For this paper, please focus on a small (roughly 6-10 verse) section of Genesis 38- and work it through in as much detail as you can. You should, at a minimum: Use ALL TEN READING TOOLS, including: *Compare translations. What words are so different acro

Genesis 38 in Social and Historical Perspective

mark leuchter [email protected]

Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122

While many scholars still view the Judah–Tamar tale in Genesis 38 as a once- independent unit secondarily woven into the Joseph story (chs. 37–50), the rela- tionship with its intertext in 2 Samuel 13 is more complicated. Questions remain regarding a possible direction of literary influence from one narrative to the other, or whether both narratives independently drew from a common trove of tradition. The present study addresses this issue through a closer look at Genesis 38, evaluating its linguistic/sociolinguistic features, its tradition-historical and sociological presuppositions, and the symbolic/mythic valences running through the text. The author behind Genesis 38 drew from an authoritative agrarian mythology that also informed the composition of the narrative beginning in 2 Samuel 13 but cast this mythology in contradistinction to its function in that work.

The problems of family integrity, the threat to progeny, the temptation to abuse power, and the underlying themes regarding monarchic politics flavor both the Judah–Tamar tale in Genesis 38 and the chapters surrounding it.1 Plot devices and literary correspondences reveal the degree to which Genesis 38 imparts greater meaning and significance to the Joseph story and the ancestral traditions in Genesis more generally.2 While many scholars have studied Genesis 38 as an

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Vienna in 2007. I am deeply indebted to the participants in the session where it was first read, to Benjamin Sommer for his helpful comments on an earlier draft, and to the anonymous reviewers at JBL for their suggested revisions.

1 On the issue of monarchic politics encoded into the Joseph story (at different stages of its growth), see Yigal Levin, “Joseph, Judah and the Benjamin Conundrum,” ZAW 116 (2004): 223–41; David M. Carr, Reading the Fractures of Genesis: Historical and Literary Approaches (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 273–74, 279–80.

2 Such was the conclusion reached several decades ago by George W. Coats, “Redactional

JBL 132, no. 2 (2013): 209–227

209

210 Journal of Biblical Literature 132, no. 2 (2013)

independent narrative secondarily situated in its present location,3 others have taken a step back and considered the chapter’s relation to the Joseph story and the Jacob story en masse, seeing the chapter as intimately connected to the composition of the adjacent material.4 One of the more recent arguments in favor of this view is that of Richard Clifford, who observes a network of thematic and lexical cor- respondences between the Judah–Tamar tale and its larger literary context.5 Especially noteworthy is his discussion of the phrase הכר נא (NRSV: “Take note, please”) in Gen 38:25, which is paralleled in only one other place in the entirety of the Hebrew Scriptures, namely, in Gen 37:32.6 Clifford’s position is supported by the recurrence of the הכר terminology at a poignant moment later in the Joseph story (Gen 42:8), and this, he adds, sets up the later, climactic moment where Joseph changes from a man driven by vengeance to a forgiving brother. The theme of recognition (הכר) thus functions as a motif that binds together the entire

Unity in Genesis 37–50,” JBL 93 (1974): 21. See also Paul R. Noble, “Esau, Tamar and Joseph: Criteria for Identifying Inner-Biblical Allusions,” VT 52 (2002): 232–43, 248–49.

3 The list of scholarship advocating this view is exhaustive. More recent studies include Peter Weimar, “Gen 38—Eine Einschaltung in die Josefsgeschichte” (Teil 2), BN 140 (2009): 5–30 (who sees the chapter’s current location as part of a larger pentateuchal redactional effort); André Wenin, “L’ aventure de Juda en Genèse 38 et l’histoire de Joseph,” RB 111 (2004): 5–27; Craig Y. S. Ho, “The Stories of the Family Troubles of Judah and David: A Study of Their Literary Links,” VT 49 (1999): 514–31; Brian Peckham, History and Prophecy: The Development of Late Judean Literary Traditions (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1993), 559–61; Gary A. Rendsburg, “David and His Circle in Genesis xxxviii,” VT 36 (1986): 438–46; Erhard Blum, Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte (WMANT 57; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1984), 224. See also the summary of scholarship by Richard Clifford, “Genesis 38: Its Contribution to the Jacob Story,” CBQ 66 (2004): 519–32, here 520–21 n. 4. Hans-Christoph Schmitt suggests that the chapter knows both the Deuteronomistic tradition and the Holiness Code and includes references to both in order to create greater connectivity across the Petauteuch (“Die Josephsgeschichte and das deuteronomistische Geschichtswerk Genesis 38 and 48–50,” in Deuteronomy and Deuteronomic Literature: Festschrift C. H. W. Brekelmans (ed. M. Vervenne and J. Lust; BETL 133; Leuven: Peeters, 1997), 403. This position recalls that of Peckham, which posits a Deuteronomistic redactional allusion to the levirate law of Deuteronomy 25 (History and Prophecy, 559–61). Despite initial impressions that the author knows and invokes these works, the difficulties in accepting these conclusions will be discussed below.

4 Jan Wim Wesselius, “From Stumbling Blocks to Cornerstones: The Function of Prob- lematic Episodes in the Primary History and in Ezra-Nehemiah,” in The Interpretation of Exodus: Studies in Honour of Cornelius Houtman (ed. Riemer Roukema et al.; CBET 44; Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 41; Anthony J. Lambe, “Judah’s Development: The Pattern of Departure–Transition– Return,” JSOT 89 (1999): 53–68; Aaron Wildavsky, “Survival Must Not Be Gained through Sin: The Moral of the Joseph Stories Prefigured through Judah and Tamar,” JSOT 62 (1994): 37–48; J. Gordon Wenham, Genesis 16–50 (WBC 2; Dallas: Word, 1994), 363–65.

5 Clifford, “Genesis 38,” 519–32. 6 Ibid., 521. This lexical parallel (and others) was noted also by Coats, “Redactional Unity,”

17. See also J. A. Emerton, “Some Problems in Genesis xxxviii,” VT 25 (1975): 347.

Leuchter: Genesis 38 in Social and Historical Perspective 211

narrative involving the sons of Jacob, with its early appearances in chs. 37–38 informing how the reader perceives its function in the crucial later chapters.7

Yet, while the appearance of the phrase in Genesis 38 contributes to a thematic trajectory running throughout the entire Joseph story, it does not necessarily depend on it. The הכר נא of v. 25—uttered by Tamar as she produces incriminating evidence concerning her liason with Judah—may also be explained as a tit-for-tat response to Judah’s request for sexual contact earlier in the narrative when this liason took place:

Gen 38:16: . . . הבה נא אבוא אליך

Come, let me come in to you. (NRSV)

Gen 38:25 . . . הכר נא למי החתמת

Take note, please, whose these are, the signet . . . (NRSV)

In other words, the linguistic peculiarity noted by Clifford may be explained as deriving from the internal drama of the narrative rather than as arising from common authorship with Genesis 37 (or beyond). The הכר נא in ch. 37 may thus be a redactional gloss inspired by the introduction of ch. 38 into the developing Joseph story,8 as the verse reads perfectly well without it:

