of his wife’s sexual activity, is the ordeal described in Num. 5.12–28: 12 If any man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him . . . 14 if a spirit of jealousy comes on him, and he is jealous of his wife who has defiled herself; or if a spirit of jealousy comes on him, and he is jealous of his wife, though she has not defiled herself; 15 then the man shall bring his wife to the priest . . . 17 the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel, and take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the water . . . 19 Then the priest shall make her take an oath, saying, ‘If no man has lain with you . . . be immune to this water of bitterness that brings the curse. 20 But if you have gone astray while under your husband’s authority, if you have defiled yourself and some man other than your husband has had intercourse with you, 21 . . .the Lord make you an execration and an oath among your people, when the Lord makes your uterus drop, your womb discharge; 22 now may this water that brings the curse enter your bowels and make your womb discharge, your uterus drop!’ And the woman shall say, “Amen. Amen.” . . . 24 He [the priest] shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that brings the curse, and the water that brings the curse shall enter her and cause bitter pain. . . . 27 When he has made her drink the water, then, if she has defiled herself and has been unfaithful to her husband, the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her womb shall discharge, her uterus drop, and the woman shall become an execration among her people. 28 But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be immune and be able to conceive children.
Here, we find that a man who is overcome by a fit of jealously and distrust of his wife may bring her before the priest, who makes the woman swear an oath with the words “Amen, amen,” and drink a concoction called the “waters of bitterness,” derived from mixing water with dirt. Verses 27 and 28 seem to indicate that the ordeal relates to a suspected pregnancy.
Each of these biblical laws concerning women may be found in various forms of rewrittenness within the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is to these laws in their rewritten forms that we now turn, to see whether shifts occur in moving women from subordinate objects to human subjects. The Dead Sea Scrolls can serve as a large database from which to perform such similar initial steps of observing innerbiblical—or innerscriptural—development.
Comparisons to Scriptural Rewriting in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Temple Scroll (11Q19) 66.8–11
If a man seduces a young woman, 9 a virgin who is not engaged, and she is fit for him according to the statute, and he lies with her, 10 and he is found out, then the man lying with her shall give the father of the young woman fifty (pieces of) silver, and for him 11 she shall be a wife.
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This passage in the Temple Scroll essentially harmonizes into one rule our first two biblical laws addressed earlier, namely, Exod. 22.16–17 and Deut. 22.28–29, on the topic of intercourse of a man with an unmarried woman. Deuteronomy seems to be used as the base text version (Schiffman, 1992: 223), which makes sense, as Deuteronomy is the dominant Pentateuchal source for this text that fashions an idealized plan for the Temple. There are four critical ways in which the passage in question has been altered.
The first point of harmonization is the Temple Scroll’s choice to describe the man’s actions as “seduction” (yefatteh), the term used in Exodus, as opposed to “seizing” (utefasah), used in Deuteronomy. Moshe Bernstein and Shlomo Koyfman (2005) conclude that for the author of this blended rule in the Temple Scroll, “[s]eduction and rape are to be considered as identical offenses and carry the same penalty” (p. 69; also Loader, 2009: 31, n. 103).
The penalty in question, the second critical point of harmonization, is that the man will pay 50 shekels to the father of the young woman. This price is the penalty as laid out in Deuteronomy for seizing the woman, not a bride price as for cases of “seduction” as outlined in Exodus. There is no option articulated concerning whether the father may refuse the marriage, as was seen in Exodus; Lawrence Schiffman (1992: 224–225) is inclined to think the stipulation’s absence may indicate that such a refusal is not possible, in other words, that the marriage must proceed, but this point is uncertain. Schiffman wonders whether—according to the Temple Scroll—it would be considered a violation for the woman to marry someone else, after having sexual relations with the first man, and thus the marriage must proceed. In this regard, the reason might be that as argued by Aharon Shemesh (1998: esp. 248–249), that where the sectarian movement behind the Dead Sea Scrolls is concerned, sexual intercourse itself constitutes the act of marriage, and thus this couple in the Temple Scroll must remain together as they are effectively already married.
