The central role of the Levite in Judges 19 in the brutal violence inflicted on the unnamed woman invites a consideration of the prohibition against land ownership amongst this Israelite tribe as inscribed in the Torah. Reading this injunction of Levitical landlessness alongside the story of Judges 19, as well as reflecting on this scene of horror in relation to a contemporary example of the violent death of an Asian American woman artist, this article explores the interplay between law and narrative as caveats against an idolatrous identity based on land ownership.
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