David and Shimei: Innocent victim and perpetrator?¹

 

 

Gerrie Snyman

University of South Africa

Correspondence

 

 

---

ABSTRACT

Feeding on the current social anxiety in the country that is defined by racial lines, the paper suggests the possibility of a theology for the 'retributed', i.e. those who undergo justice in terms of affirmative action or land repossession. Employing Ndebele's thoughts on the folktale The lion and the rabbit and the issue of justice in Lars von Trier's Dogville as its matrices, the paper enquires into the roles of perpetrator or victim Shimei and David play to each other in Samuel-Kings in order to see whether Shimei's death constitutes retributive justice or whether there is some social benefit in turning him into a purificatory sacrifice in a Girardian sense.

---

 

 

“Full text available only in PDF format”

 

 

Bibliography

Barnard, D. 2004. With skilful hand. The story of King David. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.         [ Links ]

Bodner, K. 2005. David observed. A king in the eyes of his court. Hebrew Bible Monographs, 5. Sheffield : Sheffield Phoenix Press.         [ Links ]

Brighenti, A. 2006. Dogville, or, the dirty birth of law. Thesis Eleven 87: 96-111.         [ Links ]

Brueggemann, W. 2000. 1 & 2 Kings. Macon: Smyth & Helwys.         [ Links ]

Czovek, T. 2002a. Three charismatic leaders: Part Two: David. Transformation 19(3): 182-98.         [ Links ]

_____ 2002b. Three charismatic leaders: Part Three: Solomon. Transformation 19(4): 248-59.         [ Links ]

Elbeshlawy, A.F. 2008. Dogville: Lars von Trier's desexualized America. Scope, an online journal of film & tv studies, http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/phprint.php.         [ Links ]

Fibiger, B. 2003. A dog not yet buried - or Dogville as a political manifesto. Point of View: A Danish Journal of Film Studies, http://pov/imv.au.dk/Issue_16/section_1/artc7A.html.         [ Links ]

Fokkelman, J. P. 1981. King David. Narrative art and poetry in the books of Samuel: a full interpretation based on stylistic and structural analysis. Assen: Van Gorcum.         [ Links ]

Girard, R. 1972. La violence et le sacré. Paris: Bernard Grasset.         [ Links ]

Harvey, E. 2008. We need national discourse on race, racism. The Cape Times April 22, 9.         [ Links ]

Kirsch, J. 2000. King David. The real life of the man who ruled Israel. New York: Ballantine Books.         [ Links ]

Krondorfer, B., Von Kellenbach, Katharina, Reck, Norbert 2006. Mit Blick auf die Täter. Fragen an die deutsche Theologie nach 1945. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlaghaus.         [ Links ]

Masenya, M. 2008. 'For better, for worse'. The (Christian) Bible, women and African reality. Inaugural lecture, Unisa, Pretoria, September 2008.         [ Links ]

Morton, V. 2004. Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2003). 24fps, http://www.24fpsmagazine.com/Dogville.html.         [ Links ]

Ndebele, N. 2008. Fine lines from the box. Further thoughts about our country. Cape Town: Umuzi.         [ Links ]

Overstreet, J. 2004. Dogville. Christianity Today (electronic version), http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/reviews/dogville.html.         [ Links ]

Perkinson, J. W. 2004. White Theology. Outing supremacy in modernity. Black Religion / Womanist Thought / Social Justice. New York: Palgrave.         [ Links ]

Schwartz, D. 2004. 'It turns out as an intellectulized meal of hatred and violence and half-baked ideas'. Dogville. Ozuz' World Movie Reviews, http://www.sover.net/ozus/dogville.htm.         [ Links ]

Sinnerbrink, R. 2007. Grace and violence: Questioning politics and desire in Lars von Trier's Dogville. Scan, Journal of media arts culture, http://scan.net.au/scan/journal/display.php?journal_id=94.         [ Links ]

Snyman, G. F. 1996. Carnival in Jerusalem: Power and subversiveness in the early Second temple period. OTE 9(1): 88-110.         [ Links ]

_____ 2007a. Om die Bybel anders te lees. 'n Etiek van Bybellees. Pretoria : Griffelmedia.         [ Links ]

_____ 2007b. Collective memory and coloniality of being as a hermeneutical framework: a partialised reading of Ezra-Nehemiah. OTE, 20(1): 53-83        [ Links ]

_____ 2008. African hermeneutics' 'outing' of whiteness. Neotestamentica 42(1): 93-118.         [ Links ]

Von Trier, L. 2003. Dogville. Los Angeles: Lionsgate.         [ Links ]

Walsh, J. T. 1995. The characterization of Solomon in First Kings 1-5. CBQ 57(3): 471-493.         [ Links ]

Wozniuk, V. 1997. The wisdom of Solomon as political theology. Journal of Church and State 39(4): 657-680.         [ Links ]

 

 

Correspondence:
Gerrie Snyman
Department of Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
University of South Africa, P.O. Box 362, Pretoria, 0003
E-mail: snymagf@unisa.ac.za

 

 

1 The basis of this essay can be found in a paper with the title 'Decentering whiteness and doing justice: innocent victims, perpetrators and the biblical text' presented at a conference on Bible and Justice at the University of Sheffield in May/June 2008. Appreciation towards Unisa for a grant to attend the latter conference is hereby expressed