On Receiving a Forearm in the Mail (And Maybe a Hand, Too)

“Okay, I have two items of homework for you….Ready for them?” Jonalyn asked at the close of our mentoring session.

“Ready!” I was anxious to know I was doing the right thing, or at least not the terribly wrong thing.

Her assignments: read Judges (the book of the Bible) chapters 19 through 21 and jot down every graphic atrocity, then ask God why he included those passages in his Word.

Easy enough. I’d read Judges at least twice, probably more. No biggie.

Oh, pre-assignment Laney, you were so naive.

To say Judges 19 is rough is a cataclysmic understatement. Want a summary? You don’t, but you’re getting one:

Concubine cheats on Husband.

Concubine leaves him to stay with her dad.

Husband picks up Concubine.

On the way home, Husband and Concubine stay at a Stranger’s house in a town of the tribe of Benjamen.

Men of Benjamen (MoB) pound on Stranger’s door imploring him to surrender Husband for gang-raping fun.

Stranger says that that’s not polite to do to a guest. “But, here, take his concubine and my virgin daughter instead.”

MoB accepts offer of Concubine as object of gang-rape.

Mob rapes Concubine until they tire of her.

Concubine crawls back to Stranger’s door.

Concubine dies.

Husband nearly trips over her body as he leaves in the morning. He tells her, “Get up; let’s go,” before realizing she’s dead.

Husband cuts her into twelve pieces and sends her body parts all over Israel to rally vengeance against MoB.

Chapters 20-21 detail Israel’s war against their own tribe Benjamen, their genocide of that tribe except for a few hundred men. These survivors, of course, deserved women to bear their children, so they kidnaped some and killed other virgins’ families so they’d be free to marry them. Lucky ladies.

Still with me? Good.

I’ve read this story before, but only glossed over it. This time, though, I was that concubine being shoved out the door to that mob. I was terrified. I was betrayed. I was worthless.

I was that virgin daughter hearing my dad’s eagerness to throw me into anguish and disgrace for the sake of some guy he just met. I watched that scared concubine take my place. I had to go on living with this father who saw me as something to hand over to any man.

Of course, until I was killed in the genocide.

Three chapters are dedicated to this narrative and these chapters are bookended with, “In those days Israel had no king.” The last chapter ends with, “everyone did as he saw fit.”

So, you could say that the biblical writers included this story in the Canon to show what the kids did when Dad was away or to show why there were tens of thousands of Jews just missing from history. Fine. But why so much detail? Why did I need to know the concubine died with her hands on the threshold of the stranger’s door? Or know that he used a knife not a sword to cut up his concubine? Or have the image of him chopping her up “limb by limb?”

Because that’s storytelling.

Because I wouldn’t be outraged if I knew some men raped a woman a few thousand years ago. I’d be indignant for a minute. But I wouldn’t grieve. I wouldn’t wonder what her name was or what she felt as she died. I wouldn’t ache over the human condition–over the condition of even God’s people. I wouldn’t think of my condition–of the violence or greed or flagrant selfishness I’m capable of.

That’s what this writer of Judges did with a few concise but gory chapters.

If the biblical writers did it, why can’t the Christian author? Why can’t he document the ugly side of humanity with the same sharpness and clarity? Why don’t Christian literary agents accept submissions with even one curse word or whiff of sexuality? If we look through the shelves of a Christian bookstore, why can’t we find characters as broken as the concubine?

Characters as broken as Sawyer?

Is it because Sawyer, and subsequently her author, use unwholesome talk?

Is it because she has extramarital sex, and her author is guilty of writing sex scenes which must be erotica which causes lust which is sin?

Is it because her author’s portrayal of her sin would cause us to stumble?

Or are we afraid that, if we look at Sawyer, we’ll see the desperate friend we never reached out to, the abuse we turned a blind eye to, the unloved Jesus sought but we shunned?

Or are we afraid we’ll see ourselves?

That was the final part of Jonalyn’s assignment for me: see if my motivations for writing Never Touched in all its R-rated glory aligned with God’s reasons for including stories like Judges 19 in the Bible.

More on this later.

         

If you want later to be now, check out Part 2 of this series I’m calling Twelve Pieces of Flesh.