Gaming with Rahab and the Spies
Traditional readings of Joshua 2 cast Rahab as a clever Canaanite heroine who saves both herself and her family from God’s ban on Jericho. Such a reading re-inscribes an androcentric model of living with one’s enemy via a warrior-styled conquest. But more importantly, such an approach bypasses the r...
| Published in: | The Oxford handbook of feminist approaches to the Hebrew Bible |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
2020
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| In: |
The Oxford handbook of feminist approaches to the Hebrew Bible
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Game theory
/ Rahab the Prostitute
/ Prisoner's dilemma
/ Nash equilibrium
/ Dominance
/ Strategy
/ Bible. Josua 2
/ Sexual identity
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| RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy HB Old Testament |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Traditional readings of Joshua 2 cast Rahab as a clever Canaanite heroine who saves both herself and her family from God’s ban on Jericho. Such a reading re-inscribes an androcentric model of living with one’s enemy via a warrior-styled conquest. But more importantly, such an approach bypasses the reality that Rahab and the spies survive via a strategy of mutual cooperation, an unexpected move in a game of war. I propose game theory’s classic situation of The Prisoner’s Dilemma as a means to observe Rahab and the spies as players on equal footing in a high stakes game of survival. As gamers who cooperate rather than conquer, Rahab and the spies undercut the expected, or rational, means for Israelite/Canaanite engagement: war, conquest, and strategies of “othering” and violence found in the Torah. Rather than domination, cooperation surfaces as the unexpected, or irrational, strategy that results in the preferred path to achieving the maximum mutual benefit: survival and subsequent sharing in life together. |
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| ISBN: | 0190462698 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The Oxford handbook of feminist approaches to the Hebrew Bible
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190462673.013.24 |