RT Article
T1 Who Ought to Be Sentenced to Death and Why?: Reasons and Legal Justifications of the Death Penalty in the Book of Judith
JF Journal for the study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman period
VO 57
IS 1
SP 34
OP 62
A1 Korytiaková, Martina
LA English
YR 2026
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1951220102
AB The paper primarily scrutinises the death penalty of Holofernes in terms of its reasons, legal justification, and the way of its realisation in the Judith story. The study further reveals the identity of other narrative characters who faced the threat of capital punishment and inquires into the grounds for their announced punishment by death. It is demonstrated that death punishments in the story—be they realised or just planned—relate to a specific capital offence according to the Torah. Holofernes’ capital penalty is exceptional as justified by two reasons. The sanction to death of Achior is, in turn, unique as it allows for an interpretation based on the biblical as well as Greek parallels. For the ironic purposes the sentence to death for a capital offence as ordered by the Jewish legal system is issued in the story by the gentiles in respect to the others, the Israelites included.
K1 Holofernes
K1 Judith
K1 Septuagint
K1 Blasphemy
K1 Death Penalty
K1 Decapitation
DO 10.1163/15700631-bja10110