James L. Crenshaw
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- July 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195140026
- eISBN:
- 9780199835607
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195140028.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
The tension between justice and mercy within God gave rise to stories illustrating YHWH’s desire to let compassion prevail, although not always. Genesis 18–19 has Abraham plead with God to spare the ...
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The tension between justice and mercy within God gave rise to stories illustrating YHWH’s desire to let compassion prevail, although not always. Genesis 18–19 has Abraham plead with God to spare the innocents who lived in the doomed cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the prophet Joel appeals to God to extend the merciful attributes of Exod 34:6 to a devastated Judean populace. In contrast, a petulant Jonah objects when a merciful God spares a foreign city, Nineveh, and a greatly wronged prophet, Jeremiah, accuses YHWH of rape.Less
The tension between justice and mercy within God gave rise to stories illustrating YHWH’s desire to let compassion prevail, although not always. Genesis 18–19 has Abraham plead with God to spare the innocents who lived in the doomed cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the prophet Joel appeals to God to extend the merciful attributes of Exod 34:6 to a devastated Judean populace. In contrast, a petulant Jonah objects when a merciful God spares a foreign city, Nineveh, and a greatly wronged prophet, Jeremiah, accuses YHWH of rape.
Thomas L. Brodie
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195138368
- eISBN:
- 9780199834037
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195138368.003.0025
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
God's wondrous life‐giving visit to Abraham and Sarah at Mamre (Genesis 18) is the counterpoint to God's fiery destruction of two cities (19:1–29). The catastrophe is attributed to God, but the ...
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God's wondrous life‐giving visit to Abraham and Sarah at Mamre (Genesis 18) is the counterpoint to God's fiery destruction of two cities (19:1–29). The catastrophe is attributed to God, but the terrible divine action is set in the context of God's care for life and justice – a care that exceeds even that of Sarah and Abraham – and in the context of the evil of the people of Sodom. Between the two – between generosity‐based justice and evil – Lot dithers and chooses narrowly. The scene as a whole – the destruction by fire – has some continuity with the destruction by water (the flood).Less
God's wondrous life‐giving visit to Abraham and Sarah at Mamre (Genesis 18) is the counterpoint to God's fiery destruction of two cities (19:1–29). The catastrophe is attributed to God, but the terrible divine action is set in the context of God's care for life and justice – a care that exceeds even that of Sarah and Abraham – and in the context of the evil of the people of Sodom. Between the two – between generosity‐based justice and evil – Lot dithers and chooses narrowly. The scene as a whole – the destruction by fire – has some continuity with the destruction by water (the flood).
David Clark
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199558155
- eISBN:
- 9780191721342
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199558155.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature, Anglo-Saxon / Old English Literature
Chapters 4 and 5 constitute another pair of chapters, but this time the argument is that critics have been premature in finding evidence of same‐sex activity. Chapter 4 begins with a review of the ...
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Chapters 4 and 5 constitute another pair of chapters, but this time the argument is that critics have been premature in finding evidence of same‐sex activity. Chapter 4 begins with a review of the biblical and patristic allusions to Sodom as a context for its study of medieval Continental and Anglo‐Latin interpretations of the narrative, discussing Bede, Aldhelm, Boniface, Alcuin, and Ælfric. It shows that religious writers in Latin associate Sodom with a range of sins, and not just same‐sex acts.Less
Chapters 4 and 5 constitute another pair of chapters, but this time the argument is that critics have been premature in finding evidence of same‐sex activity. Chapter 4 begins with a review of the biblical and patristic allusions to Sodom as a context for its study of medieval Continental and Anglo‐Latin interpretations of the narrative, discussing Bede, Aldhelm, Boniface, Alcuin, and Ælfric. It shows that religious writers in Latin associate Sodom with a range of sins, and not just same‐sex acts.
David Clark
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199558155
- eISBN:
- 9780191721342
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199558155.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature, Anglo-Saxon / Old English Literature
This chapter constitutes a comprehensive investigation of the extant references to Sodom in Old English texts, except for Genesis A which is considered in Chapter 6. It divides these allusions into ...
