Fathers and Sons

Chapter 5 examines the final scenes of the Gideon narrative, arguing that the earliest texts about the “mighty warrior” can be found here, though later rewriting and updating of the narrative resulted in cutting the successful war hero down to size. In particular, additions to an earlier Gideon narrative rewrite him as an idolater and failed father. The chapter highlights the many ways Gideon acts as the ideal hegemonic male of the Hebrew Bible, especially in Judg 8:4–21, while also focusing on how later readers—from antiquity to the present—have wrestled with questions of piety, fathers/sons, and violence in the construction of masculinity both in the text and as the text is later used.