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Prostitution In The Bible

by Avaren Ipsen, PhD Candidate at the GTU

The Hebrew and Christian scriptures evidence widely conflicting depictions of prostitution. In some texts prostitutes appear as heroines, as in the story of Rahab. Other texts depict prostitutes as normalized members of society. Still other texts depict acts of violence and wrath against those who “play the whore,” that is, women who are not necessarily prostitutes or even women. Biblical prostitution can be examined in three ways as “real” prostitution, metaphorical prostitution and sacred prostitution. Prostitution in the bible needs to first be distinguished from the other two types.

Prostitution

The most basic definition of prostitution is to trade sex for money or material goods.Depending upon the status of the woman involved, biblical prostitution could be either a licit or an illegal act. The vacillating portrayal of the heroine Tamar shows this status ambivalence in the same story where having sex with her as a prostitute is at first morally neutral, but in her identity as a daughter-in-law of Judah the penalty is death (Gen 38:24). This text also shows how the sexuality of women and girls was viewed as the property of their male guardians. Thus, adultery or premarital sex was akin to theft of a man’s sexual property.Having unsanctioned sex with such a woman is to “treat her like a prostitute” in the story of Dinah in Genesis 34:31. It is thus illegal for such women to be prostitutes in the biblical law code and the penalty is death by burning (Lev 21:9, Gen 38:24). Priests were forbidden to marry prostitutes or allow Israelite daughters to be sold into prostitution (Lev 21:7,14; Women without such ties (i.e. widows, orphans, aliens and perhaps temple slaves) could engage in prostitution without criminal sanction though perhaps with social disdain (Prov 7:10-27 and Sir 9:3-9). Two heroes of the book of Judges, Samson and Jephthah are connected to prostitutes (Jdgs 11:1, 16:1) and king Solomon judges a dispute between two prostitute mothers (1 Kgs 3:16-28).Rahab, the prostitute of Jericho, is a heroine and incorporated into the people of Israel (Jos 2,6:17-25). Her memory continues to the time of the Christian scriptures where her faith is extolled as comparable to Abraham’s (Heb 11:31) and her hospitality is a model for others to follow (Jas 2:25). She is also listed with other sexually suspect women, Tamar, Ruth and Bathsheba, as an ancestress of Jesus (Mt 1:4).

In Christian texts, Jesus is depicted as habitually associating with disreputable persons such as “tax collectors and sinners” (see Mk 2:15; Mt 9:10,11:19; Lk 7:34, 15:1-2).Two NT texts that appear to substitute “prostitute” for “sinner” has led some scholars to conclude that prostitutes were among the many such outcast figures with whom Jesus associated (Mt 21:31 “tax collectors and prostitutes shall enter the kingdom of god before you” and Lk 7:36-50 where “a woman from the city” and a “sinner” anoints Jesus’ feet).Many recent feminist scholars have questioned whether Jesus really associated with prostitutes or if this may have been ancient slander designed to de-legitimate women leaders in early Christianity (Corley). Liberation scholars assert that prostitutes would have most surely been among the poor to whom Jesus directed his ministry (Schuessler Fiorenza). Pauline literature denounces prostitution, but it is male clients of prostitutes who are condemned, not prostitutes themselves (1 Cor 5-7). In the era of the Christian text, the majority of prostitutes were slaves and all slaves were deemed sexually available to their masters. For these women, the sexual abstinence demanded by Paul would not have been an option. Either slaves were not able to join the Christian movement, or, the Christian community did not require sexual continence from its slave members (Glancy).

Metaphorical Prostitution

The most violent and negative portrayal of prostitution in the bible is in the deployment of the whore metaphor. The 8th century prophet Hosea is credited with the invention the metaphor of the brazen harlot, a figure for Israel, God’s wayward and unfaithful wife (Hos 1-4). What is actually being punished with violence is not prostitution per se, but a kind of metaphorical adultery (Bird). Many subsequent prophets reuse the popular metaphor (Isa 1:21, 23:15-18, Mic 1:7, Am 7:17, Jer 3:1-10, Nah 3:4-7, Ezek 16 and 23, Rev 17-19).It is generally a city or territory labeled “whore” that is punished for its infidelity to god by being invaded by conquering armies who plunder, rape and burn. The male leadership of Israel is depicted in this feminized manner to shock it into repentance.Often the crime that is punished is economic injustice perpetuated against the poor, via excessive taxation, when rulers acquire expensive imports obtained through inequitable trade with foreign superpowers (i.e. food staples for arms or luxury items). This commodity fetishism and abuse of the poor becomes tantamount to religious apostasy and is portrayed as adoption of the idolatrous religion of Israel’s trading partners. Prostitution thus becomes transmuted into the metaphor par excellence for religious apostasy from the god of Israel, YHWH, who has a special concern for the poor.

Sacred Prostitution

Due to such analysis of the prostitute metaphor in Hosea and new text discoveries, many recent scholars have reevaluated the evidence for the existence of sacred prostitution in the Hebrew bible. The main evidence for cultic prostitution was from the 5^th century Greek historian Herodotus reporting that all Babylonian maidens had to serve as prostitutes in the temple of Mylitta (see Histories 1.199).The basis for translating the Hebrew word qedeshah as “cult prostitute,” which literally means, “consecrated” or “sacred,” is very weak. In the story of Tamar in Genesis 38:21-22, the word for prostitute, zonah, was thought a synonym for the word qedeshah.These texts in conjunction with Hosea 4:14 formed the basis for translating the other instances where the word qedeshah appears in the bible (Deut 23:17-18, 1 Kgs 14:24, 15:12, 22:46, 2 Kgs 23:7) to mean “sacred prostitute.” Assyriologists once thought that the cognate terms in Akkadian and Ugaritic texts also indicated that qedeshah meant a “cultic prostitute” but the new consensus is that it merely indicates “temple personnel” perhaps of slave status without any cultic sexual responsibilities.Qedeshot were perhaps in the category of unattached women able to engage in prostitution without criminal penalty.

Further Reading

Bird,Phyllis. Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities.
Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997

Corley, Kathleen. Private Women, Public Meals.
Peabody, Mass.>: Hendrickson Publishers, 1993.

Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schuessler. In Memory of Her.
New York: Crossroad, 1985.

Glancy, Jennifer. Slavery in Early Christianity.
New York: Oxford, 2002.

Forthcoming: McClure, Laura and Christopher Faraone, Eds. Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005.

Avaren Ipsen is a PhD Candidate in Biblical Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley<.Her doctoral dissertation is on biblical prostitution.