Satlow_Texts of Terror.pdf

"Texts of Terror": Rabbinic Texts, Speech Acts, and the Control of Mores 

Author(s): Michael L. Satlow 

Source: AJS Review, Vol. 21, No. 2 (1996), pp. 273-297 

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"TEXTS OF TERROR": 

RABBINIC TEXTS, SPEECH ACTS, 

AND THE CONTROL OF MORES 

by 

MICHAE L. SATLOW 

In 1962, J. L. Austin published a set of lectures entitled How to Do 

Things with Words.' In this founding document of speech act theory, Austin 

argues that language not only can say things, but it can also do things (what 

he calls the illocutionary force of language).2 Austin's signal example of the 

illocutionary force of language is the wedding ceremony, in which words 

properly recited actually create a marriage.3 Later students of speech act 

theory have expanded the application of this insight: all language, written or 

spoken, has an illocutionary force that depends on the context of the speech 

act.4 All language not only, or even primarily, says; it also does. 

References to the Mishnah, Tosefta, Sipre Numbers, Sipre Deuteronomy, Babylonian Talmud 

and Palestinian Talmud are indicated respectively by m., t., Sipre Num., Sipre Deut., b. and y., 

followed by an abbreviation for the name of the tractate. A version of this paper was read at 

the 1993 AAR/SBL Annual Meeting in the "History and Literature of Early Judaism" section. 

In addition to the participants of that section and the two anonymous referees for this journal, 

I owe thanks to several people who read this paper in one or another of its various forms and 

offered many helpful suggestions: Shaye Cohen, Richard Kalmin, Benny Kraut, Holt Parker, 

Amy Richlin, Benjamin Sommer, Richard Sarason, and Judith Romney Wegner. I, of course, 

remain responsible for the ideas and remaining errors. 

1. J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University 

Press, 1962). 

2. Ibid., pp. 4-11, 94-107. 

3. Ibid., pp. 5-6. 

4. I return below to this issue in greater detail. The scholarly controversy over the limits 

of the application of speech act theory is beyond the scope of this paper, but see especially 

AJS Review 21/2 (1996): 273-297 273 



274 MICHAEL. SATLOW 

Rarely have scholars applied the questions developed in speech act 

theory to the rabbinic texts of late antiquity.5 What did rabbinic texts do? 

Recent scholarship, especially in anthropological and sociological literature 

on religion and in feminist film criticism, has shown that one thing that 

texts (however broadly defined) do is to construct and reproduce social 

relations within a culture.6 Movies, for example, by representing as "normal" 

or glorifying cultural norms--even (or perhaps better, especially) on a deep 

level--serve to reinforce current cultural norms and to reproduce them for 

the future. Even ostensibly objective scientific discourse has been shown to 

be a cultural product: the modem presentation, for example, of reproductive 

theories uses language that reflects and perpetuates gender stereotypes.7 

If visual media are the primary mode for the transmittal of cultural norms 

in the present day, texts were an important mode of transmittal among the elite 

in antiquity. If we assume that the rabbis formed small social groups within 

a much larger social context, and were distinguished by their textual study 

and "text-centeredness," then these rabbinic texts may have been the primary 

means by which the rabbis attempted to reinforce and reproduce sanctioned 

cultural norms.8 That is, a group that gives much authority to received texts 

John R. Searle, Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (Cambridge, Mass.: 

Harvard University Press, 1969). Throughouthis paper I follow the conclusions of Petrey, 

who argues that all language, including textual language (for which Austin did not allow), is 

"performative," that is, has illocutionary force (Sandy Petrey, Speech Acts and Literary Theory 

[New York: Routledge, 1990], pp. 22-41). 

5. One notable exception is Steven D. Fraade, From Tradition to Commentairy: Torah and 

Its Interpretation in the Midrash Sifre to Deuteronomy (Albany: State University of New York 

Press, 1991). Fraade argues that Sifre Deuteronomy had an illocutionary effect on its audience, 

helping rabbis to establish group identification and solidarity: "In a sense, as they work through 

the commentary the commentary works throught [sic] them," (p. 19). I argue here that disparate 

traditions, like a fixed text, can also have a transformative force. 

6. See for examples Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," Screen 16, no. 

3 (1975): 6-18; Teresa de Lauretis, Alice Doesn 't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema (Bloomington: 

Indiana University Press, 1984); Judith Mayne, "Feminist Film Theory and Criticism," Signs 

11 (1986): 81-100. 

7. See Emily Martin, "The Egg and the Sperm: How Science has Constructed a Romance 

Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles," Signs 16 (1991): 485-501. 

8. Rabbinic social organization is poorly understood. Lee Levine postulates that in Palestine 

in the mid-late third century the rabbis formed a "class," although his use of the term is somewhat 

vague (Lee Levine, The Rabbinic Class of Roman Palestine [New York: Jewish Theological 

Seminary and Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1989], pp. 13-14). Goodblatt and Gafni have debated 

whether rabbis in Babylonia were organized in disciple circles or larger learning academies. 



TEXTS OF TERROR 275 

would most likely attempt, consciously or unconsciously, to embed, and 

thus perpetuate, its societal strategies within its own literary productions. If 

we accept the premise that the rabbis in late antiquity had limited juridical 

power, then the only way by which they could have promoted their values 

and norms would have been through rhetorical persuasion.9 Rabbinic texts, 

in this context, can be seen as agents of persuasion."0 

One area that the rabbis attempted to regulate and control was sexuality. 

In even the most coercive society, a complex mix of strategies must operate 

in order to enforce cultural sexual norms. A society might employ strategies 

as diverse as honor and shame, invective, and even ideals of truth, in order 

to promote sanctioned sexual behavior of the individual within that society."I 

These "technologies of sex," as Foucaulterms them, are intended to penetrate 

into domains that the law cannot. 

See David Goodblatt, Rabbinic Instruction in Sassanian Babylonia (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975); 

and idem, "New Developments in the Study of the Babylonian Yeshivot," Zion 46 (1981): 

14-38 (in Hebrew); Isaiah Gafni, "Yeshiva and Metivta," Zion 43 (1978): 12-37 (in Hebrew). 

Both of these alternativeshare the assumption that these groups were organized expressly for 

the purpose of study and learning of texts. The intended reader of rabbinic texts, especially the 

Talmudim, is also not well understood. For some preliminary comments, see David Kraemer, 

"The Intended Reader and the Bavli," Prooftexts 13 (1993): 125-140, esp. 132-133. 

9. Rabbinic jurisdiction over the punishment of offenders who did not voluntarily submit 

to the rabbini courts is not well understood. It appears, however, that only in exceptional cases 

did the rabbis administer punishments other than flogging, and even then they were said to 

have acted illegally. See Origen, Ep. ad Africanus 14 (Patrologia Graeca, 11:41); b. Git. 67b; 

b. B. Qam. 59a-b. See further Isaiah M. Gafni, The Jews of Babylonia in the Talmudic Era 

(Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center 1990), pp. 99-100 (in Hebrew); Jacob Neusner, A History 

of the Jews in Babylonia (5 vols.; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1965-70), 2:282-287, 3:220-29; Martin 

Goodman, State and Society in Roman Galilee, A.D. 132-212, (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & 

Allanheld, 1983), p. 123. 

10. I make no argumenthroughouthis paper on the thorny issue of whether, and when, 

these "texts" circulated in oral or written form. While my argument is neater if we assume 

assume that they circulated in written form at a fairly early stage of their genesis, it is not 

invalidated if we assume an oral circulation (whether in a ptiblic context via sermons or 

a narrower context in individual rabbinic schools or academies). Although it strikes me as 

unlikely that the texts considered here, many of which are highly stylized, circulated orally, it 

is likely that the attitudes expressed in them were part of public discourse. I thank a referee for 

raising this issue. 

11. For a statement on how these strategies of control, among others, were manipulated and 

deployed, see Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, An Introduction, trans. Robert 

Hurley (New York: Random House, 1980). 




