Dismembering the Adulteress: Sixteenth-Century Commentary on the Narrative of the Levite‘s Concubine (Judges 19-21)

In their treatment of the horrific story of the rape of the Levite’s concubine by the men of Gibeah, Reformation-era commentators said that the “natural” rape of the woman was preferable to the “unnatural” rape of her husband, who had been threatened by the townsmen. Several Protestant writers claimed that her gang rape and death was divinely ordained justice for adultery against her husband.