THE VIOLENCE OF ORDEAL AGAINST WOMEN SUSPECTED OF ADULTERY IN NUM 5,11-31

Abstract

The relevance of the article lies in the analysis of the ritual of the ordeal in Num 5,11-31, which highlights the forms of violence against women. The text uses the hermeneutic male/female approach to gender, appropriate to the patriarchal and androcentric socio-religious context of the time. Thus, the study aims to highlight the ideology of the ordeal ritual that legitimizes discrimination and practices of violence against women. The following steps are taken: introduction, context and purpose of the report in the book of Numbers, translation, structure, analysis of characters and actions and hermeneutics. This study results in a more realistic view of the situation of a woman suspected of adultery, as, through the ordeal, she is subjected to a risk interpreted as punishment if found guilty of infidelity. From alleged victim, she becomes the guilty one. The article concludes that the narrated violence serves as a strict control of the wives’ bodies by their jealous husbands. This critical reading disallows the form of judgment through the ordeal, which also exists in other cultures of the Ancient East.