Within the extant rabbinic documents produced in late antiquity too there 

exist "technologies of sex," or similarly, "technologies of gender," texts 

that sought to assert some nonlegal measure of control over sexuality while 

fortifying and reproducing existent gender relations.12 In this paper I analyze 

one such technology: the construction of women as sexual objects. Rabbinic 

texts that discuss male sexual behavior employ different rhetorical strategies 

than those that discuss female sexual behavior. Whereas the rabbinic texts 

on male sexual conduct speak to and directly threaten men, those on female 

sexual conduct speak about women, often with a violence of language. After 

demonstrating the formal differences between rabbinic texts that attempt to 

control male and female sexual behavior, I argue that the insights of speech 

act theory, especially as used in modem feminist criticism, can be applied 

fruitfully to these sources. 

Talking about Women 

Rabbinic texts that discuss female sexual behavior are oblique. Women, 

in these texts, are portrayed as objects. Instead of addressing themselves to 

women, the texts are about women. Moreover, these texts further objectify 

women by comparing female sexuality to food, and often these discussions 

use violent language. 

Nowhere in these rabbinic texts do violence and unsanctioned female 

sexual behavior intersect more clearly than they the treatment of the so.ta. 

According to Numbers 5, a man who suspects his wife of adultery has a 

right to bring her to the priest, who conducts a ritual and forces her to drink 

a potion, "the water of bitterness."" The suspected adulteress is called the 

sota. Rabbinic, especially tannaitic, discussion of the so.ta go far beyond the 

biblical prescriptions in three respects: (1) they emphasize that the sota ordeal 

is public; (2) they exaggerate the humiliation of the sota; and (3) they apply 

12. See Teresa de Lauretis, Technologies of Gender (Bloomington: Indiana University 

Press, 1987), pp. 1-30. 

13. What this passage means in its biblical context--especially its similarity or dissimilarity 

to trials by ordeal - is not our concern. In this article I deal only with the rabbinic use of this 

passage. For some comments on its biblical context, see Tikvah Frymer-Kensky, "The Strange 

Case of the Suspected Sotah (Numbers V 11-31)," Vetus Testamentum 34 (1984): 11-26. 




the principle of "measure for measure" to the ordeal.14 These discussions are 

also marked with gory and vivid detail and violence of language. Since the 

rabbis, by their own admission, are describing a ritual that has long since 

become obsolete (if it was ever in fact enacted), these texts become the actual 

producers of meaning." 

According to the Bible, the so.ta ordeal involves three actors: the suspicious 

husband, the suspected wife, and the priest who conducts the ordeal. The 

ordeal itself takes place before the priest (Num 5:15), where he "bring[s] her 

forward and [has] her stand before the Lord," (Num 5:16). There are hints 

that the ordeal begins inside the Tabernacle (Num 5:17) and ends at the altar 

(Num 5:25). There is no hint of public participation in the biblical account. 

According to the Mishnah, however, the suspected wife is adjured by the 

Great Court (instead of by a single priest), before being led outside where 

"anyone who wants to see comes and sees... and all the women are permitted 

to see her, as it is said, '... and all the women shall take warning not to 

imitate your wantonness' [Ezek 23:48]."16 The public nature of the ordeal is 

essential: for the women, at least, she is made example. Even the suspicion of 

adultery puts a woman at risk of public display and humiliation.17 This aspect 

of the rabbinic construction of the ordeal is emphasized in the Babylonian 

Talmud: "Raba said, 'All who want to see her see' [citing the mishnah], there 

is no difference between men and women but women are obligated to see 

14. Milgrom argues that (2) and (3) may be inherent in the biblical text. See Jacob Milgrom, 

Numbers, The JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989), p. 303, 

nn. 55, 64. 

15. See t. Sot. 14:2 (ed. S. Lieberman, The Tosefta [4 vols.; New York: Jewish Theological 

Seminary of America, 1955-88], 3.2:235-236). 

16. m. Sota 1:4, 6 (ed. H. Albeck, The Mishnah [rpt. 6 vols.; Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1988], 3:234, 

235). All translations of rabbinic texts are my own. All translations of biblical texts are from 

Tanakh: A New Translation of the Holy Scriptures according to the Traditional Hebrew Text 

(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985). Some translations have been slightly modified. 

17. For another example on the link between the suspected adulteress and public humiliation, 

see Sipre Deut. 26 (ed. L. Finkelstein, Sipre on Deuteronomy [rpt. New York: Jewish Theological 

Seminary, 1969], 36-37); Sipre Num. 137 (ed. H. S. Horovitz, Sipre Numbers [rpt. Jerusalem: 

Shalem, 1992], 183); b. Yoma 76b. On this tradition, see Saul Lieberman, Greek in Jewish 

Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1942), pp. 162-164; Steven D. Fraade, 

"Sipre Deuteronomy 26 (ad Deut. 3:23): How Conscious the Composition?" Hebrew Union 

College Annual 54 (1983): 245-301. The role that honor and shame played in Jewish societies 

in late antiquity is obscure. 




her..."'" Women must see the suspected adulteress to scare them into proper 

behavior. 

Rabbinic sources go beyond the public shaming of the adulteress, prescribing 

actual humiliation and physical abuse. According to the Bible, the 

priest begins the so.ta ordeal by baring the woman's head (Num 5:18). The 

discourse of the Mishnah is far more violent: 

The priest grabs her garments-if they rip, they rip; if they tear open, they tear 

open - until he reveals her heart and loosens her hair.... If she was covered 

in white garments, he covers her in black garments; if she has gold jewelry and 

chains, earrings and rings-they strip [them] from her, in order to disgrace her. 

And afterwards he brings Egyptian rope and binds her above her breasts.'9 

The Mishnah's description of the ordeal finds no biblical support. Not 

only is the woman publicly accused of her transgression, but she is first 

subjected to physical violence and then disfigured. She is forced to hold her 

offering "in order to oppress her."20 This language resurfaces later: when the 

Mishnah describes what happens to the potion (which has a sanctified status) 

if the so.ta confesses in the middle of the ordeal, it states that although she 

has confessed, "they cajole her and force her to drink against her will."21 R. 

Yehudah expands on this in the Tosefta, saying that "they force her mouth 

open with tongs."22 

The Mishnah, attempting to link the illnesses incurred by the guilty sota 

to her activities, delineates a theory of "measure for measure."23 Everyone 

receives just and equal recompense for their actions. The Tosefta expands on 

this theme: 

A. Thus you find with the sota tha the measure with which she measured they 

measure out to her. She stood before him [i.e., her lover] so that she would 

be pretty before him, therefore the priest stands her before all, to show her 

18. b. Sota 8b, my emphasis. 

19. m. Sota 1:5-6 (ed. Albeck, 3:234-235). See also y. Sota 1:7, 17a. 

20. On this phrase, see m. Sota 2:1 (ed. Albeck, 3:237); b. Sota 14a; y. Sota 2:1, 17d. On 

the meal offering, see Adriana Destro, The Law of Jealousy: Anthropology of Sotah (Atlanta: 

Scholars Press, 1989), pp. 89-106. 

21. m. Sota 3:3 (ed. Albeck, 3:240). 

22. t. Sota 2:3 (ed. Lieberman, 3.2:159). The same phrase is used in m. Sanh. 7:2 (ed. 

Albeck, 4:189-190), to describe how execution by burning is carried out. 

23. m. Sota 1:7 (ed. Albeck, 3:235), cited below. 




disgrace, as it is said, "[and the] priest will have her stand before the Lord," 

[Num 5:16]. 

B. She put on a head-covering for him,24 thus the priest takes the covering 

from her head and places it at her feet. 

C. She braided her hair for him, thus the priest loosens it. 

D. She adorned her face for him, thus her face turns green [from the 

potion]. 

