RT Article
T1 Pursuing Partners: Traveling for Marital Partners in the Hebrew Bible
JF Religions
VO 15
IS 3
A1 Lorenzen, Søren 1989-
LA English
PB MDPI
YR 2024
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1883038030
AB Pursuing marital partners far from home can be a complicated endeavor, and the motives to travel for a companion can be a combination of pushes from one’s locality and pulls toward something new. In the Hebrew Bible, several narratives concern pursuing a partner far from home, but the motives of the person traveling have not seen much scholarly attention. In this contribution, the entangled motives are traced in three select narratives (Judg 14; Gen 24; Tob) that each represents a specific category of pursuing a partner. Samson pursues a known partner, Isaac and his family pursue an unknown partner, and Tobias unknowingly pursues a partner. These three narrative categories are explored utilizing the framework of actor-network theory to tease out the entangled human and non-human actants that affect the motives and the pursuit itself. This contribution reveals that motives are always entangled in more extensive networks, agency is distributed among various actants, and no pursuit of a companion in the Hebrew Bible is exactly like another.
K1 exogamy
K1 endogamy
K1 Agency
K1 Actor-network Theory
K1 Hebrew Bible
K1 Partner
K1 Motives
K1 Travel
DO 10.3390/rel15030324