וישלחו את כתנת הפסים ויביאו אל אביהם ויאמרו זאת מצאנו ]. . .[ הכתנת בנך הוא אם לא

Then they sent the colored tunic and brought it to their father, and said, “We have found this . . . is this not your son’s tunic?” (Gen 37:32)

The presence of the נכר root at the outset of the following verse (ויכירה in 37:33) would have provided a redactor with a superb strategic moment to anticipate the appearance of הכר נא in 38:25. Through this method, the redactor created a work that draws the reader’s attention away from the above-mentioned wordplay between Judah’s request for sex and Tamar’s production of incriminating evidence and instead focuses attention on the motifs of family conflict shared between the two tales. This produced a cohesive narrative with a different emphasis: the second occurrence of נא forces the reader to recall the circumstances where it first הכר appeared and to consider the Judah–Tamar episode a stop along the way to Judah’s later emergence as a restored family leader (ch. 44).9

Therefore, while the thematic and lexical yarns running through ch. 38 set it

7 Clifford, “Genesis 38,” 530–32. 8 See also Walter Dietrich (Die Josephserzählung als Novelle und Geschichtsschreibung:

Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Pentateuchfrage ]Biblisch-theologische Studien 14; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989[, 51 n. 144), who draws attention to this phrase as a sign of redactional incursion.

9 Such is the interpretation offered by Clifford, “Genesis 38,” 520, 527.

212 Journal of Biblical Literature 132, no. 2 (2013)

comfortably within the Joseph story and indeed make it integral to the story’s function in the book of Genesis, the hallmarks of the redactional process call attention to themselves and alert the reader that the tale once had a life of its own.10 Apart from the sudden shift in tone and focus (a band of brothers and international interaction vs. a single man’s experience in a geographically protracted setting),11 the Wiederaufnahme in 37:36b and 39:1 marking the points of insertion is otherwise difficult to explain (פוטיפר סריס פרעה שר הטבחים, “Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard”). The literary form of ch. 38 may have resulted from a scribe writing with an eye to the larger Joseph story,12 but this scribe’s handling of the Judah–Tamar episode points to its origins beyond the sources that constitute the tale of Joseph and his brothers. If this is the case, then the thematic commonalities may be attributed to a common set of cultural tropes behind each work rather than a single story built from the ground up.

On the other hand, it remains difficult to deny a closer relationship between Genesis 38 and the Tamar-Amnon drama of 2 Samuel 13, since these are the only narratives in the Hebrew Bible where a character named Tamar plays a major role. Beyond Tamar’s name and the overt concern with the Davidic line (via the con- cluding reference to Perez in Gen 38:29), both tales highlight the fragility of the leading family in Judahite society, challenges to matters of succession within a family, and the vulnerability of women in a patriarchal society.13 The questions this raises are manifold. Is one narrative a conscious response to (or comment on) the other?14 Or, rather, did both narratives arise in parallel response to a common concept or set of circumstances? Finally, should the critique of Judah and his family in Genesis 38 be viewed as a condemnation of David, or may it contain a different type of critique?

10 This may well have been a deliberate choice on the part of the redactor; see Brian Peckham, “Writing and Editing,” in Fortunate the Eyes That See: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Seventieth Birthday (ed. Astrid B. Beck et al.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 368–69, 382.

11 Clifford is correct that the opening note does not create any greater discontinuity than similar shifts elsewhere in narrative transitions (“Genesis 38,” 521). But this, coupled with the protracted geographic and sociological spectrum of ch. 38 in comparison with the larger Joseph story, indicates deeper fissures between the two narratives.

12 I would further suggest that the parallel usage of the root ירד in 38:1 and 39:1 arises from this redactor’s eye to the bigger picture; see the conclusion of the present study for additional discussion.

13 For a convenient summary of these and other parallels, see Ho, “Family Troubles,” 515–22.

14 For rather different takes on this common view, see Ho, “Family Troubles,” 514–31; Rendsburg, “David and His Circle,” 438–46; A. Graeme Auld, “Tamar between David, Judah and Joseph,” in Samuel at the Threshold: Selected Works of Graeme Auld (SOTSMS; Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 216–18.

Leuchter: Genesis 38 in Social and Historical Perspective 213

I. Textuality and Linguistic/Sociolinguistic Considerations

To address these questions, the first task is to establish a general period for the composition of both narratives; I will begin with 2 Samuel 13. Positions vary on a date of origin, but most commentators accept a preexilic setting for the composition of (most of ) 1–2 Samuel,15 and some have proposed an Iron IIa dating of the narrative.16 Such an argument remains tenable, and the circulation of official tales regarding the founding of the monarchy may well have originated in a fairly early period.17 However, the view that a good amount of the narrative took textual form in the late eighth century during the reign of Hezekiah seems reasonable.18 This is in part because Hezekiah’s was the first reign since the tenth century b.c.e. that saw northern subjects (refugees from the fallen northern kingdom) under the jurisdiction of a Davidic king.19 Furthermore, Hezekiah’s

15 There are, of course, notable exceptions or adjustments to this view. Recently, for example, John Van Seters, has argued that a late-seventh-century, pro-Davidic collection in 1–2 Samuel received an anti-Davidic redaction during the Persian period, accounting for a significant amount of content in that work (The Biblical Saga of King David ]Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009[). Van Seters, however, does not give enough consideration to linguistic and redaction-critical elements; see the critique by Tzemah Yoreh, “Van Seters’ Saga of King David,” Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 10 (2010): 111–13.

16 On the possibility of an Iron IIa scribal production of the Davidic narratives, see Jeremy M. Hutton, The Transjordanian Palimpsest: The Overwritten Texts of Personal Exile and Transformation in the Deuteronomistic History (BZAW 396; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2009), 91–156. Hutton’s discussion of literacy and scribal resources in the Iron I–IIa periods (pp. 168– 74) provides a compelling reason to consider the likelihood that a sophisticated narrative such as 1–2 Samuel could indeed have obtained in written form in the Iron IIa period. The most thorough defense of an early date for the David narratives is that of Baruch Halpern, David’s Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King (Bible in Its World; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 57–72, 99–100. Moshe Garsiel also has recently mounted a case for tenth-century authorship (“The Book of Samuel: Its Composition, Structure, and Significance as an Historigraphic Source,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 10 ]2010[ Article 5; online at http://www.jhsonline.org).

17 Edward L. Greenstein, “The Formation of the Biblical Narrative Corpus,” AJSR 15 (1990): 177.

18 Walter Dietrich, The Early Monarchy in Israel: The Tenth Century b.c.e. (trans. Joachim Vette; SBL Biblical Encyclopedia 3; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), 247, 263. See also Neil A. Silberman and Israel Finkelstein, “Temple and Dynasty: Hezekiah, the Remaking of Judah, and the Rise of the Pan-Israelite Ideology,” JSOT 30 (2006): 259–85. The brief comments by Paul S. Ash (review of Halpern, David’s Secret Demons; online at http://www.bookreviews.org) that the memories of David among northern refugees to Judah in the late eighth century might explain the shaping of Davidic tradition.