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This chapter constitutes a comprehensive investigation of the extant references to Sodom in Old English texts, except for Genesis A which is considered in Chapter 6. It divides these allusions into four categories: those using Sodom's destruction as the prime example of the punishment of sin; those where the Sodomites' behaviour exemplifies sin of an unusual gravity; those where Sodom is especially associated with sexual sin; and those in which Sodom is associated with unnatural sin. It shows that, contrary to the assumptions of many medieval scholars, not only do none of the references explicitly link Sodom to same‐sex acts, but many make quite other associations with the city.Less
This chapter constitutes a comprehensive investigation of the extant references to Sodom in Old English texts, except for Genesis A which is considered in Chapter 6. It divides these allusions into four categories: those using Sodom's destruction as the prime example of the punishment of sin; those where the Sodomites' behaviour exemplifies sin of an unusual gravity; those where Sodom is especially associated with sexual sin; and those in which Sodom is associated with unnatural sin. It shows that, contrary to the assumptions of many medieval scholars, not only do none of the references explicitly link Sodom to same‐sex acts, but many make quite other associations with the city.
Lowell Gallagher (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823275205
- eISBN:
- 9780823277247
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823275205.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
Sodomscape presents a fresh understanding of Lot’s wife in the reception history of the Sodom story. Premodern biblical cultures found in the scene of abortive flight a monitory sign of improvident ...
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Sodomscape presents a fresh understanding of Lot’s wife in the reception history of the Sodom story. Premodern biblical cultures found in the scene of abortive flight a monitory sign of improvident curiosity and rooted inhospitality. This book’s cross-cutting array of texts and images—a fifteenth-century illuminated miniature, a group of Counter-Reformation devotional paintings, a Victorian lost-world adventure fantasy, a Russian avant-garde rendering of the flight from Sodom, Albert Memmi’s career-making first novel (The Pillar of Salt), and a contemporary excursion into the Dead Sea healthcare tourism industry—shows how the repeated desire to reclaim Lot’s wife, across millennia and diverse media, turns the cautionary emblem of the mutating woman into a figural laboratory for testing the ethical bounds of the two faces of hospitality – welcome and risk – in diverse cultural locations. Sodomscape—the book’s name for this gesture—revisits touchstone moments in the history of figural thinking (Augustine, Erich Auerbach, Maurice Blanchot, Hans Blumenberg) and places these in conversation with key artisans of the hospitality question, particularly as it bears on the phenomenological condition of attunement to the unfinished character of being in relation to others (Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt). The book’s cumulative perspective identifies Lot’s wife as the resilient figure of vigilant dwelling between the substantialist dream of resemblance and the mutating dynamism of otherness. The radical in-betweenness of the figure discloses counter-intuitive ways of understanding what counts as a life in the context of divergent claims of being-with and being-for.Less
Sodomscape presents a fresh understanding of Lot’s wife in the reception history of the Sodom story. Premodern biblical cultures found in the scene of abortive flight a monitory sign of improvident curiosity and rooted inhospitality. This book’s cross-cutting array of texts and images—a fifteenth-century illuminated miniature, a group of Counter-Reformation devotional paintings, a Victorian lost-world adventure fantasy, a Russian avant-garde rendering of the flight from Sodom, Albert Memmi’s career-making first novel (The Pillar of Salt), and a contemporary excursion into the Dead Sea healthcare tourism industry—shows how the repeated desire to reclaim Lot’s wife, across millennia and diverse media, turns the cautionary emblem of the mutating woman into a figural laboratory for testing the ethical bounds of the two faces of hospitality – welcome and risk – in diverse cultural locations. Sodomscape—the book’s name for this gesture—revisits touchstone moments in the history of figural thinking (Augustine, Erich Auerbach, Maurice Blanchot, Hans Blumenberg) and places these in conversation with key artisans of the hospitality question, particularly as it bears on the phenomenological condition of attunement to the unfinished character of being in relation to others (Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, Hannah Arendt). The book’s cumulative perspective identifies Lot’s wife as the resilient figure of vigilant dwelling between the substantialist dream of resemblance and the mutating dynamism of otherness. The radical in-betweenness of the figure discloses counter-intuitive ways of understanding what counts as a life in the context of divergent claims of being-with and being-for.
