Date of Award
Spring 2022
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Committee Chair
Anna Sieges-Beal
Abstract
Second Samuel 7 lays out the relationship between God and David through a covenant. David breaks the covenant with God when he takes Bathsheba and kills Uriah, and the consequences impact David, his lineage, and Daughter Zion (his kingdom). The language used to describe the city's fall is that of sexual violence, highlighting the horrors of rape within David’s life and lineage after he breaks his covenant with God by taking Bathsheba. The methodology of this thesis is a narrative approach to the biblical text that uses reader-response criticism while exploring the narrative of 2 Samuel 7, 11, and 12. Through reader response criticism, this thesis makes a connection between the covenant God makes with David and the sexually violent fallout that extends to his lineage and household. One can also see how the texts written in Lamentations, Ezekiel, and Isaiah echoes the sexual violence within David’s narrative. This paper continues a feminist post-modern critique of the 2 Samuel narrative by adding Bathsheba to the list of women whose sexual violent narrative can be connected to the language of the fall of Daughter Zion.
Citation Information
Strother, Holly, "Breaking the Davidic Covenant and the Rape of Zion" (2022). MA in Religion Theses. 9.
https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/religion_etd/9
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License