Violent Texts and Violated Women: The Pornoprophetics Debate by Dr Deryn Guest

Dr Guest is a Lecturer in Biblical Hermeneutics at The University of Birmingham.

The Pornoprophetics Debate  "...relates to the assertion that the personification of Israel as a woman punished by her ‘husband’ deity uses imagery that has pornographic elements."

Scriptural texts are said to be ‘pornographic’ because they contain imagery that objectifies the personifies Israel as a highly sexualized female in language and imagery that arguably arouses and fulfils fantasies, there is humiliation and degradation of the female body, and there is domination of the female body often by violent control.

Relevant Scriptural Texts: Hosea 1-3, Isaiah 3.16-4.6 and 57.3-13, Jeremiah 2.20-3.5 and 13.15-27, Ezekiel 16 and 23, Lamentations 1-2.

Key contributors to the Pornoprophetics Debate are D.T. Setel, Athalya Brenner, Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes and  J.C. Exum.