Orna Ben-Naftali
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199588817
- eISBN:
- 9780191725272
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588817.003.0028
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law
Our ideas of justice, core humanitarian principles, and the foundations of human rights are not merely traceable to Biblical narratives, but also endow them with their enduring quality. Thus, it may ...
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Our ideas of justice, core humanitarian principles, and the foundations of human rights are not merely traceable to Biblical narratives, but also endow them with their enduring quality. Thus, it may well be worth our while to re-read and reflect on them. This chapter offers such reflection. Such thought is particularly warranted at times when the validity of basic humanitarian values is challenged. Over the past few years the notion of ‘asymmetric war’ has been advanced to suggest the anachronism of some of the most fundamental humanitarian principles. The story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, wrought by the archetypal asymmetric use of unconventional force, invites us to reconsider the merits of this suggestion. The basic principles underlying our current jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum regimes are foretold in this story of ‘brimstone and fire . . . out of heaven’. This fire is not a beacon to follow; it is a warning light to beware.Less
Our ideas of justice, core humanitarian principles, and the foundations of human rights are not merely traceable to Biblical narratives, but also endow them with their enduring quality. Thus, it may well be worth our while to re-read and reflect on them. This chapter offers such reflection. Such thought is particularly warranted at times when the validity of basic humanitarian values is challenged. Over the past few years the notion of ‘asymmetric war’ has been advanced to suggest the anachronism of some of the most fundamental humanitarian principles. The story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, wrought by the archetypal asymmetric use of unconventional force, invites us to reconsider the merits of this suggestion. The basic principles underlying our current jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum regimes are foretold in this story of ‘brimstone and fire . . . out of heaven’. This fire is not a beacon to follow; it is a warning light to beware.
Moira Fradinger
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804763301
- eISBN:
- 9780804774659
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804763301.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book exposes the relation between literary imagination, autonomous politics, and violence through the close analysis of literary texts—in particular Sophocles' Antigone, D. A. F. de Sade's 120 ...
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This book exposes the relation between literary imagination, autonomous politics, and violence through the close analysis of literary texts—in particular Sophocles' Antigone, D. A. F. de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, and Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat—that speak to a blind spot in democratic theory, namely, how we decide democratically on the borders of our political communities. These works bear the imprint of the anxieties of democracy concerning its other—violence—especially when the question of a redefinition of membership is at stake. The book shares the philosophical interest in rethinking politics that has recently surfaced at the crossroads of literary criticism, philosophy, critical theory, and psychoanalysis. The book takes seriously the responsibility to think through and give names to the political uses of violence and to provoke useful reflection on the problem of violence as it relates to politics and on literature as it relates to its times.Less
This book exposes the relation between literary imagination, autonomous politics, and violence through the close analysis of literary texts—in particular Sophocles' Antigone, D. A. F. de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, and Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat—that speak to a blind spot in democratic theory, namely, how we decide democratically on the borders of our political communities. These works bear the imprint of the anxieties of democracy concerning its other—violence—especially when the question of a redefinition of membership is at stake. The book shares the philosophical interest in rethinking politics that has recently surfaced at the crossroads of literary criticism, philosophy, critical theory, and psychoanalysis. The book takes seriously the responsibility to think through and give names to the political uses of violence and to provoke useful reflection on the problem of violence as it relates to politics and on literature as it relates to its times.
Simon Hobbs
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474427371
- eISBN:
- 9781474453554
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474427371.003.0005
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter examines Salò, Or the 120 Days of Sodom and Ilsa, the Wicked Warden. Although both films use Fascist imagery to comment on the corrupting nature of power, they continue to enjoy very ...