19 Nadav Na’aman has recently mounted a detailed argument against a large wave of such refugees; see his “When and How Did Jerusalem Become a Great City? The Rise of Jerusalem

214 Journal of Biblical Literature 132, no. 2 (2013)

royal administration would have had much interaction with the rural clan leader- ship as part of the king’s urbanization program ca. 705–701 b.c.e. Establishing connections between Hezekiah and David, the latter of whom is remembered for negotiation with the elders of the hinterland (2 Sam 5:3), would be helpful in promoting cooperation among the clans faced with otherwise unpopular royal policies.

Although Hezekiah’s reign may have been a suitable time for the shaping of some narratives in 1–2 Samuel, it is unlikely that a troubled narrative such as 2 Samuel 13 would have been composed at this time. On one hand, 2 Samuel 13 contributes to the unfurling of events that legitimized Solomon’s seizure of the throne and thus supports the hegemony of Hezekiah’s ancestry.20 On the other, a time when traditional rural family structures were challenged through Hezekiah’s urbanization program seems an inappropriate context for highlighting the flaws of David’s own family. 2 Samuel 13 may have been textualized by Hezekiah’s scribes along with other Davidic legends, but it must have originated in an earlier time when Solomon’s ascent to the throne in particular was still in need of defense.

It is significant, however, that Genesis 38 has much in common with 2 Samuel 13 on linguistic grounds. Contemporary linguistic research into Biblical Hebrew has highlighted the difficulty with using linguistic criteria as a sure vehicle for dating texts.21 Robert Rezetko, for example, has recently argued that “what we

as Judah’s Premiere City in the Eighth–Seventh Centuries b.c.e.,” BASOR 347 (2007): 21–48. But even if the influx of northerners into Judah was limited, their impact was significant and accounts for the survival of Amos’s and Hosea’s oracles as well as the inclusion of the Asaphite psalms in the Psalter. On the latter, see Harry P. Nasuti, Tradition History and the Psalms of Asaph (SBLDS 88; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 175–78, 194. Na’aman suggests that the words of Amos and Hosea reached Jerusalem as a result of Josiah’s plundering of the Bethel sanctuary and his seizure of literature preserved therein (“The Israelite–Judahite Struggle for the Patrimony of Ancient Israel,” Bib 91 ]2010[: 20), but this remains speculative.

20 Continuity between Solomon and Hezekiah is famously attested in the superscription of Prov 25:1, which attributes to Hezekiah’s scribes the transmission of “Solomonic” proverbs. Other passages support the tradition of a Solomon–Hezekiah connection. On the idealization of Solomon’s reign, see William M. Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 69–70, 73–87; Iain Provan, Hezekiah and the Books of Kings: A Contribution to the Debate about the Composition of the Deuteronomistic History (BZAW 172; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1988), 116–17.

21 See Ian M. Young, “Late Biblical Hebrew and Hebrew Inscriptions,” in Biblical Hebrew: Studies in Chronology and Typology (ed. Ian M. Young; JSOTSup 369; London/New York: T&T Clark International, 2003), 276–311; and, in the same volume, Martin Ehrensvard, “Linguistic Dating of Biblical Texts,” 164–88; and Robert Rezetko, “Dating Biblical Hebrew: Evidence from Samuel–Kings and Chronicles,” 215–50. See also Jan Joosten, “The Distinction between Classical and Late Biblical Hebrew as Reflected in Syntax,” Hebrew Studies 46 (2005): 338–39 (though Joosten does suggest that the “classical” style of Biblical Hebrew would have declined significantly past 500 b.c.e.); and Mats Eskhult, “Traces of Linguistic Development in Biblical Hebrew,” Hebrew Studies 46 (2005): 369–70.

Leuchter: Genesis 38 in Social and Historical Perspective 215

today call EBH ]early biblical Hebrew[ and LBH ]late biblical Hebrew[ were co-existing styles of literary Hebrew used by authors, editors and scribes through- out the biblical period.”22 Positions such as Rezetko’s call into question arguments regarding linguistic chronology, but a way past this problem is to move beyond morphology and focus on the sociolinguistic dimensions of narrative syntax. According to the method developed by Frank H. Polak, a simple syntactical profile closer to oral performance results from a scribe working in a culture with very limited literacy. A complex style, on the other hand, is strongly influenced by the scribal conventions of the great empires that Israel encountered beginning in the late eighth century: Israelite scribes begin to construct accounts based on the dense, complicated style of Mesopotamian scribal chanceries.23 These texts presuppose a higher degree of literacy and often occur in narratives that make overt reference to the writing of documents, infusing literacy into religious and social interaction.

Polak’s own study of narratives in 1–2 Samuel reveals a style closer to oral performance in most cases. 1–2 Samuel may be concerned with monarchic politics but reflects a popular culture where orality remained the primary vehicle for transmitting tradition. These considerations apply to Genesis 38 as well, which as a whole falls into what Polak considers an “intermediate” style, that is, a form of expression generally oral in character but containing periodic flourishes of com plex characteristics.24 The following excerpt from Genesis 38, for example, possesses mostly simple passages with only small stretches that are more encumbered by complex forms:25

1 It happened at that time / that Judah <1 ויהי בעת ההיא / וירד יהודה <מאת אחיו  went down <from his brothers> ויט עד איש עדלמי / ושמו חירה /    / and settled near a certain Adullamite / whose name was Hirah.

2 There Judah saw the daughter of a / 2 וירא שם יהודה בת איש כנעני / ושמו שוע certain Canaanite / and his name was ויקחה / ויבא אליה  

22 Rezetko, “The Spelling of ‘Damascus’ and the Linguistic Dating of Biblical Texts,” SJOT 24 (2010): 128.

23 Polak, “The Oral and the Written: Syntax, Stylistics, and the Development of Biblical Prose Narrative,” JANES 26 (1998): 59–105; idem, “Style Is More than the Person: Sociolinguistics, Literary Culture, and the Distinction between Written and Oral Narrative,” in Young, Biblical Hebrew, 38–103, esp. 54–55, 76–77. See also Polak, “Sociolinguistics and the Judean Speech Community in the Achaemenid Empire,” in Judah and Judeans in the Persian Period (ed. Oded Lipschits and Manfred Oeming; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 585–624.

24 Polak, “Style Is More than the Person,” 66, 83–84. 25 In this excerpt, independent clauses are separated by a slash (/); subordinate clauses are

marked by angled brackets (< >); and complex hypotaxis with embedded clauses are marked by square brackets (] [). Direct speech (which is excluded from syntactical evaluation) occurs in parentheses.