There are two additional key points for comparison that are textual additions or changes. The first is the Temple Scroll’s addition of the phrase, describing the young woman seduced by the man, “and she is fitting for him according to the statute.” This phrase functions as a limiter and seems to imply the laws concerning cosanguinous marriage, which follow directly after the passage under present consideration (Schiffman, 1992: 223–224). In this regard, the passage may be adding restrictions to ensure against incest and sexual relations among close family members. Finally, the Temple Scroll makes a change regarding the identification of who precisely gets caught, purposefully shifting away from the third-person plural of the base text of Deuteronomy in the Masoretic Text (“if . . . they are caught in the act,” Deut. 22.28), to the third-person singular (if “he is found out,” Temple Scroll (11Q19) 66.12–17; see Schiffman, 1992: 224). The singular is also attested in the Septuagint for this verse. Nevertheless, the question remains as to why the Temple Scroll would choose a version using the singular over that of the plural, as in the Masoretic Text. It seems that in this text, the intention is that responsibility lies with the male.
In general, the Temple Scroll rewriting advocates for the strongest penalty for the male in these sexual encounters. This strong penalty could act as a deterrent to help protect a young woman from cases of nonconsensual sex. However, in conflating the two versions of this law, there is no longer a possibility for a consensual union. In other words, the rewriting effaces the possibility that the woman could consent, in the case of “seduction” (the descriptor used in Exodus). The Temple Scroll rewrite may also clarify that incestuous encounters would be excluded from any sort of mandatory subsequent permanent marriage union. And finally, general responsibility is shifted solely to the man.
Overall, this rewriting imposes stricter penalties perhaps to deter such activities in the first place, but also puts forward a rewriting that makes the woman a completely passive character in every way.
4QOrdinancesa 4Q159 Frags. 2–4, Lines 8–9
If a man defames an Israelite virgin, if he speaks out on (the day) he marries her, reliable women shall examine her.
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This Scroll combines an assortment of rules that rework Pentateuchal passages. The rule to consider at present reworks Deut. 22.13–21, on the process to follow if a husband challenges the virginity of his new bride. In this passage in Deuteronomy, the young woman’s mother and father must “produce the cloth” with evidence of the girl’s virginity, in other words, show that there are bloodstains on the sheet suggesting that her hymen has been broken. The Temple Scroll also paraphrases this regulation, in 11Q19 65.7–15, without substantive changes (Schiffman, 2011: 565–566): here, too, the parents must also spread out the evidence. In contrast, 4QOrdinancesa stipulates that reliable women will examine her. These “reliable women” are possibly midwives. From conducting a survey of other documents from the early centuries CE through to the medieval period, Jeffrey Tigay (1993: 132–133) has observed other cases in which women conduct a physical examination to assess whether a bride’s hymen has been broken, usually before marriage.
Another, related rule from among the Dead Sea Scrolls articulates that women will conduct a physical examination to verify a young woman’s virginity, in a case where the examination occurs prior to the marriage: 4Q271 frag. 3 lines 12–15 (in reconstruction) articulates that a woman whose virginity is questioned (literally defined as a woman with a “bad name”) will be examined by reliable women (‘And any 13 (woman upon whom (there is) a) bad (na)me in her maidenhood in her father’s home, let no man take her, except 14 (upon examination) (by) reliable (women) who have clear knowledge by command of the Overseer’). 5 Here, the solution is to conduct the examination prior to marriage in order to avoid the accusation entirely (Schiffman, 2011: 566), although in particular it is conducted as the woman’s reputation is in question (Loader, 2009: 218). Whether before or after marriage, the reoccurrence of the act of reliable women conducting a physical examination lends confirmation to the normalcy of such an activity within the worldview of the communities behind the Dead Sea Scrolls.
In the case of the examination following the husband’s accusation of nonvirginity toward his new bride, it has been hypothesized that the physical examination replaced “evidence by bedsheet” because it may have been recognized that bloodstained clothes could easily be forged. Although it seems that certain rabbinic texts in the early centuries CE recognize that a broken hymen may not actually be indication of sexual activity (Loader, 2009: 219), 6 in the case of this Scroll from the first century BCE (Palmer, 2018: 74–75), 7 it seems that an examination may have been considered to provide more solid evidence either for or against the woman’s virginity (Loader, 2009: 219; Tigay, 1993: 129, 133).
