Feeling our Way to Justice in the Story of Susanna (2024)

Trial Stories in Jewish Antiquity: Counternarratives of Justice

Chaya T Halberstam

Published:

2024

Online ISBN:

9780191897559

Print ISBN:

9780198865148

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Trial Stories in Jewish Antiquity: Counternarratives of Justice

Chaya T Halberstam

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Chaya T Halberstam

Chaya T Halberstam

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Pages

55–82

  • Published:

    April 2024

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Halberstam, Chaya T, 'Feeling our Way to Justice in the Story of Susanna', Trial Stories in Jewish Antiquity: Counternarratives of Justice (Oxford, 2024; online edn, Oxford Academic, 23 Apr. 2024), https://doi.org/10.1093/9780191897559.003.0004, accessed 24 Apr. 2024.

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Abstract

This chapter closely reads the story of Susanna, showing how we, the readers/auditors, are aligned with Susanna from the start and vouch for her innocence; we feel and see, alongside the internal audience, the injustice of her condemnation. It draws on Peter Brooks’s theory of melodrama and suggests that many of his insights about modern melodramatic literature apply equally to this ancient story as well. The chapter argues that the story of Susanna presents moral truth as clear and legible, while trust in legal procedure perverts a natural course of justice. Legal logic, which attempts to transcend human frailties, diverts human judgment away from a simple moral sensibility that is accessible to all.

Keywords: Susanna, Greek Bible, Apocrypha, melodrama, virtue, sexual violence, Daniel, sight, affect, trees

Subject

Biblical Studies Judaism and Jewish Studies Religion and Law

Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

© Chaya T. Halberstam 2024

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