Leviticus and Numbers

4 Slave Wives and Transgressive Unions in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Laws and Literature

4 Slave Wives and Transgressive Unions in Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Laws and Literature Helen R. Jacobus Prologue Several years ago, I attended a talk within the Orthodox Jewish community in London on monogamy among the patriarchs. As it sounded intriguing, given the polygamous situation in Jacob’s household, I was curious to hear what this well-known rabbi had to say on the matter. The focus of the lecture was Isaac and Rebecca, who were indeed monogamous. The issue of polygamy among the patriarchs was never mentioned. After the presentation, the rabbi asked the audience if there were any questions. As something was clearly missing from this talk, there was a pause, or perhaps the fall of silence may have been due to the awe the audience felt toward the speaker. Following what seemed like a very long time, a young man asked for the rabbi’s opinion on Abraham’s marriage. (No one, it seemed, dare ask about his view on Jacob.) The rabbi replied that of course Abraham’s marriage to Sarah was monogamous, and then, as an aside, he added, jokingly, “apart from the handmaiden.” There was some laughter, possibly out of politeness for the revered man’s joke, or embarrassment, or, who knows? But not everyone laughed. I was sitting near a young black woman, who had told me earlier that she was converting to Judaism. She and I exchanged glances, both of us feeling shocked. I have no idea why I have always been interested in Hagar and Bilhah, and the issue of oppression. But my idea now, as a writer reading the biblical text, is that the composers and redactors of these richly layered, complex stories 55 knew what they were doing. Those biblical characters were never meant to be understood in the way that this Orthodox rabbi does: inconvenient characters to be avoided, not to be looked at in the eye, mentally cast into the wilderness. I now see his attitude as a problem arises when institutionalized theology meets biblical literature: the two cannot interact openly and honestly without an enormous amount of difficulty. Sometime later, I came across the ancient Near Eastern (ANE) law code, the Law of Hammurabi1 146, which I will look at later in this essay. In my view, the law seems to be dramatized in the text of Gen. 16:3-7. I put a bookmark on the page, and mentally filed away this information as an idea to research for an article one day. The call for papers for the Contextual Interpretation of the Bible was the starting pistol, an opportunity for me to bring together and explore all these disparate threads: the “joke” about “the handmaiden”; the dramatic characterization and writing in the biblical text, which is a neverending journey; an endless fascination with the marginal women in the Bible, such as Hagar, Bilhah, and Tamar; and my surprise at the possible role that ANE laws may have played in biblical literary constructions. Introduction This essay contends that biblical narratives were composed in the knowledge that audiences were familiar with different ANE legal codes in cuneiform, as well as Hebrew biblical laws on conjugal relations and inheritance laws involving slave wives. I suggest that much of the drama in the Bible is created by main characters contravening written biblical and ANE laws, and that audiences would be aware that such frissons were being referenced. Furthermore, those breaches of legal codes form the subtext of the story lines; indeed, the characters’ contraventions add so much depth and dramatic irony to the narratives that it is unlikely they have not been created or harmonized in this reverse way. The narrative structures selected below work with proscriptive ANE laws on conjugal relationships with female slaves and free women in particular. Surprisingly, in the case of Hittite Laws,2 there is a correspondence with the relevant group of laws on permitted sexual partnering and revisionist versions of this legislation in Leviticus 18.3 On a similar note, David Wright, in his detailed study of the Covenant Code (CC) (Exod. 20:23—23:19) and the Laws Hammurabi (LH) noticed that the CC followed the LH in sequence (Wright 2009: vii). He concluded that “the role of the CC from beginning to end reflects a calculated use of LH” (Wright 2009: 344). His arguments, first put forward in 2003, have been critically accepted with reservations by Bruce Wells, who 56 | Leviticus and Numbers [3.143.4.181] Project MUSE...