Where does this rewritten rule fall on the scale of a text that takes into account the woman’s perspective? On one hand, Cecilia Wassen (2005: 89; also Loader, 2009: 162) has suggested that this rule endorses a system that uses women (namely, the reliable women) to enforce oppression against other women. So, too, Moshe Bernstein (2004) argues that “the trustworthy examiners are female only for the purposes of propriety, while the authority to decide on the basis of their investigation remains with males” (p. 199) This statement correlates to the fact that earlier in the list of rules assembled in 4QOrdinancesa, possible offenders shall be judged by “ten men and two priests” (4Q159, frags. 2–4, lines 3–4). 8 For these contemporary interpreters, the replacement in 4QOrdinancesa of the bedsheet with a physical examination, serving as evidence of a bride’s virginity, is demonstrative of a situation in which the voice of the marginalized is not the authoritative voice heard. On the other hand, that a reliable woman’s determination is nevertheless a factor in diminishing cases of forgery seems to take the woman’s perspective into consideration to a certain extent.
Furthermore, this text also calls to mind the midwives of Exod. 1.15–21, who refuse to follow the pharaoh’s order to kill all Hebrew boys that are born, instead telling him that Hebrew women are vigorous and give birth before the midwives have a chance to get there. In this instance, the midwives perform an act of noncompliance that cleverly “poke[s] fun” and “strain[s] the gullibility of any pharaoh” (Exum, 1983: 74). Could it be that the midwives of 4QOrdinancesa might spare this woman from death, the punishment to be meted out if she is found not to be a virgin (in the continuation of line 9), similarly to the manner in which midwives spared infant Hebrew children from death? In other words, does the rule in its rewritten form invite the possibility for cleverly denying the husband’s charges against the young bride, regardless of the examination’s findings? Admittedly, it is hard to believe 4QOrdinancesa would be written purposefully with the intent of noncompliance by investigative midwives, similar to the scenario of Exodus 1. Nevertheless, for the sectarian movement affiliated with the Dead Sea Scrolls, utterly steeped in Scripture, it seems unlikely that this other passage regarding the lives of midwomen would not come to mind. Is that why the rule feels the need to specify the fact that these women are “reliable,” wherein the term functions to undo any indication that these midwives are “Israelite prophetesses with significant [medico]-magical skills” (Janssen, 2018: 23), who might choose to exert their power by “bending” the truth? We are left in a state of unknowing.
4QDamascus Document, 4Q270 Frag. 4 Lines 1–6
[. . .] a man bring a woman to have her tried by the curse 2 [. . .] who sees, if he sees the wife of [. . .] 3 [. . .] she said I was raped 4 [. . .bri]ng her, unless her blood does [not] come forth 5 [. . .on]e [. . .] the priests and [. . .] shall dishevel 6 [. . .] the woman and cause [. . .] to drink
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The final Dead Sea Scroll for consideration is a fragmentary rewriting in 4Q270 frag. 4 lines 1–6 of the ordeal in Num. 5.12–28. This fragment is part of a manuscript pertaining to the Damascus Document, one of the two primary rule text traditions found at Qumran. 10 If line 4 may be reconstructed to read, “he shall not bring her unless her blood does not come forth” (see Wassen, 2005: 66), we find a limiter for the circumstances concerning which the husband can bring his wife before the priest, something that William Loader (2009: 154) observes to curtail the severity of the law toward the woman. Whereas previously, the husband seemed able to question her activities any time he fell into a fit of jealousy, now, it seems that the situation is limited to pregnancy arising from earlier sexual activity. But furthermore, in this scriptural rewriting, we find a fragmentary reference: “if she said, I was raped.” Wassen (2005: 66) notes here that finally, we have the actual words of the accused woman, given the opportunity to speak in defense of herself, as opposed to simply confirming the oath demanded of her in judgment of her alleged sexual activity, with a simple “Amen, Amen.” Here, at last, we have an example of a piece of scriptural rewriting that applies, literally, the notion of making the voices of women a part of the conversation.
