The Bible contains in biblical narratives, legal materials and prophetic rhetoric many instances of physical and sexual violence against women.
The study of this topic has not received much publicity to date. The Bible as a holy book is seen as a book of happiness and peace, the places of deeds are forgotten or glorified as an archaeological sites. While many legal texts protect the rights of women, there are many laws that promote violence and blame the victim.
So predominant in the Old and New Testaments is a basic patriarchal structure, which corresponds to the social and legal conditions of their times of origin, but which also promotes and in turn confirms them. Some instances are explicit and others are subtle. In a number of biblical narratives, female characters are beaten, raped, mutilated, and killed.
Such violence is particularly evident in stories such as the rape and death of an unnamed woman (Ri 19), the rape of Bath-seba (2 Sam 11), or of many women in war (Ri 21). For this series I visited these three sites (City of David, Silo, Tal al Ful).
