In our scriptures we find narratives and poetry that use the image of a wayward woman to symbolize the sins of the community, presenting God as her aggrieved husband who sometimes responds violently. This imagery bears the unfortunate and dangerous implication that spouse abuse is something God does. We will read Renita Weems’ book, Battered Love: Marriage, Sex, and Violence in the Hebrew Prophets and consider how we can construct a counter-narrative to combat this implication. The class will culminate with a weekend workshop in which we will produce both spoken and visual art to represent that counter-narrative. Come help us re-envision what it means to be in relationship with God.
| Date | Topic | Pages |
| February 26, 2023 | Introduction: A Metaphor’s Fatal Attraction | 1–11 |
| March 5, 2023 | The Rhetoric of a Metaphor | 12–34 |
| March 12, 2023 | No class This is the week of the women’s retreat. | No reading recommended for this day |
| March 19, 2023 | Speakers, Audiences, and Expectations | 35–67 |
| March 26, 2023 | God as husband | 68–83 |
| April 2, 2023 | Us as readers and the language of romance and rape | 84–119 |
| Saturday, April 8, 2023 | Oral and Visual Art Workshop | No reading recommended for this day |
| April 9, 2023 | Presenting our art as a new way of reading | No reading recommended for this day |
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