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This chapter examines Salò, Or the 120 Days of Sodom and Ilsa, the Wicked Warden. Although both films use Fascist imagery to comment on the corrupting nature of power, they continue to enjoy very different cultural reputations. In order to explore this, the chapter firstly examines the BFI’s special edition Blu-ray release of Pasolini’s film, discussing the way the product employs exploitation tactics over the more established art film marketing directives expected from a highbrow company. Exploiting the film’s more transgressive attributes, the analysis shows how in-text extremity can be externally commercialised. Thereafter, the chapter investigates Ilsa, the Wicked Warden’s appearance within Anchor Bay’s ‘Jess Franco Collection’. Considering whether the auteur branding successfully redeems the lowbrow reputation of both film and filmmaker, the chapter highlights the ways lowbrow distributors use highbrow approaches to legitimise their texts. Ultimately, the chapter suggest that although the BFI trade off notions of disgust, the product presents Pasolini’s film as an artistically challenging experience rather than mere exploitation. In contrast, the chapter asserts that Anchor Bay’s attempt to legitimise Franco’s film is undone be the consistent centralisation of sexually explicit content.Less
This chapter examines Salò, Or the 120 Days of Sodom and Ilsa, the Wicked Warden. Although both films use Fascist imagery to comment on the corrupting nature of power, they continue to enjoy very different cultural reputations. In order to explore this, the chapter firstly examines the BFI’s special edition Blu-ray release of Pasolini’s film, discussing the way the product employs exploitation tactics over the more established art film marketing directives expected from a highbrow company. Exploiting the film’s more transgressive attributes, the analysis shows how in-text extremity can be externally commercialised. Thereafter, the chapter investigates Ilsa, the Wicked Warden’s appearance within Anchor Bay’s ‘Jess Franco Collection’. Considering whether the auteur branding successfully redeems the lowbrow reputation of both film and filmmaker, the chapter highlights the ways lowbrow distributors use highbrow approaches to legitimise their texts. Ultimately, the chapter suggest that although the BFI trade off notions of disgust, the product presents Pasolini’s film as an artistically challenging experience rather than mere exploitation. In contrast, the chapter asserts that Anchor Bay’s attempt to legitimise Franco’s film is undone be the consistent centralisation of sexually explicit content.
Martin Harries
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823227334
- eISBN:
- 9780823241026
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823227334.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Martin Harries
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823227334
- eISBN:
- 9780823241026
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823227334.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The film's vivid rendering of the punishment of Lot's wife (Hildegarde Watson) encapsulates the figure's combination of damaging retrospection and dangerous spectatorship. Isolating Lot's wife as a ...
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The film's vivid rendering of the punishment of Lot's wife (Hildegarde Watson) encapsulates the figure's combination of damaging retrospection and dangerous spectatorship. Isolating Lot's wife as a glamorous Hollywood icon in an experimental film that distances itself from the techniques of mainstream Hollywood filmmaking, Lot in Sodom places her at the nexus of a series of sexualized punishments, variations on the psychologically restrained but resonant biblical story. In the final moments of the melodramatic noir, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), Sam Masterson, the experienced wanderer and World War II veteran, says to his young beloved, Toni. It is as though in both cases, Aldrich, who worked as assistant director on Strange Love, had remembered the conceptual charge surrounding Lot's wife in that film, and exploded it, releasing its absurd and terrible potentialities.Less
The film's vivid rendering of the punishment of Lot's wife (Hildegarde Watson) encapsulates the figure's combination of damaging retrospection and dangerous spectatorship. Isolating Lot's wife as a glamorous Hollywood icon in an experimental film that distances itself from the techniques of mainstream Hollywood filmmaking, Lot in Sodom places her at the nexus of a series of sexualized punishments, variations on the psychologically restrained but resonant biblical story. In the final moments of the melodramatic noir, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), Sam Masterson, the experienced wanderer and World War II veteran, says to his young beloved, Toni. It is as though in both cases, Aldrich, who worked as assistant director on Strange Love, had remembered the conceptual charge surrounding Lot's wife in that film, and exploded it, releasing its absurd and terrible potentialities.
