The Body and Voice of God in the Hebrew Bible

This article explores the role of the voice of God in the Hebrew Bible and in early Jewish interpretations such as the Targumim. In contrast to the question as to whether God has a body, which is enmeshed in theological debates concerning anthropomorphism and idolatry, the notion that God has a voice is less controversial but evidences some diachronic development

Divinely Sanctioned Violence Against Women: Biblical Marriage and the Example of the Sotah of Numbers 5

Responding to an important volume by William Cavanaugh (2009), this article argues that biblical violence executed or sanctioned by God or one of his mediators is appropriately designated religious violence. The author looks particularly at gender-based and sexual violence in marriage, challenging some prominent contemporary notions of “biblical marriage.” Focused attention is brought to Num.5:11-31, detailing the ritual prescribed for the sotah, a woman suspected of adultery. The text is applied both to illuminate religious violence in marriage and to explore and highlight why the ritual, sometimes referred to by biblical interpreters as “strange” or “perplexing,”remains an important topic in our present-day contexts

A Response and Tribute to Judith McKinlay

An evaluation and response to the postcolonial- and ideological-critical writings of Judith McKinlay

The Wife of Potiphar, Sexual Harassment, and False Rape Allegation: Genesis 39 in Select Social Contexts of the Past and Present

The story in Gen 39 depicts Joseph as hero and Potiphar’s wife as villain. Yet, because the story is sparsely told, it permits ambiguities. Consequently, while most biblical interpreters vilify the wife of Potiphar, she also has some staunch defenders – including among those who seek to reclaim her as an African woman who brings blessings to Joseph and Israel. This paper explores some details, subtleties and possibilities of the story before turning to its toxic interpretive potentialities in present time, more particularly the context of rape culture and the revelations of #MeToo

Denying rape culture: A response to Luke Gittos

The concept of rape culture has been firmly established in feminist discourse since the 1970s. This paper examines and challenges the arguments of rape culture deniers, with particular emphasis on one prominent UK representative, Luke Gittos, author of Why rape culture is a dangerous myth: From Steubenville to Ched Evans (2015). This article argues that Gittos’ case affirms rather than denies the toxicity and ubiquity of rape culture

Robot education peers in a situated primary school study: personalisation promotes child learning

The benefit of social robots to support child learning in an educational context over an extended period of time is evaluated. Specifically, the effect of personalisation and adaptation of robot social behaviour is assessed. Two autonomous robots were embedded within two matched classrooms of a primary school for a continuous two week period without experimenter supervision to act as learning companions for the children for familiar and novel subjects. Results suggest that while children in both personalised and non-personalised conditions learned, there was increased child learning of a novel subject exhibited when interacting with a robot that personalised its behaviours, with indications that this benefit extended to other class-based performance. Additional evidence was obtained suggesting that there is increased acceptance of the personalised robot peer over a non-personalised version. These results provide the first evidence in support of peer-robot behavioural personalisation having a positive influence on learning when embedded in a learning environment for an extended period of time

A systematic review of attitudes, anxiety, acceptance, and trust towards social robots

As social robots become more common, there is a need to understand how people perceive and interact with such technology. This systematic review seeks to estimate people’s attitudes toward, trust in, anxiety associated with, and acceptance of social robots; as well as factors that are associated with these beliefs. Ninety-seven studies were identified with a combined sample of over 13,000 participants and a standardized score was computed for each in order to represent the valence (positive, negative, or neutral) and magnitude (on a scale from 1 to − 1) of people’s beliefs about robots. Potential moderating factors such as the robots’ domain of application and design, the type of exposure to the robot, and the characteristics of potential users were also investigated. The findings suggest that people generally have positive attitudes towards social robots and are willing to interact with them. This finding may challenge some of the existing doubt surrounding the adoption of robotics in social domains of application but more research is needed to fully understand the factors that influence attitudes