E. She painted her eyelids for him, thus her eyes bulge. 

F. She pointed at him with a finger [thus designating him as her lover],25 

thus her nails are clipped. 

G. She showed him her flesh, thus the priest rips her garment and shows 

her disgrace to many. 

H. She girded herself in an undergarment,26 thus the priest brings 

Egyptian rope and binds her above her breasts, 

I. And all who want come and see. 

J. She offered him her thigh, thus her thigh falls off. 

K. She received him on her stomach, thus her belly withers. 

L. She fed him dainties, thus her offering is the food of beasts. 

M. She gave him fine wine to drink in fine cups, thus the priest causes 

her to drink bitter waters in a vessel of clay.27 

Whereas the Mishnah progresses according to the order of the ordeal (each 

part of the ordeal is shown to have a correspondence in the suspected 

adulteress's behavior), the Tosefta progresses according to the suspected act 

of adultery, linking each activity to a part of the ordeal. Thus, although the 

effects of the potion (D, E) obviously result from her drinking the potion (M), 

the Tosefta places the former first. The effect of the passage is to highlight 

the violent punishments that result from every (suspected) activity of the 

(suspected) adulteress. Every activity leading to the suspected act of adultery 

is violently punished.28 

24. This follows Lieberman's suggestion (Saul Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-fshutah: A Comprehensive 

Commentary on the Tosefta [10 vols.; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 

1955-88], 8:637 [in Hebrew]. Hereafter abbreviated Tos. Kip.). The force of this action--a 

woman putting on a head-covering for her lover-is obscure, but seems to imply that this is a 

form of dressing up for her lover. 

25. Following Lieberman, ibid. 

26. Following Lieberman, ibid.: y'?sr. 

27. t. Sota 3:2-4 (ed. Lieberman, 3.2:159). 

28. See also t. Sota 4:10 (ed. Lieberman, 3.2:174). 




In fact, the Tosefta and other tannaitic texts go beyond the articulation of 

"measure for measure". The adulterous wife is punished beyond her measure. 

"Because she set her eyes upon another who is not fitting for her, what she 

requested is not given to her and what she has is taken from her."29 What 

she has, according to the midrash, is her honor.3" A baraita emphasizes this: 

"Shimon ben Eleazar taught, even if it is a pure woman who drinks [the 

ordeal], her end is that she will die by evil diseases because she caused 

herself to enter this great uncertainty."3' It does not matter that the sota was in 

fact innocent: the punishments and humiliation that she endured as part of the 

ordeal are justified by the very fact that she put herself under the suspicion 

that led to the ordeal. Whether or not she is guilty of adultery, she is guilty 

of at least acting like an adulteress, and this alone justifies her humiliation, 

even death. 

Written at a time when the ordeal had long been obsolete, these rabbinic 

discussions of the in tannaitic and amoraic, Palestinian and Babylonian 

so.ta, 

sources, are marked by violent language. The violence of the treatment of 

the sota is accompanied by an objectification: she becomes an example for 

all Jewish women. Her display and disfigurement are designed to go beyond 

individual punishment. The texts themselves, and perhaps the producers of 

them, seem to take pleasure in the vividness of the accounts. They make the 

suspected adulteress into a didactic object. 

If the case of the sota is exceptional because it refers to adultery, a similar 

(although less violent) pattern can be seen with reference to premarital sex. 

Premarital sex is, in the Hebrew Bible, prohibited for neither men nor women. 

The rabbis too do not prohibit pre-marital sex, but they clearly disapproved 

of females (and to a lesser extent, males too) engaging in it. One of the 

rhetorical strategies by which they expressed this disapproval was by use of 

the term zonah. The term appears frequently in the Bible, and commonly 

means "whore" or "adulteress."32 In rabbinic literature, the term is most often 

interpreted with reference to the restriction on a priest marrying a zonah (Lev 

21:7): whom precisely may a priest not marry? Several rabbinic sources label 

29. t. Sota 4:16 (ed. Lieberman, 3.2:175-176). 

30. Sipre Num. 21 (ed. Horovitz, 25). 

31. y. So.ta 3:5, 19a. See also y. Sota 1:5, 17a; 4:1, 19c. 

32. See, for examples, Lev 21:7, 14; Josh 2:1, 6:17, 22, 25; Ezek 16:30, 35. See further 

S. Loewenstamm, "mlT,triat", Encyclopedia Biblica (9 vols.: Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 

1964-88), 2:935-937 (in Hebrew). 




a woman who has had some type of nonmarital intercourse as a zonah.33 

In fact, there is a strong tradition that a woman who has had any kind of 

non-marital intercourse is termed a zonah: "Rabbi Eleazar says, even an 

unmarried man who has intercourse with an unmarried woman not for the 

sake of marriage [engages in be'ilat zenut]."34 At the same time, the term is 

used to refer to prostitutes.35 As a result, women who engaged in pre-marital 

intercourse were labeled as "whores," and in some cases even suffered 

legal disability. Hence, although in rabbinic sources both men and women 

were discouraged from premarital intercourse, only the female partners of 

these liaisons acquired a derogatory epithet (zonah) and legal disadvantage 

(disqualified from marrying a priest). 

The linguistic objectification of women goes beyond that of the application 

of the term zonah. One of the most prevalent, and clearest, example of this 

tendency is the "euphemistic," or metaphorical, language by which female 

sexuality is discussed. Women are "fields" to be "sown";"bread" 

or "fish" 

to be "eaten"; a "cup" to be "used."36 Women are also constructed within 

these sources as objects of male sexual desire: they are frequently portrayed 

as sexual temptations to men.37 Unlike men, women are portrayed as having 

33. For examples of types of intercourse that render a woman a zonah, see m. Yebam. 8:5 

(ed. Albeck, 3:43) (levir and his levirate wife when one of them is sterile); m. Ketub. 5:1 (ed. 

Albeck, 3:103-104) (man and a "wife" to whom he pledged less than the minimum marriage 

settlement); Sipre Deut. 213 (ed. Finkelstein, 247). 

34. Sipra Emor 1:7 (ed. J. H. Weiss, Sipra [Vienna: Jacob Schlossberg, 1862], 94b). See 

also, Sipra Kod. 7 (ed. Weiss, 90d). The statement is cited three times in the Palestinian Talmud, 

and in each is considered authoritative: y. Yebam. 6:5, 7c; 7:5, 8b; 13:1, 13b. Its citation in 

the Babylonian Talmud is always counter-normative: b. Yebam. 59b, 61b, 76a; b. Sanh. 51a; b. 

Tem. 29b, 30a. On this, see further, Michael L. Satlow, Talking about Sex: Rabbinic Rhetorics 

of Sexuality (Brown Judaic Studies; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995]), pp. 121-23. 

35. For examples, see Sipre Num. 115 (ed. Horovitz, 128-129); y. Ta'an. 1:4, 64d; b. 

Ber. 23a; b. Sanh. 82a. See further, M. Jastrow, Dictionary of the Targumim, Talmud Babli, 

Yerushalmi and Midrashic Literature (2 vols.; London: Duckworth, 1886-1903), 1:388, s.v., 

36. "Fields": m. Ketub. 1:6 (ed. Albeck, 3:90-91); "Bread": b.Sabb. 62b; b. Yoma 18b; 

"Fish": b. Yoma 75a; "Cup": t. Sota 5:9 (ed. Lieberman, 3.2:178-79); b. Ketub. 75b. The rabbis 

regularly use euphemisms when discussing female sexuality. See J. Nacht, "Euph6mismes 

sur la femme dans la litterature rabbinique," Revues des Etudes Juives 59 (1910): 36-41; 

E. Z. Melamed, "Lashon Nikiyyah v'Kinuyim b'Mishnah," Leshonenu 47 (1982-3): 3-17, 

esp. 7-10 (in Hebrew). See also Page duBois, Sowing the Body: Psychoanalysis and Ancient 

Representations of Women (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988). 