Robert R. Cargill
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- July 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190946968
- eISBN:
- 9780190946999
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190946968.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, Judaism
This book argues that the biblical figure Melchizedek mentioned in Gen. 14 as the king of Shalem originally appeared in the text as the king of Sodom. Textual evidence is presented to demonstrate ...
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This book argues that the biblical figure Melchizedek mentioned in Gen. 14 as the king of Shalem originally appeared in the text as the king of Sodom. Textual evidence is presented to demonstrate that the word סדם (Sodom) was changed to שׁלם (Shalem) in order to avoid depicting the patriarch Abram as receiving a blessing and goods from the king of Sodom, whose city was soon thereafter destroyed for its sinfulness according to the biblical tradition. This change from Sodom to Shalem caused a disjointed narrative in Gen. 14:18–20, which many scholars have wrongly attributed to a later interpolation. This book also provides textual evidence of minor, strategic redactional changes to the Hebrew Bible and the Samaritan Pentateuch that demonstrate the evolving, polemical, sectarian discourse between Jews and Samaritans as they were competing for the superiority of their respective temples and holy mountains. These minor strategic changes to the HB were used as the ideological motivation in the Second Temple Jewish literary tradition for the relocation of Shalem away from the Samaritan religious center at Mt. Gerizim to the Levitical priestly center in Jerusalem. This book also examines how the possible reference to Melchizedek in Ps. 110 may have influenced later Judaism’s understanding of Melchizedek.Less
This book argues that the biblical figure Melchizedek mentioned in Gen. 14 as the king of Shalem originally appeared in the text as the king of Sodom. Textual evidence is presented to demonstrate that the word סדם (Sodom) was changed to שׁלם (Shalem) in order to avoid depicting the patriarch Abram as receiving a blessing and goods from the king of Sodom, whose city was soon thereafter destroyed for its sinfulness according to the biblical tradition. This change from Sodom to Shalem caused a disjointed narrative in Gen. 14:18–20, which many scholars have wrongly attributed to a later interpolation. This book also provides textual evidence of minor, strategic redactional changes to the Hebrew Bible and the Samaritan Pentateuch that demonstrate the evolving, polemical, sectarian discourse between Jews and Samaritans as they were competing for the superiority of their respective temples and holy mountains. These minor strategic changes to the HB were used as the ideological motivation in the Second Temple Jewish literary tradition for the relocation of Shalem away from the Samaritan religious center at Mt. Gerizim to the Levitical priestly center in Jerusalem. This book also examines how the possible reference to Melchizedek in Ps. 110 may have influenced later Judaism’s understanding of Melchizedek.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804763301
- eISBN:
- 9780804774659
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804763301.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This introductory chapter first sets out the book's purpose, which is to review literary works that represent violence as binding a political community together when its borders are in crisis; ...
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This introductory chapter first sets out the book's purpose, which is to review literary works that represent violence as binding a political community together when its borders are in crisis; violence, rather than political reason, is woven into and bound to the fragile determinations of political membership. The texts examined—Sophocles' Antigone, D. A. F. de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, and Mario Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat—offer insights into the violent fabric of autonomous political life and its inextricable relation to the travails of imagination; imagination, in its turn, bears the imprint of violence. The chapter then outlines the book's main arguments; explains the concepts of politics, violence, and literature as they are used in the study; and provides an overview of the subsequent chapters.Less
This introductory chapter first sets out the book's purpose, which is to review literary works that represent violence as binding a political community together when its borders are in crisis; violence, rather than political reason, is woven into and bound to the fragile determinations of political membership. The texts examined—Sophocles' Antigone, D. A. F. de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, and Mario Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat—offer insights into the violent fabric of autonomous political life and its inextricable relation to the travails of imagination; imagination, in its turn, bears the imprint of violence. The chapter then outlines the book's main arguments; explains the concepts of politics, violence, and literature as they are used in the study; and provides an overview of the subsequent chapters.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804763301
- eISBN:
- 9780804774659
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804763301.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines D. A. F. de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, which is described as the story of a secret political bonding framed by war. It considers its history as well as various interpretations of ...