216 Journal of Biblical Literature 132, no. 2 (2013)

Shua /; he married her / and went in to her. 3 She conceived / and bore a son; / and 3 ותהר / ותלד בן / ותקרא את שמו ער he named him Er. 4 Again she conceived / and bore a son / 4 ותהר עוד / ותלד בן / ותקרא את שמו אונן and she named him Onan. 5 Yet again / she bore a son, / and she / 5 ותסף עד / ותלד בן / ותקרא את שמו שלה named him Shelah. / She was in <והיה בכזיב <בלדתה אתו Chezib <when she bore him.> 6 Judah took a wife <for Er his first- 6 ויקח יהודה אשה <לער בכורו> / ושמה תמר born;> her name was Tamar. 7 And Er, Judah’s firstborn, was <7 ויהי ער בכור יהודה רע <בעיני יהוה wicked <in the sight of the Lord,> וימתהו יהוה / / and the Lord put him to death. 8 Then Judah said <to Onan,> (“Go in 8 ויאמר יהודה <לאונן> (בא אל אשת אחיך to your brother's wife and perform (ויבם אתה והקם זרע לאחיך  the duty of a brother-in-law to her; raise up offspring for your brother.”) 9 And Onan knew <that the off- 9 וידע אונן <כי לא לו יהיה הזרע> / והיה spring would not be his> / and he אם בא אל אשת אחיו / ושחת ארצה would go to ]his brother’s wife[ / <לבלתי נתן זרע לאחיו> and spill ]his semen[ on the ground <so as not to give offspring to his brother.> 10 <What he did> was displeasing in the 10 וירע בעיני יהוה <אשר עשה> / וימת sight of the Lord, / and he put him גם אתו to death also. 11 Then Judah said to his daughter- 11 ויאמר יהודה לתמר כלתו (שבי אלמנה in-law Tamar, (“Remain a widow in בית אביך עד יגדל שלה בני) <כי אמר ]פן your father’s house until my son / ימות גם הוא <כאחיו>[> / ותלך תמר Shelah grows up”) <for he said to ותשב בית אביה himself ]that he too would die, <like his brothers.[> / So Tamar went / and she dwelt in her father’s house.

Most of the text in this excerpt exhibits characteristics of the simple style; an increase in complex characteristics is found only toward the end of the excerpt (especially in vv. 9 and 11). But in each case, the noun groups remain quite low, and the increased syntactical density remains quite limited.26 The style points to an audience where literacy was not normative, and additional sociolinguistics features in Genesis 38 support this as well. In a tale dealing with detailed marital

26 Compare this to complex prose narrative of the Persian period, where noun strings are considerably longer and higher in frequency than the rhythmic-verbal “simple” style or the complex-nominal style of the seventh to mid-sixth centuries or later (Polak, “Oral and the Written,” 101–5).

Leuchter: Genesis 38 in Social and Historical Perspective 217

and familial customs, there is nary a mention of written laws or contracts relating to kinship obligations.27 Likewise, there are no written pledges or promissory notes generated by Judah after his encounter with the disguised Tamar. Judah’s promise of payment may have included his cord and staff, but not his written signature.

In and of itself, this does not prove that Genesis 38 is roughly contemporaneous with 2 Samuel 13 in its compositional origin, that is, from the tenth to eighth centuries b.c.e.28 Throughout the entirety of the monarchic era (and beyond), most Israelites possessed only the most rudimentary degree of literacy or were entirely nonliterate.29 One could therefore argue that Genesis 38 might have originated in times well beyond the Hezekian era and either derived from a nonliterate audience or was penned by a scribe who sought to engage that audience. From the seventh century b.c.e. onward, however, texts obtained a more familiar position in public awareness.30 Deuteronomy, for example, presupposes literate figures throughout the hinterland (Deut 16:18–20) and situates texts within the reach of common Israelites, a view supported by epigraphic evidence from the same general period.31 Likewise, Jer 32:6–15 is set in a rural context but still focuses on the significance of written documents in the conduct of clan-based business. The same may be said regarding Ezekiel, who is deeply entrenched in the tradition of priestly oral instruction but who nevertheless acknowledges the written medium (Ezek 2:9–3:3; 37:16, 20).32 Even the postexilic narrative of Ruth shows signs of literacy as a fixture in the author’s conceptual world, in terms of both its linguistic profile and its familiarity with pentateuchal legal logic.33

The seventh to fifth centuries b.c.e. saw inscriptions, letters, contracts, written

27 Polak, “Style Is More than the Person,” 53–55. 28 As I have suggested above, 2 Samuel 13 should be dated to earlier in this temporal range. 29 See Ian M. Young, “Israelite Literacy: Interpreting the Evidence,” VT 48 (1998): 239–53,

408–22. 30 With respect to the rise in references to literacy and written documents in the biblical

literature of the seventh–sixth centuries b.c.e., see David M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins of Scripture and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 134–42; Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book, 91–117.

31 For an overview, see Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book, 98–106. 32 For the oral focus of priestly instruction, see Mark Leuchter, “The Politics of Ritual

Rhetoric: A Proposed Sociopolitical Context for the Redaction of Leviticus 1–16,” VT 60 (2010): 346–51.

33 On the language of Ruth, see Ziony Zevit, “Dating Ruth: Legal, Linguistic, and Historical Observations,” ZAW 117 (2005): 592–94. Zevit concludes that the language of Ruth places its composition no later than the end of the sixth century b.c.e., but a later date is more widely assumed by researchers and has more recently been supported by Peter H. W. Lau, Identity and Ethics in the Book of Ruth: A Social-Identity Approach (BZAW 416; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2011). The linguistic style of Ruth may thus be a rhetorical choice by the author of the work. On Ruth’s knowledge and adjustment of pentateuchal law, see Bernard M. Levinson, Legal Revision and Religious Renewal in Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 37–45.

218 Journal of Biblical Literature 132, no. 2 (2013)

laws, and treaties become commonplace throughout the Israelite social universe. This no doubt may be credited both to the inoculation of Israelite society with modes of imperial administration where documentation and officialdom went hand in hand and to consequent efforts among Israel’s political leadership either to conform or to compete. A rural Israelite living in these periods may not have been able to read, but the concept of literacy was not alien to his or her experience and local outlets for encountering written texts were more frequent. The absence of any such elements in Genesis 38 leads to the conclusion that its origins are to be sought among a population whose primary social experiences predated the countenancing of textual technologies—in other words, before the seventh century.34 We must therefore consider the features embedded in the narrative that the author and initial audiences of the tale considered to be familiar fixtures of their social location.

II. Geographic, Social, and Cultic Dimensions

In their recent book Life in Biblical Israel, Philip J. King and Lawrence E. Stager address the significance of the tale of Micah, the Levite, and the eventual foundation of the Dan shrine in Judges 17–18: “That this story served the interests of the northern kingdom after the division of the monarchy is clear; nevertheless, embedded in the narrative are family relations and arrangements that accurately reflect highland realities of the twelfth through tenth centuries.”35 King and Stager’s insight is applicable to Genesis 38. The tale is set in an (imagined) ancestral period but speaks to the genuine experiences of a specific audience. The first feature that sheds light on the world behind the text is the mention of several Judahite cities/ locales: Adullam, Chezib, Enaim, and Timnah. With the exception of Enaim, all of these cities are attested in other prominent biblical texts concerned with a Judahite setting including 1 Sam 22:1; Josh 15:10, 57; Judges 14; and Mic 1:10–16.36 The Micah text warrants special attention, for the prophet lists cities that were destroyed

34 Genesis 38:24 does seem to relate to Lev 21:9 (see further below). This allusion, however, does not refer to the process whereby laws are generated and systematized or presuppose the existence of the larger legislative collection beyond the passage in question.