37. See, for examples of women as temptresses, t. Qidd. 5:14 (ed. Lieberman, 3.2:297); m. 

'Avot 1:5 (ed. Albeck, 4:354); Sipre Num. 139 (ed. Horovitz, 185); y. Ketub. 1:8, 25d; y. Sabb. 




virtually no sexual self-control.38 Women are thus portrayed as sexual objects 

whose own sexual desires are relevant only in respect to the effect that they 

exert on male sexual desire. 

One rabbinic text exhibits a striking intersection between the violent 

language and objectification of female sexuality: 

A.... anything that a man wants to do with his wife, he may do. A parable: 

[The matter is similar to] meat that comes from the slaughterhouse. If he wants 

to eat it salted, he eats it [that way]; [if he wants to eat it] roasted, he eats it 

[roasted]; [if he wants to eat it] boiled, he eats it [boiled]; [if he wants to eat it] 

seethed, he eats it [seethed]. Thus [too] a fish that comes from the nets ... 

B. A certain woman came before Rabbi [Yehuda ha-Nasi]. She said to him, 

"Rabbi, I set my table for him39 and he overturned it!" He said to her, "My 

daughter, the Torah has permitted you [to him in this way], what can I 

do for you?" 

C. A certain woman came before Rav. She said to him, "Rabbi, I set 

my table for him and he overturned it!" He said, "Is this different from 

a fish? [i.e., just as a man can eat a fish in any way he desires, so too 

can he "overturn the table" if he desires]."40 

The comparison of female sexuality to food (to be consumed by men) is 

common both in rabbinic and classical literature, where it serves to objectify 

female sexuality.41 (B) and (C) relate stories of women going to rabbis to 

14:4, 14d (par. y. 'Abod. Zar 2:2, 40d); b. Sanh. 75a. Occasionally women are portrayed as 

more actively seducing men. See y. Sota 3:4, 19a; b. Ketub. 65a; b. Sabb. 62b (par. b. Yoma 9b). 

38. m. Sota 3:4 (ed. Albeck, 3:240-241); b. Qidd. 80b; b. Ketub. 51b, 54a, 62b. 

39. See The Babylonian Talmud with Variant Readings: Tractate Nedarim (Jerusalem: Yad 

HaRav Herzog, 1991), part 1, p. 174, esp. n. 56. From this passage, it is not clear what position 

is being referred to. The dictionaries and commentators take it to mean anal intercourse. See 

Jacob Levy, Wrrterbuch iber die Talmudim und Midraschim (reprinted 4 vols.; Berlin and 

Wien: B. Harz, 1924), 1:485, s.v., Ipin; and Kohut's remarks in A. Kohut, Aruch Completum 

(8 vols.; Vienna, 1878-92), 3:232, s.v., tprn; idem, Additamentad Aruch Completum, (Vienna, 

1937), p. 81, n'htD. 

40. b. Ned. 20b. 

41. For other examples of women compared to food in rabbinic literature, see above and b. 

Sanh. 100b; b. Sota 11 b; b. Sabb. 13a. Such comparisons were common in the ancient world. 

See Athenaeus 10, 457d; Madeline M. Henry, "The Edible Woman: Athenaeus's Concept 

of the Pornographic," in Pornography and Representation, ed. Amy Richlin (New York: 

Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 250-268. My interpretation runs counter to two recent 

comments on this passage. According to Biale, R. Judah, "by symbolically throwing up his 




complain about the position in which their husbands want to have sex. Here 

it is the women who are portrayed objectifying themselves through their own 

comparisons to "set tables." The results of these encounters are chilling: the 

women are simply turned away, without recourse, left as objects of their 

husbands' sexual whims. Rabbi Yehudah's answer in (B) is not a real answer, 

for the justification for this position is found in a baraita (A), not the Torah. 

Rav's answer in (C) might even have been read as humorous. Although 

Rav's comparison of the woman with a fish might have been a dry, legalistic 

comparison between the woman and the case of (A), it is difficult to imagine 

that this passage would have been read so dryly: the text seems to "wink" at 

its male audience. The text leaves women without protection. 

A similar type of rabbinic tradition can be found in the Babylonian 

Talmud: 

Our rabbis taught: Once it happened that a woman came before Rabbi Akiba. 

She said to him, "Rabbi, I had intercourse during my third year, [can I marry] 

a priest?" He said to her, "You are permitted [to marry] a priest." She said 

to him, "Let me make an analogy. To what is the matter similar? To a child 

who sticks his finger in honey. The first and second times he rebukes it [i.e., 

cries], the third time he sucks it." He said to her, "If so, you are not permitted 

[to marry] a priest." He saw his students looking at each other and he said to 

them, "Why are you troubled [with this decision]?" They said to him, "Just as 

the whole Torah is halakah [given] to Moses from Mount Sinai, so too [is the 

law that] a woman under three years old is permitted [to marry] a priest a law 

[given] to Moses from Mount Sinai." Rabbi Akiba only said [what he did to 

the woman in order] to test his students.42 

hands ... implicitly criticizes such practices" (David Biale, Eros and the Jews: From Biblical 

Israel to Contemporary America [New York: Basic Books, 1992], p. 51). This reading strikes 

me as forced. Boyarin examines this text in more detail, arguing that the context in which it 

occurs serves exactly to counter the idea of female sexual objectification. See Daniel Boyarin, 

Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 

1993), pp. 109-122. Boyarin goes so far as to label this text "a very embryonic ars erotica," (p. 

132), following Foucault's mistaken understanding of classical sources. See Michel Foucault, 

The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, An Introduction, pp. 57-8. Cf., Holt N. Parker, "Love's Body 

Anatomized: The Ancient Erotic Handbooks and the Rhetoric of Sexuality," in Pornography 

and Representation, pp. 90-111, esp. 103-4. 

42. b. Nid. 45a. 




This tradition ends a long discussion on whether a priest, who is prohibited 

from marrying a woman who has engaged in be 'ilat zenut, can marry a woman 

who has had intercourse before she was three years old. In the mishnah upon 

which this tradition comments, intercourse with a girl under three is compared 

to "putting a finger in the eye"; this is interpreted in the Babylonian Talmud 

to mean that her hymen regenerates.43 The narrow legal problem is whether a 

girl who has had intercourse during her third year is treated like one who is 

over three years (forbidden to marry a priest) or under three years (permitted 

to marry a priest) who has had intercourse. At first, R. Akiba gives the proper 

legal response, that she is permitted to marry a priest. When she confesses, 

however, that after a few unenjoyable times she did enjoy intercourse at this 

age, he retracts his permission. Although technically permitted to marry a 

priest, the woman is prohibited because she is said to have enjoyed her rape. 

The redactor of the sugya adds a twist to this story: R. Akiba, recognizing that 

he was acting beyond the limits of the law, did so only to test his students. 

The entire incident is presented as a pedagogic exercise. As in the passage 

presented above, a woman is portrayed as going to a rabbi with a question 

dealing with illicit sex (making her the agent of her own objectification), only 

to be rebuffed and either mocked or used didactically. Here, the statement 

that "rape can be enjoyable" is placed in the mouth of the woman.44 

Although these two passages are attributed to Palestinian rabbis, there is 

reason to doubt that they really are of Palestinian provenance. Neither the 

stories in b. Nedarim nor the one in b. Nidd. are paralleled in Palestinian 

documents. The parallel in the Palestinian Talmud to the latter story, in fact, 

has an almost opposite thrust.45 There, the discussion is about rape, and 

although the woman ends up admitting that she enjoyed the rape, Rabbi 

Yohanan (before whom the case was presented) permits her to return to her 

husband. Only in the Babylonian Talmud is her enjoyment stigmatized to 

the point where she is legally penalized for it. Moreover, the legal category 

that both stories attempt to illustrate-the status a woman who is raped but 

enjoys it-is developed at length only in the Babylonian Talmud.46 In these 

43. m. Nid. 5:4 (ed. Albeck, 5:390); b. Nid. 45a. Alternatively, the mishnah might mean 

that there is no hymen. 

