Description:
The reception history of the woman Bathsheba shows a great variety of different traditions, aspects and motifs. In most cases, you will come across the attempt to conceive the character Bathsheba as "victim" or "intriguer" usually by means of the divisive attribution. This examination pursues the question of why such a disparate interpretation is prevailing and provides the biblical depiction of the character Bathsheba as one reason. Typical of the biblical narratives relating to Bathsheba (first of all 2Sam 11, but also 2Sam 12,24 et seq. and 1Kings 1-2 ) is an openness in her character description that is implemented in a variety of ways while reading the texts, or else in later receptions. In a second step, Bathsheba’s depiction as femme fatale appearing in drama texts from around the turn of the century (Alberti, 1904; Lehmann, 1920) is picked out as an example from the diverse reception history of this character. The (very common) dichotomy of Bathsheba as "victim" or "intriguer" proves inadequate here. This form of description of Bathsheba may only be fully grasped by including the historical context, namely the concepts of womanhood around 1900.