35 King and Stager, Life in Biblical Israel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 10. 36 Micah 1:10–16 depicts the devastation wrought on towns in the Shephelah including

Adullam and Chezib, confirmed by archaeological surveys of the region as well. See Baruch Halpern, “Jerusalem and the Lineages in the Seventh Century bce: Kinship and the Rise of Individual Moral Liability,” in Law and Ideology in Monarchic Israel (ed. Baruch Halpern and Deborah W. Hobson; JSOTSup 124; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 31, 33–41. On Timnah in particular, see Amihai Mazar and Nava Panitz-Cohen, Timnah (Tel Batash), part 2, The Finds from the First Millennium bce (2 vols.; Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 2001); Amihai Mazar and George L. Kelm, “Three Seasons of Excavation at Tel Batash: Biblical Timnah,” BASOR 248 (1982): 1–36.

Leuchter: Genesis 38 in Social and Historical Perspective 219

during the campaign of the Assyrian king Sennacherib in 701 b.c.e.37 The archaeo- logical evidence for the repopulation of the countryside demonstrates a sharp break in economic autonomy with most of these cities, suggestive also of a serious break in the culture in these regions predating Sennacherib’s campaign.38

It is certainly the case that later authors may recall locales that had long been abandoned or lost (Sinai, Jericho, etc.), but the details involved in the depiction of these places are often anachronistic in nature and reveal later conditions and presuppositions. As Robert D. Miller has noted, Israel’s historiographers often conflate, telescope, or confuse details regarding the remote past with the result that they do not align well with the archaeological record.39 Such is the case, for example, with the recollections of Shechem in narratives set in the eleventh century b.c.e., which project the memory of earlier conflicts into subsequent periods.40 This is not the case with the details embedded in Genesis 38, which reflect religious and economic praxes that fit well with archaeological evidence regarding pre-701 b.c.e. Judahite agrarian settlements and economic and religious practices typical of these settlements.41 An author far removed from the Hezekian era would not have been able to recall this type of authentic detail, since most of the cities mentioned in the account suffered significantly during Sennacherib’s campaign of 701 b.c.e., and the subsequent and limited repopulation of the area saw different economic outlets arising under the aegis of Assyrian administration.42

The geographic references and economic presuppositions in Genesis 38

37 For dating the oracles in Micah 1–3 to 701, see Nadav Na’aman, “‘The House-of-no-shade shall take its tax from you’ (Micah i 11),” VT 45 (1995): 526–27.

38 On the limited repopulation during this time and shifts in the relationship between the rebuilt settlements and Jerusalem, see W. Boyd Barrick, The King and the Cemeteries: Toward a New Understanding of Josiah’s Reform (VTSup 88; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 150–52; Halpern, “Jerusalem and the Lineages,” 61–65. A population shift occurs in Timnah after Sennacherib’s campaign: Mazar and Kelm identify western coastal pottery forms dating to the post-701 stratum that point to Philistine residence, even if the city remained under ostensibly Judahite control during Manasseh’s reign (“Three Seasons,” 31).

39 Miller, Chieftains of the Highland Clans: A History of Israel in the 12th–11th Centuries B.C. (Bible in Its World; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 121. See also Nadav Na’aman, “Literary and Topographical Notes on the Battle of Kishon (Judges iv–v),” VT 40 (1990): 423–36, regarding the historiographer’s problematic reconstruction of twelfth-century events.

40 Miller, Chieftains of the Highland Clans, 35. For a different view, however, see Lawrence E. Stager (“The Fortress-Temple at Shechem and the ‘House of El, Lord of the Covenant,’ ” in Realia Dei: Essays in Archaeology and Biblical Interpretation in Honor of Edward F. Campbell Jr. at His Retirement ]ed. Prescott H. Williams, Jr., and Theodore Hiebert; Scholars Press Homage Series 23; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999[, 232, 245–46), who dates the destruction of the site to 1100 and associates it specifically with the Abimelech episode in Judges 9.

41 The classic study of socioeconomic features in Israelite agrarian family life is that of Lawrence E. Stager, “The Archaeology of the Family in Ancient Israel,” BASOR 260 (1985): 1–28.

42 As noted above, Timnah shows signs of industrialization and stronger ethno-cultural and economic ties to nearby Philistine Ekron during the period of Assyrian domination in

220 Journal of Biblical Literature 132, no. 2 (2013)

resonate with a culture predating Hezekiah’s urbanization and Sennacherib’s cam- paign, and most telling is the casual reference to sheepshearing in relation to Tamar’s course of action (Gen 38:13). In an illuminating article, Jeffrey C. Geoghegan looks to a variety of texts that assist in reconstructing the ideological underpinnings of the springtime Israelite sheepshearing festival.43 Geoghegan argues that these festivals were times of local celebrations involving drunkenness and sexual activity, the release of debts and the settling of scores, reinforcing an earlier study of Genesis 38 by Michael C. Astour, which offered a similar conclusion.44 The liaison between Judah and Tamar stands out in light of these observations. Tamar’s decision to settle her score with Judah is set against his journey to the sheepshearing center at Timnah, where she famously poses as a prostitute along the roadside (vv. 14–19). The pressing question is, how is it that Tamar is so certain that Judah will fall for her ruse? One might speculate that loneliness or sexual frustration impelled the widower to seek out affection, but in a narrative that reveals Judah’s inner thoughts and motivations in other instances (vv. 11 and 23), the absence of any mention of such motivation renders this unlikely. Geoghegan’s study provides a better answer, and one that was long ago anticipated in Astour’s study: Tamar fully anticipates Judah’s decision to engage in sexual union during the sheepshearing festival, since sexuality and fertility were concepts celebrated during this time.45

III. Double Entendres and Symbolic Valences

The author of Genesis 38 packs the narrative with metaphorical implications, relying on the devices of double entendre and homonymy with several of the personal and geographic names in the story. If the narrative’s style presupposes a preliterate audience, then the narrative itself was geared for oral performance and morphology would take a backseat to the aural dimensions of the narrative. The first few verses of the chapter introduce us to Shua (שוע), a name that bears a strong aural similarity to the word שבועה (“promise” or “pledge”). This can hardly be a coincidence, since the major purpose of the story is that Judah reneges on his

the seventh century b.c.e. (Mazar and Panitz-Cohen, Timnah, 277), concomitant with trends throughout Judah during the reign of Manasseh (Halpern, “Jerusalem and the Lineages,” 63–65).

43 Geoghegan, “Israelite Sheepshearing and David’s Rise to Power,” Bib 87 (2006): 55–62. Geoghegan’s study builds on the implications of an earlier examination of the sheepshearing motif; see Joseph Blenkinsopp, “Theme and Motif in the Succession History (2 Sam. xi 2ff.) and the Yahwist Corpus,” in Volume du Congrès: Genève 1965 (VTSup 15; Leiden: Brill, 1966), 53. Ho also notes the sheepshearing motif (“Family Troubles,” 518, 519–20).