44. My thanks to Judith Romney Wegner who broughthis fact to my attention. 

45. y. Sota 4:5, 19d. 

46. The principle is termed n ioi pri" ona'w For a full discussion, see b. Ketub. 51 b. 

Most of the discussion is attributed to Babylonian 

n,•innn. amoraim. 




Babylonian sources there appears to be an anxiety that a rape victim might 

enjoy the experience. 

Like the sota texts, these texts too exhibit objectification of female 

sexuality, marked by discussions about, rather than addressed to, women; and 

an implied violence.47 All of these texts portray women as powerless sexual 

objects. One reason for this portrayal, I argue below, is to control female 

sexuality. A comparison of these texts to those which attempto control male 

sexuality further highlights the gender-differentiated strategies employed by 

the rabbis in controlling sexual mores. 

Talking to Men 

The most common way by which the rabbis attempto dictate male sexual 

mores is through legislation.48 Several rabbinic traditions, however, take a 

differentack. These passages attempto frighten men into sanctioned sexual 

behavior, without explicitly legislating against the condemned behavior. That 

is, they do not present themselves as normative texts. One example of this 

strategy is found in the mishnaic treatment of the sota. 

A. According to the measure that person measures, so they measure him. She 

adorned herselfor the sake of transgression---God disgraces her. She revealed 

herselfor transgression-God lays her bare. She began her transgression first 

with [her]"thigh," 

and then with [her]"belly"----therefore 

[her]"thigh" 

is 

afflicted first, then [her]"belly," 

and the remainder of her body is not spared 

[from affliction]. 

B. Samson went after [what] his eyes [beheld], therefore the Philistines 

gouged out his eyes, as it is written, "The Philistineseized him and gouged 

47. To the sources already discussed may be added several other texts of generally more 

legal flavor. Women are legally penalized, for example, for immodest behavior in m. Ketub. 

7:6 (ed. Albeck, 3:112); they are, according to some authorities, forced to tend to those needs 

of their husbands that have sexual overtones even when they themselves are in mourning (b. 

Mo 'ed Qat. 19b); and they are threatened with death in childbirth if they do not inform their 

husbands that they are menstruating (m. Sabb. 2:6 [ed. Albeck, 2:23], especially as interpreted 

in b. Sabb. 31 lb-32a). My thanks to Shaye Cohen, who directed me to some of these sources. 

48. Most scholars who have written on rabbinic constructions of sexuality have confined 

themselves primarily to examinations of rabbinic legislation. See Louis Epstein, Sex Laws and 

Customs in Judaism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1948). More sophisticated 

is David Biale, Eros and the Jews, pp. 33-59; Boyarin, Carnal Israel. 




out his eyes" [Judg 16:21]. Absalom was proud of his hair, therefore he was 

hung by his hair; and because he had intercourse with the ten concubines of 

his father, ten javelins were put in him, as it is written, ". .. when ten of 

Joab's young arms-bearers [closed in and struck Absalom until he died]" [2 

Sam 15:6] ..49 

According to (A), the entire ritual is constructed around her transgression: 

her guilt is assumed. If she really did commit adultery, the biblical account 

says, then "her belly shall distend and her thigh shall sag" (Num 5:27). Why 

are only thigh and belly mentioned? According to the mishnah, it is because 

the woman's transgression was committed through her "thigh"(understood 

as vagina) and "belly"(understood 

as womb or uterus). This, as discussed 

above, is an example of the principle of measure for measure. 

Passage (B) then suddenly shifts.50 Instead of continuing to discuss the 

sota, the mishnah suddenly applies this same principle to two biblical men who 

exemplify profligacy, Samson and Absalom. Because Samson was attracted 

to (see Judg 14:3) and pursued foreign women, he lost his eyes. As Absalom 

"pierced" his father David's ten concubines, so too was he pierced ten times.5' 

This same theme is repeated later in the tractate. 

When adulterers increased, the "water of bitterness" [ritual] ceased, and Rabban 

Yohanan ben Zakai stopped them, as it is written, 'I will not punish their 

daughters for fornication, nor their daughters-in-law for committing adultery; 

for they [themselves turn aside with whores and sacrifice with prostitutes...],' 

[Hos 4:14].52 

49. m. Sota 1:7-8 (ed. Albeck, 3:235-236). 

50. This shift is partly to be accounted for by the associative grouping of m. Sota 1:7-9 

(ed. Albeck, 3:235-236). All of these passages are linked by their discussion of "measure for 

measure." Such associative groupings are common in the Mishnah. See H. L. Strack and G. 

Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), pp. 

137-138. Nevertheless, this particular grouping appears not to be coincidental, but to have been 

intentionally constructed in order to convey its point. It is interesting to note, although beyond 

the scope of this paper, that the next pericope, 1:9, shifts suddenly again. This passage not only 

applies the "measure for measure" principle to reward rather than punishment, but begins with 

Miriam. The purpose of beginning with Miriam might be to contrasthe "bad" woman with the 

"good" woman. 

51. According to 2 Sam 16:22, Absalom had intercourse with his father's concubines. The 

number of concubines is inferred from 2 Sam 15:16. 

52. m. Sota 9:9 (ed. Albeck, 3:258-259). See the interpretation of this passage offered in t. 

Sota 14:2 (ed. Lieberman, 3.2:235-236). 




The message of these mishnaic passages is clear: men who are involved in 

any promiscuity, but especially adultery, risk both death and their wives' 

betrayal. Male promiscuity, which the rabbis never explicitly prohibit (although 

adultery--defined for men as intercourse with another man's wife-is 

prohibited) is strongly discouraged. Samson and Absalom are presented as 

threatening paradigms, intended to scare men into sanctioned, more chaste 

behavior. 

Whereas these mishnaic passages-among the very few tannaitic sources 

that deploy this strategy of scaring men into sanctioned sexual behavior 

rather than legislating it-are short and somewhat cryptic, the Babylonian 

Talmud's deployment of this strategy is much more striking. One text, which 

polemicizes against intercourse between a Jewish man and a Gentile woman, 

begins by citing a tannaitic tradition about the activity of Pinhas. According 

to the Bible, immediately after the prophecies of Balaam the Israelites began 

"whoring with the Moabite women" (Num 25:1) and turning to other gods. 

God orders Moses to kill the instigators of this idolatry. 

Just then one of the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman over to 

his companions, in the sight of Moses and of the whole Israelite community, 

who were weeping at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. When Pinhas, son 

of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, saw this, he left the assembly and, taking 

a spear in his hand, he followed the Israelite into the chamber and stabbed 

both of them, the Israelite and the woman, through the belly. Then the plague 

againsthe Israelites was checked." 

The tannaitic tradition based on this biblical account is concerned with the 

question of authority: does Pinhas act alone, or does he consult with his 

elders or in some way know that he has God's approval?54 The sole concern 

of this tradition, and of the sugya that cites it in the Palestinian Talmud, is 

that of zeal and its control.55 Pinhas must be "domesticated," so that other 

would-be zealots do not think that they are sanctioned to act without rabbinic 

permission. 

Preceding the citation of this tradition in the Babylonian Talmud, however, 

is the following discussion: 

53. Num 25:6-8. 

54. Sipre Num. 131 (ed. Horovitz, 172). 

55. y. Sanh. 10:2, 27d. See also, y. Sanh. 9:11, 27b. 




A. Rav Kahanasked Rav [82a],"If the zealots do not injure him [who has 

intercourse with a Gentile woman], what is the law?" 

B. Rav completely forgot, and Rav Kahana read in a dream, "Judahas broken 

faith; abhorrent things have been done in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judahas 

profaned what is holy to the Lord--what He desires-and espoused daughters 

of alien gods" [Mal 2: 11]. 