This example is not a complete outlier: for example, while I would not agree with Mayer Gruber’s (2001) conclusion that the following passage indicates “the subject of women at Qumran constitutes an egalitarian system,” (p. 193) in the Rule of the Congregation (1QSa) 1.11, 11 we do find the example of a woman giving witness in the case of a young man (her husband) to confirm whether he had sex before the prescribed age of 20. The rule offers an example, at least, of a case in which a woman’s voice is heard as evidence in a ruling concerning a man. This example indicates that evidence, while scant, exists among the Dead Sea Scrolls in which a woman’s voice is brought to bear on the judgment. Nevertheless, this example from the Rule of the Congregation is not itself in regard to a rule pertaining to women.
Observations and Conclusions
In this essay, we observed the manner in which various Dead Sea Scrolls rewrote biblical laws concerning women, the combined contents of which highlighted a variety of scribal perspectives toward adjusting these laws to fit changing realities. All the Scrolls assessed appear to attempt to ameliorate or at least to recognize the woman’s “social location” within the rule, although do so in different ways and with mixed results. To reiterate from the introduction, we acknowledge these texts to exist within an ancient context: the intent is not to assess these ancient scriptural reinterpretations with the hope of finding a liberationist approach as one might desire from a contemporary context. Instead, the hope is to allow the outcomes we observe from changes made to each scriptural text simply to instruct the effectiveness of any ongoing liberationist efforts brought to the texts in the present era.
In terms of a summary of observations made, the Temple Scroll conflates all cases of sex with an unmarried young woman as pertaining to the more severe penalty for seizing a woman and places accountability with the male offender, although the result is that the woman’s perspective in the narrative in general is even more flattened than previously.
In the case of 4QOrdinancesa and a young bride whose virginity is challenged, the substitution of “evidence” by means of a stained bed sheet with an examination by reliable women, most likely midwives, appears to attempt to remedy the possibility of unreliable and easily-forged evidence (based on gynecological understandings of the era), although the final decision remains in the hands of men. Intriguingly, some room exists here to imagine the midwives performing an act of noncompliance, ruling in the young bride’s favor regardless of the examination findings. This shift in the rewritten rule that allows for the focus to rest on the voice of women, however, seems an accidental, unintended outcome.
Finally, in the case of the ordeal performed by the woman suspected by her husband of adultery, the scope of accusation seems restricted to cases of possible pregnancy as opposed to flights of jealous thought, and the woman may plead her case, if such pregnancy arose from sexual assault. While changes take place in all three instances, it is only in this final textual example where the actual voice of the woman literally becomes a part of the conversation in an intentional fashion.
Overall, among these comparative examples, most effective for working toward an inclusive approach that makes the reality of the marginalized the point of departure are those changes between texts that bring forward the voice of the woman in an intentional, prescribed way. In contrast, changes that intend to assist, yet in so doing mute or offer even less agency to the woman, are least favorable from a liberationist perspective. In observing these three cases against their biblical predecessors, we, as contemporary readers, can delineate among the texts and imagine other ways that the voices of the marginalized may also be heard in intentional and focused ways.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Dr. Vanessa Lovelace as Women in the Biblical World program unit chair and all other presenters and attendees who offered valuable feedback at the Women in Biblical Legal Codes session of the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, held online in December 2020.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
1.
Although the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible itself dates to the medieval era, we can still consider that the scribes of the Dead Sea Scrolls drew from a text for the Torah that was similar to that of the Masoretic Text, as 35% of the Dead Sea Scroll biblical corpus draws on a proto-Masoretic Text, meaning a text with the same consonantal form. See 
: 22–39, 115).
2.
Unless otherwise noted, translations for the Hebrew Bible Masoretic Text are those of the New Revised Standard Version, with occasional alterations by the present author.
5.
6.
Referring to m. Ketub. 1.1–7.
7.
These pages offer an overview of the dating of this text.
8.
Translation is that of the present author.