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This chapter examines D. A. F. de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, which is described as the story of a secret political bonding framed by war. It considers its history as well as various interpretations of the text. It suggests that the text resists the very idea of transgression—it “thinks through” the exception by which power transforms transgression into norm, and it links this transformation to the sealing of a social pact. Violence, in this transformation, becomes political: just as in Antigone, this violence does not dominate, it rather annihilates.Less
This chapter examines D. A. F. de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, which is described as the story of a secret political bonding framed by war. It considers its history as well as various interpretations of the text. It suggests that the text resists the very idea of transgression—it “thinks through” the exception by which power transforms transgression into norm, and it links this transformation to the sealing of a social pact. Violence, in this transformation, becomes political: just as in Antigone, this violence does not dominate, it rather annihilates.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804763301
- eISBN:
- 9780804774659
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804763301.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines the initial contract that frames D. A. F. de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom. It argues that its rite of membership (a marriage pact) operates against exchange, which is why it ...
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This chapter examines the initial contract that frames D. A. F. de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom. It argues that its rite of membership (a marriage pact) operates against exchange, which is why it survives in the midst of the destruction of all bonds in the Castle of Silling, where the orgy takes place. It then explores how the alliance secures its bonding.Less
This chapter examines the initial contract that frames D. A. F. de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom. It argues that its rite of membership (a marriage pact) operates against exchange, which is why it survives in the midst of the destruction of all bonds in the Castle of Silling, where the orgy takes place. It then explores how the alliance secures its bonding.
Joan E. Taylor
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199554485
- eISBN:
- 9780191745911
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199554485.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism, Biblical Studies
Dio Chrysostom wrote about the Essenes in a lost work, Getica. This is known only from one small comment in the work of Synesius. However, it is very important in that it is an independent source on ...
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Dio Chrysostom wrote about the Essenes in a lost work, Getica. This is known only from one small comment in the work of Synesius. However, it is very important in that it is an independent source on the Essenes being situated next to the Dead Sea, close to the traditional site of Sodom. Unlike Pliny, Dio uses the Essenes as an example of philosophical excellence. Dio’s Getica was known to sources used by Julius Solinus, who adds to his main source Pliny some additional information indicating that the Essenes were a group to be admired.Less
Dio Chrysostom wrote about the Essenes in a lost work, Getica. This is known only from one small comment in the work of Synesius. However, it is very important in that it is an independent source on the Essenes being situated next to the Dead Sea, close to the traditional site of Sodom. Unlike Pliny, Dio uses the Essenes as an example of philosophical excellence. Dio’s Getica was known to sources used by Julius Solinus, who adds to his main source Pliny some additional information indicating that the Essenes were a group to be admired.
Robert R. Cargill
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- July 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190946968
- eISBN:
- 9780190946999
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190946968.003.0010
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, Judaism
The conclusion summarizes the central arguments and evidence presented in the book. It demonstrates that the original purpose of Gen. 14 was that of a hero narrative, presenting the über-righteous ...
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The conclusion summarizes the central arguments and evidence presented in the book. It demonstrates that the original purpose of Gen. 14 was that of a hero narrative, presenting the über-righteous Abram as a YHWH-empowered warrior who rescues his nephew, Lot, and returns the kidnaped and plundered Sodomite people and their goods to their homeland, without exacting a payment! Abram was to be depicted as the ultimate righteous hero, fighting the good fight on behalf of his extended family and demanding no payment in return. He is victorious in battle and generous in victory, “blessing those who bless him and becoming a curse to those who curse him.” However, as the history of Israel unfolded, parts of the Abram narrative required updating in the eyes of the Jerusalem priesthood. Given the sectarian political battles that came to shape Judean and Samaritan history in Israel following the collapse of the two kingdoms and the Babylonian exile, the Melchizedek encounter underwent small changes over time, each of which created new problems with each problem it solved. It was this redaction history of the Melchizedek encounter that created Melchizedek as an individual separate from the king of Sodom and gave rise to the varied Jewish interpretations of him in the late Second Temple period.Less
The conclusion summarizes the central arguments and evidence presented in the book. It demonstrates that the original purpose of Gen. 14 was that of a hero narrative, presenting the über-righteous Abram as a YHWH-empowered warrior who rescues his nephew, Lot, and returns the kidnaped and plundered Sodomite people and their goods to their homeland, without exacting a payment! Abram was to be depicted as the ultimate righteous hero, fighting the good fight on behalf of his extended family and demanding no payment in return. He is victorious in battle and generous in victory, “blessing those who bless him and becoming a curse to those who curse him.” However, as the history of Israel unfolded, parts of the Abram narrative required updating in the eyes of the Jerusalem priesthood. Given the sectarian political battles that came to shape Judean and Samaritan history in Israel following the collapse of the two kingdoms and the Babylonian exile, the Melchizedek encounter underwent small changes over time, each of which created new problems with each problem it solved. It was this redaction history of the Melchizedek encounter that created Melchizedek as an individual separate from the king of Sodom and gave rise to the varied Jewish interpretations of him in the late Second Temple period.