C. He [Rav Kahana] came, and said to him, "This is what I read. Rav completely 

remembered [the answer to (A)]." 

D. [Rav interprets each clause of Mal 2:11, ending with:] "and espoused 

daughters of alien gods"--this is one who has intercourse with a Gentile 

woman (kutit), and it is written after it, "May the Lord leave to him who does 

this no descendants ('er ve 'onah) dwelling in the tents of Jacob and presenting 

offerings to the Lord of Hosts," [Mal 2:12] - if he is a scholar, he shall have 

no light ('er) [= teaching] among the sages, nor answer ('onah) in disciples. If 

he is a priest, he will not have a son to offer the meal offering to the Lord of 

Hosts. 

E. R. Hiyya bar Abuyah said, "Any man who has intercourse with a Gentile 

woman (kutit), it is as if he wed (Tnnro) an idol, as it is written, "and espoused 

daughters of alien gods." What daughter does an idol have? Rather, this 

[refers] to one who has intercourse with a Gentile woman" [An unrelated story 

involving R. Hiyya bar Abuyah follows]. 

F. When Rav Dimi came he said, "The Court of the Hasmoneans decreed 

that one who has intercourse with a Gentile56 woman transgresses the law 

prohibiting [the mnemonic for intercourse with a menstruant, slave-woman, 

Gentile woman, and married woman]." When Ravin came he said, "[He 

transgresses the law prohibiting] nsgz [the mnemonic for intercourse with] 

a menstruant, slave-woman, Gentile woman, and z6nah, but not because of 

marriage [i.e., adultery, designated by the a in NSGA], because they [= Gentiles] 

do not have it [= the institution of marriage]." And the other [R. Dimi, how 

would he reply]? Certainly they [= Gentiles] do not leave their wives open [to 

all]. 

G. R. Hisda said, "If one comes for counsel [whether to kill a man engaged in 

intercourse with a Gentile woman], we do not advise him [to do so]." 

H. It was also stated, Rabah bar bar Hanah said in the name of R. Yohanan, 

"If one comes for counsel [whether to kill a man engaged in intercourse with a 

Gentile woman], we do not advise him [to do so]." 

I. And not only this, but also had Zimri separated [withdrawn from intercourse] 

and Pinhas killed him, he [Pinhas] would have been killed [for killing] him 

[Zimri]. Had it been reversed, and Zimri killed Pinhas, he [Zimri] would not 

56. The printed edition reads kutit. I am following MS Munich 95. 




have been killed [for killing Pinhas], because he [Pinhas] was a pursuer [and 

could thus be killed in self-defense]. 

J. "So Moses said to Israel's officials, 'Each of you slay those of his men who 

attached themselves to Baal-peor' " [Num 25:5]. The tribe of Shimon went to 

Zimri ben Salu. They said to him, "They are sitting in a capital court, and you 

sit in silence?" What did he do? He stood and gathered 24,000 men from Israel 

and went to Kozbi. He said to her, "Submit to me" [i.e., have sex with me]. 

She said to him, "I am the daughter of a king, and my father commanded me 

to submit only to the greatest among them." He said to her, Even he is [= I 

am] the prince of a tribe and not only that but he is greater than him [Moses], 

for he [Zimri's tribe] is second-born, and he [Moses's tribe] is third-born." He 

grabbed her by her braid and brought her to Moses. He [Zimri] said to him 

[Moses],"Son of Amram, is she forbidden or permitted? And if you say that 

she is forbidden, who permitted the daughter of Yitro to you?" [Moses] forgot 

the law [concerning the right of zealots to harm one engaged in intercourse 

with a Gentile woman]. All the people burst out crying, as it is written, "[Just 

then one of the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman over to his 

companions, in the sight of Moses and the whole Israelite community,] who 

were weeping at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting" [Num 25:6]. 

K. "When Pinhas, son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, saw this .. ."[Num 

25:7]. Saw what? 

L. Rav said, "He saw the act and remembered the law. He [Pinhas] said to 

him [= Moses], 'Brother of my father's father, did you not teach me when you 

descended from Mount Sinai, that if one has intercourse with a Gentile woman 

that zealots are permitted to attack him?' He said to him, 'Let him who dictates 

the letter be its carrier.' " 

M. Shmuel said, "He saw that 'No wisdom, no prudence, and no counsel 

can prevail against the Lord' [Prov 21:30]. Every place God's name is being 

desecrated, one does not accord honor to his teacher."57 

The Babylonian Talmud firmly recontextualizes the story of Pinhas, which 

follows the cited passage. The tannaitic tradition of Pinhas is now used to 

illustrate the potential harm that can come to those Jewish men who dare to 

have intercourse with Gentile women. The Babylonian Talmud too is uneasy 

with Pinhas's unrestrained zeal: sections (G) and (H) say that if a zealot 

comes to ask a rabbi whether or not he is permitted to slay such a person, he 

is to be told that he is not. Yet these sections, as well as the rest of the sugya, 

also display an ambivalence. Men are not prohibited from being zealots; if 

57. b. Sanh. 81b-82b. See also b. 'Abod. Zar. 36b. 




they do not ask, they will not necessarily be told to refrain from such an 

act. To be sure, zealots are warned of the danger (I) of taking the law into 

their hands, but ultimately the choice is left to them. Correspondingly, this 

heightens the danger to men who choose to participate in such liaisons. 

Even if the Jewish lover escapes punishment at the hands of the zealots, 

he still faces a variety of divine punishments inflicted by God (D). Section 

(F) defines intercourse with a Gentile woman as a violation of a negative 

precept.58 Note also that here, and only here, is Moses himself indicted for 

intermarriage, and punished by forgetting his own teaching and losing honor 

from Pinhas (J). 

A similar composition is b. Nid. 13a-b, an extended polemic against 

male masturbation which I examine in detail elsewhere.59 The redactor(s) of 

this sugya draw upon tannaitic and amoraic sources, of both Babylonian and 

Palestinian provenance, often reshaping their original meanings through a 

variety of editing techniques. The result is a long, coherent composition that, 

going well beyond simple exposition of the mishnah (m. Nid. 2:1), proffers 

a variety of threats intended to keep men from masturbating: masturbation is 

accounted as serious a transgression as murder, idolatry, or adultery; it can 

cause communal punishment; it can cause personal damnation; it warrants 

death. Holy men, according to this sugya, refrain from touching, even looking 

upon, their genitals, lest they be led to masturbate. 

There can be little doubt that the redactor(s) carefully composed this 

passage in order to frighten its male readers into sanctioned sexual behavior. 

The redactor(s) of the Babylonian Talmud resort(s) to a panoply of vague 

threats to enforce sanctioned sexual behavior for men. Both of these texts are 

relatively uncomplicated: they appear intended to be read by men, in order 

58. To my knowledge, this is the only place in the literature that such a claim is made, 

although the stories in the Babylonian Talmud of rabbis flogging men who have had intercourse 

with Gentile women seem to assume it. See b. Ber. 58a (attributed to R. Shila). The printed 

edition reads that he was caught with an Egyptian woman, but manuscripts replace this with 

the more general "Gentile woman." See J. Rabbinovicz, Dikduke Soferim (reprinted 14 vols.; 

Brooklyn and Jerusalem: Me'ain Hahohmah, 1959/60), 1:326; b. Ta 'an. 24b (attributed to Court 

of Raba); y. Ta 'an. 3:4, 66c (a rabbi castigates the Jews of Sepphoris for their "acts of Zimri." 

The act of Zimri as recorded in the Bible and discussed in talmudic literature was intercourse 

with a Gentile woman. But the talmudic use of this phrase is not necessarily consistent. See, for 

example, b. Sota. 22b, which appears to use "acts of Zimri" to refer to general transgressions. 

The reference in this tradition to the plague, however, echoes that of the biblical story of Zimri). 

