Women at Work in the Deuteronomistic History - International Voices ...

278 | WOMEN AT WORK IN THE DTRH
תונוז. With the disappearance of this type of family, the concept took on a more
negative connotation, that of a harlot. This view is hardly considered today. 24
A couple of years later yet another response at the dissatisfaction with the
meanings and assumptions about these terms appeared. Starting from the
impasse in the academic discussion on the above-mentioned question and since
“sacred prostitution” cannot offer any help in understanding the Hebrew term
הנז, Irene Riegner posits a process which starts with Hosea’s condemnation of
illicit religious praxis and moves into sexual semantics and not vice-versa. In her
conclusion she states:
The network of words surrounding the stem הנז “participate in illicit religious
practices” consisted of pejorative language appropriate to the social and
theological worlds. Using parallelism, Hosea blended הנז “illicit religious
praxis,” with ףאנ “adultery” (Hos 4.134b–14a), language from Israelite social
life and a criminal offense. About one hundred fifty years later, Jeremiah did
the same (Jer 3.9;3.27). With Hosea, הנז acquired a criminal complexion and
assumed a sexual dynamic. The sexual became the dominant meaning but as
used in Hosea and Jeremiah and in the Holiness Code, הנז refers to illicit
religious practices. 25
This transference of meaning runs opposite to the usual assumption that the
use of הנוז to speak of idolatry, insofar as it is a symbolic development, must
derive from the sexual meaning. On the other hand, suspecting illicit sexual
practices has been and still is a way of undermining a woman’s professional
(and personal) authority; and there is always a cloud of suspicion on female
religious practices. Thus, the transfer of meanings between a religious and a
sexual one, both with negative connotations from the holders of orthodoxy,
should not surprise us. No doubt, these issues, particularly the possible
development of concepts vis-à-vis the dating of the biblical material, needs
further study and it needs also be incorporated into ongoing discussions. 26
24
Hannelis Shulte, “Beobachtungen zum Begriff der Zônâ im Alten Testament,” ZAW 104 (1992):
262, takes a clue from Gen 38 and Hos 4:13–19, with the parallel between השׁדק and הנז and
concludes that “[w]ir haben hier also eine Begriffsverschiebung vor uns, die mit einer sozialen
Umwandlung parallel geht. Die mit dem Patriarchat neu entstehende Lebensweise der Hure, der
Prostituierten, schafft sich keinen neuen Begriff, sondern übernimmt die Bezeichnung einer
aussterbenden Lebensweise von Frauen. Das wird dadurch erleichtert, daß sich in einer
Übergangszeit diese beide Lebensweisen von außen gesehen kaum unterscheiden lassen, obwohl sie
von innen her wie Feuer und Wasser verschieden sind.”
25
Riegner, “Vanishing Hebrew Harlot,” 347.
26
This dissertation has been published (Peter Lang, 2009) but so far I have not seen any review.
Unfortunately, I have no access to the published version.