The Alleged Rape of Bathsheba: Some Observations On Ambiguity in Biblical Narrative

Abstract

In an earlier study I argued that Bathsheba is represented in the texts as a clever and resourceful woman, and suggested that her bathing where she might be seen by David may have been deliberately provocative. I now respond to Cheryl Exum's attack in Fragmented Women on this view, and especially to the charge that I have shown complicity in the narrator's rape of Bathsheba 'by the pen', by addressing five areas of ambiguity in this brief narrative, and demonstrating that my own reading deals coherently and consistently with each of the ambiguities.