59. See Michael L. Satlow, "'Wasted Seed': The History of a Rabbinic Idea," Hebrew 

Union College Annual, 65 (1994): 137-75. 




to scare them from unsanctioned sexual behavior. In contrast to the texts 

on female sexuality, they directly threaten men with punishment, rather than 

objectifying them and portraying them as sexually powerless.60 

Speech Acts and Rabbinic "Pornography " 

According to Austin, the illocutionary force of a speech act is grounded 

in context and convention.61 Exactly the same words said in different contexts 

often have very different "meanings." The success (its "felicity," in Austin's 

words) of an illocutionary speech act thus depends upon its context. To 

modify Austin's example of marriage, this concern can be seen clearly in 

much of tractate Qiddushin. It is not enough for a man to give a woman a 

certain amount of money to betroth her, or to recite a fixed text to marry 

her; he must perform this acts under very specific conditions for the intended 

force (betrothal or marriage) to be felicitous. Moreover, all parties in a speech 

act must share the same conventions in order for the illocutionary act to be 

felicitous: the statement "I bet you that.. .," loses its illocutionary force when 

said to someone who does not understand the cultural meaning of betting. 

The application of speech act theory to the rabbinic texts surveyed above 

forces us to question the illocutionary force of those texts that discuss female 

sexuality. What were these texts intended to do? What conventions governed 

the reception of these texts? Were the texts, as illocutions, felicitous? 

Modem critical discussions of pornography can serve as a useful theoretical 

framework for approaching these questions. Abandoning the identification 

of pornography with the prurient, scholars have recently emphasized the 

degrading characteristics of pornography. Susanne Kappeler has argued that 

the distinguishing feature of pornography is representation: whenever a 

"text"(or movie or picture) objectifies a woman for consumption by a 

male audience, that text can be called pornographic.62 Although Kappeler's 

60. Not surprisingly, the only passages in rabbinic literature where, to my knowledge, 

men are sexually objectified discuss pathic male homoeroticism, i.e., situations where men 

are thought to be behaving like women. See Michael L. Satlow, "'They Abused Him Like a 

Woman': Homoeroticism, Gender Blurring, and the Rabbis in Late Antiquity," Journal of the 

History of Sexuality 5 (1994): 1-25. 

61. Austin, How to Do Things, pp. 25-38. 

62. Susanne Kappeler, The Pornography of Representation (Minneapolis: University of 

Minnesota Press, 1986), esp. pp. 18-62. The androcentric nature of representation is also 

discussed by de Lauretis, Alice Doesn 't, pp. 12-36. 




position might be extreme, definitions of pornography now emphasize the 

dehumanization and objectification of women.63 That is, there is a move 

toward defining pornography not according to its formal characteristics, but 

instead its illocutionary force. The connection between pornography and 

speech act theory is made explicitly by Rae Langton: "Pornography's effects 

may be best explained by supposing that it has the illocutionary force of 

subordination."64 

Defined in this way, pornography becomes a useful model for considering 

the rabbinic material. Austin insists that understanding context and convention 

is necessary for understanding illocutionary force. While answers to these 

questions must be speculative (as for all rabbinic material from late antiquity), 

we can probably safely assume that these texts were produced by men for 

a male audience, be that audience in synagogue or the academy (with the 

latter more likely). And while the shared conventions are even more obscure, 

classical (especially Latin) sources provide intriguing parallels. 

Several classical sources may help to provide a framework in which to 

view these rabbinic texts. Rapes described by Livy and Ovid have the same 

effect as the sota texts: they portray a violence of language and the objectification 

of women, who are seen as sexually powerless.65 Martial "wittily" 

denigrates female sexual behavior.66 Athenaeus almost makes women and food 

interchangeable.67 Apuleius (in The Golden Ass) and Lucian (in Dialogues 

of Courtesans) regularly express violence toward women. Cicero and later 

Roman legal texts silence women by presenting them according to negative 

stereotypes (e.g., adulteress, whore).68 Richlin says that the recurrence of 

the following themes are defining factors of pornography in antiquity: "(1) 

inequity between partners; (2) objectification of women, with some emphasis 

63. This position is most often identified with Catherine MacKinnon. See Catherine 

MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987). See 

further Susan Gubar, "Representing Pornography: Feminism, Criticism, and Depictions of 

Female Violation," in For Adult Users Only, ed. Susan Gubar and Joan Hoff (Bloomington: 

Indiana University Press, 1989), pp. 47-67. 

64. Rae Langton, "Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts," Philosophy & Public Affairs 22 

(1993): 313. 

65. See, for examples, Livy 3.44-58; Ovid, Ars Amatoria, 1.99-134. See also Amy Richlin, 

"Reading Ovid's Rapes," in Pornography and Representation, pp. 158-179. 

66. See, for example, Martial 3.85, 86; 6.23. 

67. See Athenaeus 13.605f4-10. See further Henry, "The Edible Woman." 

68. See Amy Richlin, "Roman Oratory, Pornography, and the Silencing of Anita Hill," 

Southern California Law Review 65 (1992): 1321-32. 




on (a) nudity and (b) representation as food; (3) problematizing of the position 

of the female spectator."69 

These characteristics also appear, although less frequently, in Jewish 

writings from the Second Temple period. Many of these texts were written 

as "wisdom" literature directed toward men, with the result that men are 

bluntly advised to be .cautious of the sexual behavior of their wives and 

daughters.70 Halpern-Amaru, however, has pointed out that Pseudo-Philo's 

Biblical Antiquities presents women as stock characters, objectified in order 

to convey certain models of behavior.71 In the books of Tobit and Joseph and 

Aseneth also--not to mention the Greek Additions to Esther--too the women 

are portrayed woodenly, as didactic objects.72 

Despite wide differences in chronology, genre, and context, these parallels 

to the rabbinic material suggest that there were shared conventions for 

understanding such literature. In late antiquity in at least Roman and Jewish 

circles, men produced "pornographic" texts for other men who knew how 

to read them. Now we can ask, how then did they read them? What exactly 

were these texts doing? 

Scholars have long noted that language and politics are inseparable. Hence, 

because the authors of the privileged texts are frequently in positions of power, 

the social relations that these texts promote are often those of dominance and 

subordination.73 Texts are not innocuous. Several scholars have argued that 

69. Pornography and Representation, p. xviii. 

70. See for examples Sir 23:22-26, 26:10-12, 41:22, 42:9-10. Camp sees 26:10-12 as 

"pornographic" (Claudia V. Camp, "Understanding a Patriarchy: Women in Second Century 

Jerusalem Through the Eyes of Ben Sira," in 'Women Like This': New Perspectives on Jewish 

Women in the Greco-Roman World, ed. Amy-Jill Levine [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991], pp. 

1-39, esp. 22). 

71. See Betsy Halpern-Amaru, "Portraits of Women in Pseud-Philo's Biblical Antiquities," 

in "Women Like This ", pp. 83-106. 

72. Paul, especially in 1 Cor 7, also appears to objectify women. This is not to suggest 

that all Jewish literature from this time had these characteristics. Far from it: this literature, 

more than most contemporaneous bodies of literature, gives remarkablexpression to female 

characters. See, for examples, Judith and Testament of Job. See further Richard I. Pervo, 

"Aseneth and Her Sisters: Women in Jewish Narrative and in Greek Novels," in "Women Like 

This ", pp. 147-160, esp. 155-159; Pieter W. van der Horst, "Images of Women in the Testament 

of Job," in Studies on the Testament of Job (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 

pp. 93-116. 

