Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ADULTERESS

According to covenant law, a married or formally pledged (Heb. ʾrk) woman who was adjudged to have willingly had intercourse with any male other than her (future) husband (Deut. 22:13-27). Female slaves, however, because they were legally powerless to decline sexual relations with their owners, were not held responsible if they had intercourse with their owners while pledged or perhaps married to someone else (Lev. 19:20-22).

Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:22 clearly prescribe death as the punishment for both an adulterer and an adulteress (nōʾāpeṯ). The seeming clarity of this pronouncement is called into question by texts that envision alternative punishments (e.g., Lev. 18:20, 24-29; Num. 5:11-31; 2 Sam. 11–12; Prov. 6:24-35). Some scholars maintain that the texts differ because they date from different historical periods and thus witness to changes over time. Others draw a distinction between the punishment exacted of those caught in the act of committing adultery as opposed to those adjudged guilty either through legal proceedings or by ritual ordeal. It has also been suggested that royalty was exempt from the law. Finally, on the basis of comparative ancient Near Eastern evidence, it has been argued that texts such as Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:22 specify not the requisite punishment but rather the maximum, and presume as common knowledge in the culture of the time that compensation was an alternative to exacting revenge.

In several prophetical books (e.g., Jer. 2–3; Ezek. 16; 23; Hos. 1–4) and Lamentations, adultery is employed as a metaphor for breach of covenant. In Ezek. 16, , e.g., Jerusalem is personified as Yahweh’s wife whose “adulterous” behavior consists of giving worship to deities other than Yahweh and of inappropriate political alliances with foreign nations. The language of the former offense, which describes illicit worship in metaphorical terms as an act of sexual infidelity, has been understood as evidence for so-called “sacred” or “ritual” prostitution, allegedly a component of “fertility rites” associated with the worship of foreign deities. This interpretation has been recently and convincingly challenged as a mistaking of figurative and polemical language for social reality. Indeed, generally speaking, texts that portray metaphorical as opposed to literal adulteresses must be analyzed very carefully before using them as potential evidence for reconstructing social practices pertaining to literal adultery and adulteresses. Extreme caution is necessary because of the danger of mistakenly attributing to the vehicle, or figurative language, of the metaphor (adultery) features properly associated with the tenor, or principal subject, of the metaphor (breach of covenant).

Bibliography. P. Bird, “ ‘To Play the Harlot’: An Inquiry into an Old Testament Metaphor,” in Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel, ed. P. L. Day (Minneapolis, 1989), 75-94; M. Fishbane, “Accusations of Adultery: A Study of Law and Scribal Practice in Numbers 5:11-31,” HUCA 45 (1974): 25-45; J. Galambush, Jerusalem in the Book of Ezekiel: The City as Yahweh’s Wife. SBLDS 130 (Atlanta, 1922); J. Hackett, “Can a Sexist Model Liberate Us? Ancient Near Eastern ‘Fertility’ Goddesses,” JFSR 5 (1989): 65-76; R. Westbrook, “Adultery in Ancient Near Eastern Law,” RB 97 (1990): 542-80.

Peggy L. Day

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

ADULTERESS

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)