Kent L. Brintnall
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823277513
- eISBN:
- 9780823280483
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823277513.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
This chapter examines pro-LGBT readings of the Sodom and Gomorrah story (Genesis 19) in light of Lee Edelman’s argument from No Future concerning the constitutive antagonism that founds and funds the ...
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This chapter examines pro-LGBT readings of the Sodom and Gomorrah story (Genesis 19) in light of Lee Edelman’s argument from No Future concerning the constitutive antagonism that founds and funds the social. The chapter shows how such readings replicate the dynamic of exclusionary othering that can be found in both the story and in anti-LGBT readings of the story. As an alternative to such readings, the chapter proposes an embrace of the catastrophic negativity at the heart of the story, and its representations, figured in Lot’s wife’s act of witnessing.Less
This chapter examines pro-LGBT readings of the Sodom and Gomorrah story (Genesis 19) in light of Lee Edelman’s argument from No Future concerning the constitutive antagonism that founds and funds the social. The chapter shows how such readings replicate the dynamic of exclusionary othering that can be found in both the story and in anti-LGBT readings of the story. As an alternative to such readings, the chapter proposes an embrace of the catastrophic negativity at the heart of the story, and its representations, figured in Lot’s wife’s act of witnessing.
Robert R. Cargill
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- July 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190946968
- eISBN:
- 9780190946999
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190946968.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, Judaism
The introduction provides a summary of the research questions pursued and the arguments made in the book, focusing on two central theses regarding Melchizedek, with the second depending on the first. ...
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The introduction provides a summary of the research questions pursued and the arguments made in the book, focusing on two central theses regarding Melchizedek, with the second depending on the first. The first thesis is that Melchizedek, king of Shalem, was originally king of Sodom, and that his dominion was altered deliberately to prevent the Jewish patriarch Abram from having positive interactions with the king of Sodom, whose city would soon be destroyed by God. The second thesis is that Shalem was originally associated with the city of Shechem, in the shadow of Mt. Gerizim in Samaria, but later came to be associated with Jerusalem through a number of scribal and interpretative maneuvers designed to promote Jerusalem and denigrate Samaria.Less
The introduction provides a summary of the research questions pursued and the arguments made in the book, focusing on two central theses regarding Melchizedek, with the second depending on the first. The first thesis is that Melchizedek, king of Shalem, was originally king of Sodom, and that his dominion was altered deliberately to prevent the Jewish patriarch Abram from having positive interactions with the king of Sodom, whose city would soon be destroyed by God. The second thesis is that Shalem was originally associated with the city of Shechem, in the shadow of Mt. Gerizim in Samaria, but later came to be associated with Jerusalem through a number of scribal and interpretative maneuvers designed to promote Jerusalem and denigrate Samaria.
Robert Mills
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226169125
- eISBN:
- 9780226169262
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226169262.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
This chapter focuses on a series of illuminated manuscripts known as the Bibles moralisées, which were produced for members of the French royal family between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. ...