44 Astour, “Tamar the Hierodule: An Essay in the Method of Vestigial Motifs,” JBL 85 (1966): 192–93.

45 So also ibid.

Leuchter: Genesis 38 in Social and Historical Perspective 221

pledge to Tamar to give her a husband from among his sons. Nor can it be a coincidence that this very son’s name is Shelah, literally “hers” (46.(שלה To drive this matter home to the audience, the author informs us of Judah’s location when Shelah was born: “and he was in Chezib ]בכזיב[ when she ]Judah’s wife[ bore him” (v. 5). Unlike in the mention of Timnah as a sheepshearing center, no explanation is given for Judah’s distance from his domicile, and one might view this as a tacit statement about his distance from his family and their best interests. But Chezib is more than just a city name; the word also means “deceit” or “moral decline,” a wordplay used to great effect in Micah’s horrifying oracle regarding the Assyrian devastation of Judah in Mic 1:14 (בתי אכזיב לאכזב, “the houses of ]A[Khezib will be a deceit”).

Judah’s deceitful behavior in reneging on his pledge to Tamar concerning Shelah is anticipated from the outset of the narrative. It is no wonder, then, that Tamar awaits Judah at “the Entrance to Enaim” (עינים v. 14) when she ;בפתח recognizes what she must do to secure offspring. Of course, the phrase בפתח עינים may be translated as “open eyes”; that is, Tamar was fully aware of Judah’s intentions and what she needed to do to secure her own interests.47 But פתח עינים also appears to refer to a place characterized by various river tributaries (עין = river/brook).48 The motif of a brook or river evokes mythic concepts not only of life and fertility but also of divinity and royalty.49 The elaborate details in v. 14 describing this location present it not simply as a toponym but as a symbolic double entendre; עינים ”.may be understood also as “the beginning of the flowing waters בפתח Because the items that the disguised Tamar takes from Judah in pledge of payment are common symbols of ancient royalty,50 the nature of her union with Judah as a basis for the Davidic line becomes obvious.

One of the most potent metaphors is the depiction of Tamar as a קדשה in vv. 20–21. The root of this term, קדש, led earlier commentators to conclude that Tamar’s particular brand of (posed) prostitution represented a familiar type of

46 The Masoretic pointing of the word varies only slightly from what an early listener would have heard as the story was read or performed orally.

47 The second part of v. 14, לאשה לו נתנה לא והיא שלה גדל כי ראתה highlights this ,כי very understanding of the significance of the toponym. The narrator makes clear that the actual toponym עינים is meant to carry multiple meanings, indicating that this reading strategy should be applied more generally within the narrative.

48 See the discussion in Clifford, “Genesis 38,” 529. The motif of important women and their association with water as the mothers of major figures in Israelite religious history is well attested in biblical narrative.

49 For a discussion of this particular motif as assimilated into Israelite religion, see Jon D. Levenson, Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible (New Voices in Biblical Studies; Minneapolis: Winston, 1985), 129–31.

50 Eleanor Ferris Beach, “An Iconographic Approach to Genesis 38,” in A Feminist Com- panion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods and Strategies (ed. Athalya Brenner and Carol Fontaine; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 294–97.

222 Journal of Biblical Literature 132, no. 2 (2013)

religious functionary.51 More recent studies, however, question whether Tamar’s posture is that of a “ritual prostitute” or whether such a social category can be posited in ancient Israel at all.52 In light of contemporary research, it is difficult to see Tamar’s behavior as representing a category of sexual-cultic functionary in Israelite society, but one must hesitate before dismissing a mytho-sacral dimension ֹof Tamar’s function in the narrative. After all, Genesis 38 is not historiography but legend, where the common and the mythic regularly intersect. In the story, Tamar is both a human character and a symbolic topos used by the author to evoke the audience’s sensitivities regarding the injustices visited upon her by Judah’s sel f- ishness. The term קדשה does not therefore refer to a category of sexual-cultic functionary but informs the audience that Tamar’s efforts to reverse this injustice and secure progeny are an enterprise of sacred proportions.

IV. The Etymological Implications of תמר

This leads us to the significance of Tamar’s own name. The word תמר is used in Hebrew to designate “palm tree,”53 a tree that yields a tremendous abundance of fruit and which is thus a fitting name to bestow upon a female character who restores Judah’s line through childbirth. But the symbolic and sacral significance of the word/name goes even beyond its Hebrew usage. As Yoel L. Arbeitman dis- cussed in an insightful study, the word תמר appears to be derived from Bronze Age cultures related to the Hittite Empire. The term is closely etymologically related to the old Anatolian dammara, Mycenaean da-mart/du-mart, and Cypriot tu-mi-ra, all of which relate to female cultic figures or numinous feminine principles.54 The text reveals an awareness of this etymological origin when Judah discovers that she is pregnant:

51 For the classic discussion of this theme, see Astour, “Tamar the Hierodule,” 192–93. Rather than the vestige of earlier traditions, I suggest that this depiction is the cultural vernacular of the original author and his intended audience. See also the critique and comments by Joan Goodnick Westenholtz, “Tamar, qedesa, qadistu, and Sacred Prostitution in Mesopotamia,” HTR 82 (1989): 245–65.

52 Christine Stark, for example, argues convincingly that the idea of prostitution was only a polemical association with women connected to religious centers criticized by the biblical writers (“Kultprostitution” in Alten Testament? Die Qedeschen der Hebräischen Bibel und das Motiv der Hurerei ]OBO 221; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006[, 165–83). See also Phyllis Bird, “The Harlot as Heroine: Narrative Art and Social Presupposition in Three Old Testament Texts,” Semeia 46 (1989): 126; Stephanie Lynn Budin, The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 37–38; K. Nyberg, “Sacred Prostitution in the Biblical World?” in Sacred Marriages: The Divine–Human Sexual Metaphor from Sumer to Early Christianity (ed. Martti Nissinen and Risto Uro; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008), 305–20.

53 See Astour’s closing remarks on the symbolic/mythic nature of the tree image in the conclusion to Genesis 38 (“Tamar the Hierodule,” 195).

54 Arbeitman, “Tamar’s Name, Or Is It? (Gen 38),” ZAW 112 (2000): 341–55.

Leuchter: Genesis 38 in Social and Historical Perspective 223

And it came to pass about three months after, that it was told Judah, saying: “Tamar thy daughter-in-law has played the harlot; and moreover, behold, she is with child by harlotry.” And Judah said: “Bring her forth, and let her be burnt.” (v. 24)

The nature of the death sentence raises the question, why death by fire, in specific? The Holiness Code (H) in Leviticus sheds light on this death sentence, as Lev 21:9 legislates death by fire for the daughter of a priest who engages in sexual mis- conduct.55 The H legislator does not specify that the daughter of a priest is herself a cultic functionary, but such a role is certainly possible and even likely; in both overt and implied ways, the biblical record attests to women serving in official cultic capacities.56 The commonalities between Gen 38:24 and Lev 21:9 do not demand viewing the former as literarily dependent on the latter. Rather, both texts may draw from a shared tradition regarding women’s sacral status that the narrative of Genesis 38 exploits to great dramatic effect. Following Arbeitman’s observations, we should view the term תמר as inheriting the numinous overtones of the term’s linguistic patrimonies, which retained a currency in the vernacular of the hinter- land.57

V. Conclusions

Genesis 38 reflects a hinterland culture very much like that which charac- terized rural Judahites uprooted from their lands during Hezekiah’s urbanization project of 705–701 b.c.e. Their socioeconomic values, their geographic horizons, and their sacral and mythic traditions are encoded into the tale at every turn. This suggests that before it was textualized and incorporated into the Joseph story, Genesis 38 was conceived on the oral level by an author of rural Judahite stock. Many features of the narrative furthermore suggest that this author was forcibly

55 See, among others, Clifford, “Genesis 38,” 526 n. 19; Astour, “Tamar the Hierodule,” 193–94.

56 E.g., 1 Sam 2:22; 2 Kgs 23:7; Hos 4:14. See also Stark’s discussion regarding the denigration of the religious duties of these figures (Kultprostitution, 165–83).

