Animals, Power, and Intersectionality in the Books of Samuel

Animals pervade the books of Samuel. Though their presence often goes unnoticed, they are integral players in the society narrated. What's more, they are caught up in societal power dynamics and are treated in ways that intersect with the treatment of marginalized humans, such as women, foreigners, and children. Working with a robust analytic framework, Animals, Power, and Intersectionality in the Books of Samuel draws on scholars of animal studies, power, and intersectionality, to examine selected texts from the books of Samuel to highlight these oft-overlooked players. Suzanna Millar shows how animals are utilized by certain humans in their power-play as their deaths are ritualized through sacrificial killing; killings which have pivotal significance in the shifts of power between Eli, Samuel, and Saul. It explores how animals are subordinated alongside certain humans, as both groups are taken by kings vying for power: animals and humans are plundered, taxed, and stolen by kings like David as they develop, consolidate, and abuse their sovereignty. The book further considers how animals can become images to represent certain humans; specifically, they become implicated in the construction and delegitimization of the masculinities of Goliath, Absalom, and Mephibosheth. Finally, it examines how animals interact with certain humans in specific times and places and thereby might express their own agency and power (though they are recursively brought back under human control). In these and other ways, Millar robustly demonstrates the role of animals in the intersectional power dynamics of Samuel.

Suzanna Millar is a lecturer in Hebrew Bible / Old Testament at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She has authored publications such as Genre and Openness in Proverbs 10:1-22:16 (SBL, 2020) and has edited volumes such as The Oxford Handbook of the Bible and Animals (OUP, forthcoming) and Ask the Animals: Developing a Biblical Animal Hermeneutic (with Arthur Walker-Jones; SBL, 2024). She is a co-chair of research groups about the Bible and animals for the Society of Biblical Literature and the European Association of Biblical Studies.