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This chapter focuses on a series of illuminated manuscripts known as the Bibles moralisées, which were produced for members of the French royal family between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. Drawing attention to discourses of sodomy circulating in Paris around the time that the earliest Bibles moralisées were commissioned in the 1220s and 1230s, the chapter demonstrates how visual and verbal references to the practices of “sodomites” in the Bibles moralisées underscore the heterogeneous character of sodomy and the inconsistency with which the idea is applied specifically to homoerotic activity. Viewing the manuscripts through the lens of translation, the chapter also shows how sodomy is conceived via derivative structures: its visibility depends on its status as an imitation or bad copy of an originary ideal. In conclusion, the chapter considers how representations of homoerotic or “sodomitic” behavior in the Bibles moralisées were received by their audiences and patrons. What influence did these images have on the books’ owners? How did they shape medieval understandings of sodomy more generally?Less
This chapter focuses on a series of illuminated manuscripts known as the Bibles moralisées, which were produced for members of the French royal family between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. Drawing attention to discourses of sodomy circulating in Paris around the time that the earliest Bibles moralisées were commissioned in the 1220s and 1230s, the chapter demonstrates how visual and verbal references to the practices of “sodomites” in the Bibles moralisées underscore the heterogeneous character of sodomy and the inconsistency with which the idea is applied specifically to homoerotic activity. Viewing the manuscripts through the lens of translation, the chapter also shows how sodomy is conceived via derivative structures: its visibility depends on its status as an imitation or bad copy of an originary ideal. In conclusion, the chapter considers how representations of homoerotic or “sodomitic” behavior in the Bibles moralisées were received by their audiences and patrons. What influence did these images have on the books’ owners? How did they shape medieval understandings of sodomy more generally?
Robert Mills
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226169125
- eISBN:
- 9780226169262
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226169262.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
This chapter focuses on the myth of Orpheus as it was mediated in medieval culture, with particular reference to Ovid’s discussion of Orpheus’s turn to “tender males” following his loss of Eurydice ...
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This chapter focuses on the myth of Orpheus as it was mediated in medieval culture, with particular reference to Ovid’s discussion of Orpheus’s turn to “tender males” following his loss of Eurydice in the underworld. The chapter begins by interrogating the varied responses to the story in the Middle Ages. Orpheus’s pederastic turn provided some writers with opportunities to envision erotic possibilities that would otherwise remain unspeakable. One text, the verse Ovide moralisé, even interprets Orpheus’s devotion to homoerotic behavior as representing a virtuous rejection of the company of women. Visual images also confront Orpheus’s erotic inclinations cryptically, culminating in a famous drawing of the death of Orpheus by Albrecht Dürer. The chapter also considers the motif of “retro-vision” in the Orpheus legend, comparing Orpheus’s fate with that of Lot’s wife in the biblical story of the destruction of Sodom, who is also punished for the crime of looking back. The chapter concludes by considering recent attempts to rehabilitate the Orpheus myth in queer and feminist scholarship, and asks why today the legend of Orpheus the “first sodomite” appears to have fallen by the wayside.Less
This chapter focuses on the myth of Orpheus as it was mediated in medieval culture, with particular reference to Ovid’s discussion of Orpheus’s turn to “tender males” following his loss of Eurydice in the underworld. The chapter begins by interrogating the varied responses to the story in the Middle Ages. Orpheus’s pederastic turn provided some writers with opportunities to envision erotic possibilities that would otherwise remain unspeakable. One text, the verse Ovide moralisé, even interprets Orpheus’s devotion to homoerotic behavior as representing a virtuous rejection of the company of women. Visual images also confront Orpheus’s erotic inclinations cryptically, culminating in a famous drawing of the death of Orpheus by Albrecht Dürer. The chapter also considers the motif of “retro-vision” in the Orpheus legend, comparing Orpheus’s fate with that of Lot’s wife in the biblical story of the destruction of Sodom, who is also punished for the crime of looking back. The chapter concludes by considering recent attempts to rehabilitate the Orpheus myth in queer and feminist scholarship, and asks why today the legend of Orpheus the “first sodomite” appears to have fallen by the wayside.