57 I refer particularly to the Judahite hinterland, and it is in a Judahite context that we encounter such Hittite valences. 1 Kings 9:20 identifies the regional population with Hittite cultural origins, and Susan Ackerman notes that the office of the queen mother borrows heavily from Hittite prototypes but is attested only in the royal court of Judah (“The Queen Mother and the Cult in Ancient Israel,” JBL 112 ]1993[: 385–401), and David’s royal administration incorporates individuals of alleged Hittite ancestry. See Benjamin Mazar, “The Military Elite of King David,” VT 13 (1963): 310–20. The use of a Hittite term in a narrative set in a geographical region retaining old memories of Hittite influence is consistent with the use of regional vernacular in other biblical narratives datable to the preexilic period. See Gary A. Rendsburg, “Some False Leads in the Identification of Late Biblical Hebrew Texts: The Case of Genesis 24 and 1 Samuel 2:27-36,” JBL 121 (2002): 45–46; idem, “Hurvitz Redux: On the Continued Scholarly Inattention to a Simple Principle of Hebrew Philology,” in Young, Biblical Hebrew, 116–26.

224 Journal of Biblical Literature 132, no. 2 (2013)

uprooted from his (or her) ancestral estate and resettled in Jerusalem. Judah’s departure from his kin (וירד יהודה מאת אחיו in v. 1aβ) mirrors the movement of the rural population away from the ancestral estates that anchored kinship net- works;58 his descent into “Canaanite” territory matches how Judahite villagers must have felt about their forced migration into the once-Jebusite Jerusalem; and the dwindling of his lineage echoes the corrosive effects of forced urbanization on the integrity of the rural lineages.59 The characterization of Judah as being in a state of moral decline (בכזיב) following his break with his kin must have much in common with how the rural population viewed the royal administration of Judah by the late eighth century b.c.e.60 Micah, for example, pulls no punches in criti- cizing the misguided royal policies, likening the uprooting of the rural people to the tearing of flesh from the bone (Mic 3:2–3).61 The narrative’s characterization of Judah contains a more subtle but essentially similar critique, showing the epony- mous ancestor’s family, fortunes, and future dwindling under the misuse of his own authority.62

58 In the context of the Joseph story, אחיו appears to refer to the other sons of Jacob, but it is primarily a term regarding kinship networks revolving around shared ancestral allotments. See Halpern, “Jerusalem and the Lineages,” 49–59; Karel van der Toorn, Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria, and Israel: Continuity and Change in the Forms of Religious Life (SHCANE 7; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 194–205. See also several of the essays in the volume Household and Family Religion in Antiquity (ed. John Bodel and Saul M. Olyan; Ancient World—Comparative Histories; Malden, MA/Oxford: Blackwell, 2008), for the larger cultural context for the role of kinship in ancient Near Eastern religious and cosmological concepts. I would also suggest here that the redactor who constructed the Joseph story drew the usage of ירד in Gen 39:1 from its preexisting position in the Judah–Tamar tale.

59 Halpern, “Jerusalem and the Lineages,” 70–73. 60 It remains possible, of course, that this complaint grew out of a period before Hezekiah’s

reign, as conflict between urban and rural cultures is attested already in early poetry such as Exodus 15: lowland, urban Canaanite threats are mythologized as heralds of Egyptian challenges to Yhwh’s hegemony. See my article “Eisodus as Exodus: The Song of the Sea (Exodus 15) Reconsidered,” Bib 92 (2011): 321–46. For the Late Bronze Age political reality behind this mythologization, see Carolyn R. Higginbotham, Egyptianization and Elite Emulation in Rames- side Palestine: Governance and Accommodation on the Imperial Periphery (Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 2; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 132–42. But this only supports the Hezekian period as a time when the pitch of this complaint rose as rural and urban worlds collided, crystallizing in polemical narratives such as the Judah–Tamar tale.

61 See also the close similarity between Micah’s double entendre regarding Chezib (Mic 1:14) and the one we encounter in Gen 38:5. The linguistic and rhetorical strategies are virtually identical, differing only in terms of conforming to their formal contexts (oracle vs. narrative settings). Chezib’s compromised status stemming from Hezekiah’s urbanization policy stands behind Micah’s double entendre; a similar logic may inform Gen 38:5.

62 We should here reconsider the death sentence in Gen 38:24, which recalls the H legislation in Lev 21:9. In its final form, H is certainly the product of a post-Deuteronomistic era, but the origins of the H movement may be traced to Hezekiah’s day, as argued most forcefully by Israel Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis:

Leuchter: Genesis 38 in Social and Historical Perspective 225

It is only through reconciliation with Tamar, a symbol of sacred hinterland fertility, that Judah is restored to righteousness and that the survival of his progeny is secured.63 Yet this reconciliation takes place at the very end of the tale, when Judah admits to his own guilt in mistreating Tamar (צדקה ממני, “she is righteous, not I”; v. 26aβ).64 Only at this point does Judah end his victimization of Tamar, which has lasted throughout the narrative: withholding Shelah denies her the right to bear children and secure a place in the clan, which in turn forces her to adopt a position of social liminality (prostitution) to secure her rights.65 Circumstances move from bad to worse, for after Tamar does conceive, Judah is only too ready to pronounce death upon her without any hint of judicial inquiry.66 If the narrative is a metaphor for the uprooting of the rural Judahite population, then Judah’s mis- treatment of Tamar parallels the monarchic administration’s mistreatment of the hinterland and its institutions.67 The conclusion of the narrative, which sees Tamar give birth to David’s ancestor Perez, drives home the author’s polemical point: the future of the Judahite kingdom will be secured only if the royal admini stration, like Judah himself, admits to the errors of its ways and ends its assault on the institutions of the hinterland.

What, then, of the intertextual relationship between Genesis 38 and 2 Samuel 13? The many points of contact beyond Tamar’s name strongly suggest that the author of Genesis 38 knew the narrative of 2 Samuel 13, especially if the Hezekian era saw renewed promotion of the Davidic myth.68 Yet it is difficult to see the

Fortress, 1995), 209. If the law in Lev 21:9 has roots in Hezekiah’s day, then the narrative further equates a Jerusalemite institution of the late eighth century b.c.e.—the Jerusalem priesthood (or at least a faction thereof )—with a threat to the survival of Judah.

63 The rabbis came to a similar conclusion in their reading of the episode, despite the questionable sexual conduct of the participants (m. Meg. 4:10).

64 Drawing from Clifford’s translation (“Genesis 38,” 530–31). 65 On childbirth as a definition of a woman’s place within a kinship network, see Dvora

Weisberg, “The Widow of Our Discontent: Levirate Marriage in the Bible and Ancient Israel,” JSOT 28 (2004): 409–10; Zevit, “Dating Ruth,” 577. On the socially liminal place of prostitution, see Susan Niditch, “The Wronged Woman Righted: An Analysis of Genesis 38,” HTR 72 (1979): 147–48.

