Writing and Reading War: Rhetoric, Gender, and Ethics in Judith

Abstract

A Book entitled Writing and reading war: Rhetoric, Gender, and Ethics in Biblical and Modern Contexts, was published in 2008 by the Society of Biblical Literature. This book opened new insights for understanding ancient warfare, especially topics like the rhetoric of war, the role played by the Assyrians, the feminization of cities, the role of YHWH, and ethics of war, to name only a few. The LXX book Judith, which is also a war book, has not yet been critiqued or investigated in relation to these new insights. The authors of this article scrutinize Judith by using certain criteria set forth in the book and find a few surprising parallels, including the role played by the Assyrian army, the gender of the city Bethulia, the rhetoric of war, and ethics of war. These findings provide new insights on the nature of the war in Judith.