73. See Frances E. Mascia-Lees, Patricia Sharpe, and Colleen Ballerino Cohen, "The Post 

Modernist Turn in Anthropology: Cautions from a Feminist Perspective," Signs 15 (1989): 11; 

Susan Gal, "Between Speech and Silence: The Problematics of Research on Language and 




male writers have "killed" the female voice: "Metaphysically, the woman 

reader of a literary tradition that inscribes violence against women is an 

abused daughter. Like physical abuse, literary violence against women works 

to privilege the cultural father's voice and story over those of women, the 

cultural daughters, and indeed to silence women's voices."74 

I suggest that these rabbinic texts on female sexuality were intended to 

promote an atmosphere of intimidation whose function it was to enforce 

female sexual mores. That is, the violence and objectification of women in 

these texts would serve to influence their male readers' views of women. Much 

like modem day "locker-room talk" or subtle forms of sexual harassment (e.g., 

off-color humor), these texts would have been one factor in the promotion 

of a societal outlook that would have indirectly discouraged women from 

unsanctioned sexual behavior. The rabbis directly discourage men from 

engaging in unsanctioned sexual behavior; they attempto discourage women 

(who are not among their immediate audience) by promoting certain (probably 

preexistent) attitudes and gender hierarchies. 

For example, by the time of the compilation of the rabbinic documents, the 

sota ordeal therein described had long ceased.75 The coherence of the picture 

that these texts paint--the violence and humiliation to which a suspected 

adulteress is subjected-suggest that the texts are "doing" more than merely 

preserving the historical record. These texts may have been "intended" to 

create an atmosphere in which female adultery was discouraged through 

threat of public humiliation. That is, true violence or an actual ordeal or 

humiliating ceremony was not necessary: none of these texts encourage 

actual physical violence, whether physical abuse of the adulteress or marital 

Gender," in Gender at the Crossroads ofKnowledge: Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern 

Era, ed. Micaela di Leonardo (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), pp. 175-203. 

Bourdieu too notes that strategies of reproduction of cultural norms are intrinsically related to 

strategies of social domination. See Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. 

Richard Nice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 70. 

74. Christine Froula, "The Daughter's Seduction: Sexual Violence and Literary History," 

Signs 11 (1986): 633. See also Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the 

Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (New Haven: Yale 

University Press, 1979), pp. 16-17. 

75. Although in later times, different kinds of humiliating ceremonies do appear to have 

existed in Jewish communities. See Saul Lieberman, "Shaving of the Hair and Uncovering of 

the Face Among Jewish Women," in his Texts and Studies, (New York: Ktav, 1974), pp. 52-56. 




rape.76 The rabbis in fact consistently contextualized statements that could be 

read as encouraging such abuse in order to make clear that such behavior was 

unacceptable. Rather, these texts convey underlying values and a violence of 

language that both husbands and fathers would have taken to heart, influencing 

their behavior toward wives and daughters. Female sexual behavior was thus 

controlled by influencing the behavior of those men under whose legal 

guardianship they fell." Similarly, the passage from b. Nedarim would help 

to preserve a gender hierarchy in which men were encouraged to view women 

as sex-objects. Men who read these texts were left to feel more secure with 

their current, asymmetrical social relationships. 

Rabbinic "pornography," like its modem cousin, thus played a subtle 

but important role in the control of female sexuality. The illocutionary force 

of this literature was to reproduce and reinforce a certain set of gender 

relationships by encouraging men to view women in certain ways (objects, 

zonot, etc.). The result was a "silencing" of women's voices. As soon as a 

woman is seen, for example, as an object, her own sexual desires and wishes 

are erased. These texts need not have even been transmitted to women in 

order to scare them; they "worked" as soon as they were said, read, and 

assimilated by their audience.78 

Conclusions 

How did the rabbis, a juridically weak (if not powerless) group with an 

apparently limited following, attempto coerce and persuade men and women 

76. The relationship between pornography and actual violence against women is, of course, 

a still unanswered question. Other rabbinic dicta, however, are clear in prohibiting marital 

rape. See Boyarin, Carnal Israel, pp. 113-131; Nahum Rackover, "Coercive Marital Relations 

Between a Man and His Wife," Shenaton Ha-Mishpat Ha-Ivri: Annual of the Institute for 

Research in Jewish Law 6-7 (1979-80): 295-317 (in Hebrew). We might also presume that 

women had recourse against abusive husbands in their own families, as appears to have been 

the case in ancient Rome. See Sarah B. Pomeroy, "The Relationship of the Married Woman 

to Her Blood Relatives in Rome," Ancient Society 7 (1976): 215-27. The relationship between 

Jewish women and their families in late antiquity, however, requires further investigation. 

77. Hence also the trouble that the rabbis, like other men in antiquity, had in legislating and 

regulating women who had no male guardians, such as widows. See Judith Romney Wegner, 

Chattel or Person? The Status of Women in the Mishnah (New York: Oxford University Press, 

1988), esp. pp. 114-144. 

78. My thanks to a referee for encouraging me to clarify my argument at this point. 




into sanctioned sexual activities and liaisons? For men, they took the direct 

route: legislation and explicit threats. These texts may have been welcomed 

by segments of the male community, for they helped men to fight the "evil 

desire."79 For women, however, who were not explicitly enjoined to fight 

the "evil desire," the rabbis relied upon the rhetorical manipulation of social 

attitudes. By writing "pornography," the rabbis were attempting (on some, 

not necessarily conscious, level), to reinforce and perpetuate that system of 

gender relationships with which they were comfortable. 

To this point I have mainly avoided the messy business of redaction 

criticism. Rabbinic "culture" was not monolithic. We should not assume that 

Palestinian rabbis of the third century shared the assumptions and rhetorical 

strategies of Babylonian rabbis of the the sixth century. The vast majority of the 

sources cited here are attributed to Palestinians, although the major, stylized 

texts are confined to the Babylonian Talmud. It may be that both Palestinian 

and Babylonian rabbis objectified women (as with many other cultures, 

ancient and modem), but they did so for different purposes. Palestinian 

rabbis were more concerned with the possibility and ramifications of adultery 

and marital sexuality than were Babylonians, who had other concerns about 

sexuality.s0 The rabbinic social use of "pornographic" writings was without 

doubt more complicated, with more variations, than I have indicated in this 

paper. Redaction criticism alone however, without in-depth analysis of other 

evidence for gender relationships in both Palestinian and Babylonian rabbinic 

culture, will not go far. 

I have also avoided asking whether the texts were felicitous. Did these 

texts actually succeed in doing the things that I claim they were intended to 

do? How did readers respond to them (or, in Austin's language, what was 

the "perlocution")? These questions touch two much broader issues: who 

exactly listened to the rabbis in late antiquity? and, what do we know about 

the actual lives of women? It is importanto remember that these texts, by 

virtue of their presence in the canon, make claims of authority; who did (and 

would later) take those claims seriously is a significant question. Although 

we cannot at present answer these questions, my suspicion is that if these 

79. For some other methods recommended by the rabbis in the fight against the "evil 

desire" ('vrn io), see Ephraim E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, trans. Israel 

Abrahams (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), pp. 475-483; Boyarin, Carnal 

Israel, pp. 134-166. 

80. This would coincide with the general Palestinian rabbinic emphasis on the reproductive 

function of sex, in contrasto the Babylonians. Cf. Satlow, Testing the Dish, pp. 317-20. 




texts succeeded, they did so in only a very small circle. Rabbinic literature 

itself hints at disapproved, but real, female sexual freedom, as well as female 

social cliques in which, presumably, females could act as free subjects. 

In her book Texts of Terror, Phyllis Trible analyzes several biblical scenes 

of terror against women.8" She never, however, defines exactly what she 

means by "terror," and does not take the next step: that descriptions of terror 

do things, usually themselves terrorize. Austin's insight is that that next step, 

asking about the illocutionary force of a text, is a necessary one. The related 

issues of authorial intention and social purpose and function, when applied to 

rabbinic texts, are extremely difficult, since nearly all of our data must derive 

from the texts themselves. Rabbinic texts do not exist in a vacuum. These 

texts "did" things; as "technologies of sex and gender," they had social roles 

and functions. Reinforcement and reproduction of gender relationships was 

one, but merely one, of the social functions played by these rabbinic texts. 

University of Virginia 

Charlottesville, Va. 

81. Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives 

(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984).

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