66 A process of inquiry or consideration of evidence seems to have had a normative role in the execution of justice in relation to clan-based or family-based cases. Joshua 7 shows Joshua securing an admission of guilt from Achan before punishment is administered to him and his family; the daughters of Zelophehad point out the logic of their right to inheritance due to their father’s sin not applying to their own legal standing (Num 27:1–11); and even Joab’s murder of Abner, despite David’s public criticism of the event, is justified as a matter of blood-vengeance (2 Sam 3:27, 30)—and David does not ultimately punish Abner for the deed. Judah’s immediate pronouncement of death for Tamar does not conform to accepted standards of deliberation.

67 See Halpern, “Jerusalem and the Lineages,” 26–27, for an overview of Hezekiah’s demolition of the rural cult.

68 Ho, “Family Troubles,” 514–31; Auld, “Tamar between David, Judah and Joseph,” 216–18. Rendsburg’s suggestion that שוע is a thinly veiled reference to Bathsheba further supports בת

226 Journal of Biblical Literature 132, no. 2 (2013)

author of the Genesis 38 patterning his Tamar solely after the Tamar of 2 Samuel 13. The Tamar of the Davidic narrative initiates a sequence of events leading to the dissolution of David’s family which cleared the way for Solomon’s reign, a reign that was remembered as an affront to traditional agrarian sensibilities and rural kinship organization.69 Indeed, the efforts by Hezekiah’s scribes to portray his ancestor Solomon as a luminary of a golden age may be a response to the rural sentiment that Hezekiah’s policies repeated Solomon’s earlier abuses.70 If Genesis 38 is a product of a rural mind-set, it is unlikely that the Tamar of 2 Samuel 13, the harbinger of hard times for the hinterland of Solomon’s day, was his prototype.

A different explanation for the appearance of a Tamar in Genesis 38 and 2 Samuel 13 is that both narratives draw from an old myth regarding a woman of the same name who symbolized the principle of the land’s numinous fertility in rural lore.71 The fact that both David and Absalom give their daughters this name suggests as much, since both are presented as deeply concerned with supporting premonarchic kinship structures and old hinterland religious institutions.72 The naming of royal daughters after a figure of hinterland myth would be a tip of the proverbial hat to old agrarian ideology. It is therefore significant that the Tamar of 2 Samuel 13 sets in motion the events that nullify the viability of Amnon, Absalom, and eventually Adonijah as heirs to the throne. All of these were born to David before his move to Jerusalem and thus maintained connections to the clans of the

this view (“David and His Circle,” 441–43). It seems to me, however, that the tone is more severe than Rendsburg suggests, since the בת שוע reference equates the venerable first queen mother of Judah with a Canaanite outsider.

69 Halpern, David’s Secret Demons, 406–24. See also Lawrence E. Stager, “The Patrimonial Kingdom of Solomon,” in Symbiosis, Symbolism and the Power of the Past: Canaan, Ancient Israel, and Their Neighbors from the Late Bronze Age through Roman Palaestina. Proceedings of the Centennial Symposium, W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research and American Schools of Oriental Research, Jerusalem, May 29/31, 2000 (ed. William G. Dever and Seymour Gitin; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 63–73, for Solomon’s imposition of a royal patrimonial hierarchy over older tribal social organization. The Deuteronomistic critique of Solomon pre- serves aspects of Solomon’s shortcomings; see Marvin A. Sweeney, “The Critique of Solomon in the Josianic Edition of the Deuteronomistic History,” JBL 114 (1995): 609 –21.

70 See now my article “The Ambiguous Details in the Blasphemer Narrative: Sources and Redaction in Leviticus 24:10–23,” JBL 130 (2011): 446–48.

71 Astour had earlier proposed a similar proto-myth underlying the narrative (“Tamar the Hierodule,” 196). See also Michael M. Homan, “Date Rape: The Astronomical and Agricultural Background of the Sumerian Sacred Marriage and Genesis 38,” SJOT 16 (2002): 283–92.

72 David is repeatedly portrayed as negotiating with both the Judahite and Ephraimite clan elders, and his coronation ceremonies occur in sites known to be the home base of rural Levite groups (Hebron ]2 Sam 2:1–4[ and Shechem ]2 Sam 5:1–5[). Shechem is the home of an ancient rite attributed by the authors of Deuteronomy to the Levites (Deuteronomy 27). Numbers 26:58a identifies Hebron as the locus of a Levite clan, and it is later in Hebron that Adonijah declares cultic allegiance (2 Sam 15:8) and that he is coronated during his revolt (2 Sam 15:10). Both sites are identified in Josh 20:7 as sacral loci and places of refuge.

Leuchter: Genesis 38 in Social and Historical Perspective 227

rural sectors.73 That their candidacy for kingship is decimated through the Tamar affair suggests a polemic encoded into the pro-Solomon succession narrative against a socioreligious value system represented by Solomon’s competitors.

2 Samuel 13 and Genesis 38, then, represent divergent views on the religious and social legacy of Israelite agrarian life. The former is part of an effort to sub- ordinate hinterland society to the Davidic myth as shaped by Solomon’s reign; the latter is a complaint against injuries suffered by the rural clans at the hands of the Judahite leadership. Despite the rift between the rural and royal worldviews, it is important to note that Genesis 38 is not an essentially anti-Davidic tale. Kingship is not pitted against rural culture but is claimed by it, positioned as an institution that draws sacral legitimacy through its connection to agrarian life. This concept survives in the book of Deuteronomy, where the monarch is to be drawn from the rural public (Deut 17:15), and in the book of Kings, where both Joash and Josiah (2 Kings 11; 21:24) are either placed on the throne by עם הארץ (“the people of the land”) or take power with their blessing.74 That this same vision of kingship was worked into the Joseph story, a primarily northern composition informed by the David traditions,75 perhaps constitutes a step in the same direction. Its place within that story establishes the rural worldview as a constitutive element of a national identity that was to define the self-perception of northern Israelites and southern Judahites alike.76

73 See further Sweeney, “Critique of Solomon,” 618–19. 74 These two episodes are not necessarily historically accurate, but the redactor’s depiction

of each king’s ascent to the throne presumes a sort of monarchic typology that was acceptable to the landed gentry according to which he shaped his narratives.

75 For different views on the shaping of the Joseph story with an eye to the David traditions, see Dietrich, Die Josephserzählung, 72–73; Carr, Fractures of Genesis, 276.

76 Though the foregoing analysis argues for an earlier date than Auld has suggested, his view that chs. 38 and 49 of Genesis “bracket” the Joseph story is significant (“Tamar between David, Judah and Joseph,” 224; see also Carr, Fractures of Genesis, 253). The former reflects the rural concept of Judahite kingship, while the latter’s depiction of Judah is clearly a product of royal court ideology. Both concepts, then, were viewed by the later redactor as fundamental to the construction of pan-Israelite identity.

Copyright of Journal of Biblical Literature is the property of Society of Biblical Literature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.