Mrs. Lot: Vilified or victim? Sinner or salt?
Patriarchal and punitive characterization often casts the silenced Mrs. Lot as a disobedient and unfaithful sinner who ignored God's command not to look back. Because she did, a common conclusion is that she ostensibly lusted after the depravity of Sodom or Gomorrah as the towns were cataclysmi...
| Published in: | Review and expositor |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Sage
[2018]
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| In: |
Review and expositor
Year: 2018, Volume: 115, Issue: 4, Pages: 467-482 |
| IxTheo Classification: | FD Contextual theology HB Old Testament NBE Anthropology NCB Personal ethics ZD Psychology |
| Further subjects: | B
liberative theoethics
B Feminist B Lot's wife B #MeToo B Womanist B Trauma |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Resolving-System) |
| Summary: | Patriarchal and punitive characterization often casts the silenced Mrs. Lot as a disobedient and unfaithful sinner who ignored God's command not to look back. Because she did, a common conclusion is that she ostensibly lusted after the depravity of Sodom or Gomorrah as the towns were cataclysmically destroyed by God's judgment with rains of fire. Feminist and womanist exegetical approaches to the biblical text reject the brunt of patriarchal castigation. As a practical theologian, I analyze the praxiological intent of Mrs. Lot's actions in the Abram-Lot saga. I approach the Hebraic text using a triadic womanist theoethical method to: (a) deconstruct the hegemonic hermeneutics by critiquing oppressive epistemological presumptions; (b) analyze lived experiences as narrative description to center, name, and validate historically margined or silenced voices; and (c) construct a counternarrative affirming personhood by valuing praxis to resist devaluation. I propose a counternarrative view of Mrs. Lot by deconstructing a patriarchal focus privileging Lot. I describe a narrative of Mrs. Lot's lived experiences relational to Lot's questionable ethics in light of societal mores. I then construct a premise for God's mercy rather than punishment as evidenced in Mrs. Lot's transformation. The proposal is timely in light of the revelatory publicity of the #MeToo campaign, wherein female voices shed light on past and present abusive experiences. My aim is to urge women and men to resist the normativity of domestic abuse that goes unchecked in the Genesis narrative and in present societal practices. I argue that Mrs. Lot's lived experiences give 'voice' to what must be retold in the symbolism of a salt pillar, which Christ later taught had life-altering properties. Her vilification ends here. Enough. |
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| ISSN: | 2052-9449 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Review and expositor
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/0034637318792858 |