Green River - Red Sea | Chapter Four

The man checked the road in each direction. No car lights disturbed the darkness of the country. He pulled the dead woman from the trunk and moments later deposited her under the cedar tree. Returning to the car, he switched on the ignition and drove down the road a couple hundred yards. This was a good place to pull off and hide the vehicle. He grabbed the sack from the front seat and backtracked to the cedar tree. This time he used his flashlight. Time was short.

He had put the woman's clothes back on her while still at the stream, so that was complete. He wished he would have had time to catch the fish himself – more of a personal touch, but the two he had bought would serve quite nicely. He was sure he knew what the Father wanted him to do with this one: he would remove her stony heart and replace it with a heart of flesh.

He laid out the body on the mossy grass to prepare for the wedding feast. He had purified the whore at the stream, but it was right that she confess and repent her sins.

Folding her hands across her stomach, left over right, left over right, he then arranged the wine bottle underneath them. He rotated the bottle to make sure that the brand was exposed. Carefully he formed a mound of raw meat on top of her left hand. The Lord God is all merciful.

Pulling the fish from their waxy paper wrappings, he slid one onto her throat and the other over her left breast. This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Say the word, child, and you shall be healed. Then he lifted her head slightly, enough to cover it with the empty grocery sack. No more shall men call you forsaken, but you will be called my delight. For this is the wedding day of the Lamb. Come forward if you are thirsty.

Lying on his back, the man nestled up against the dead woman's side, and rested his head close to hers. His heart pounded, and his hands trembled. He struggled to bring himself under control. After several minutes he was able to breathe slowly and lightly. Now he was ready.

Drawing himself up, the killer arranged himself so that he sat cross-legged, his knees now pressed against her right leg. As he bent over, he placed his left hand on the raw meat. His right hand gripped the stem of the bottle. Almighty God, we pray that Your angel may take this sacrifice to Your altar in heaven, joined with the sacred body and blood of Your Son. Let no man separate what God has joined.

The Green River investigation began in earnest following the discovery of three murdered women on August 15, 1982. The police competed with the media for leads. Reporters flocked to the airport strip, sought interviews with the families, friends and business acquaintances of the deceased and generally – from the perspective of the police – made nuisances of themselves. The surviving prostitutes, for their part, were terrified. Many retreated north into Seattle proper; others sought out safer cities to the south.

Major Richard Kraske of the King County Police Department elicited early cooperation among several jurisdictions, including King County; the cities of Seattle, Kent and Tacoma; and the State Attorney General's office. This assemblage of police as well as other authorities lacked agreement about the presence of a serial killer roaming the area, but at least they pledged to work together. Kraske assigned twenty-five detectives to handle the immediate investigation.

The police soon discovered the existence of a number of links among the five prostitutes who had been found dead in or near the Green River during the summer of 1982. Wendy Coffield and Opal Mills had gone to school together, and Marcia Chapman and Debra Bonner had worked out of the same bar. On the basis of these connections, the police thought it likely that the killer would turn out to be a john, a customer known to all the women.

In September, the FBI's John Douglas developed a profile of the killer. The police soon focused on a taxi driver by the name of Melvyn Foster, who shared some of the characteristics of Douglas's profile. Foster had been pestering police with what he knew about some of the victims, bragging about how he was on the streets and could tell the police what was happening and how he had been warning the girls to be careful. The police asked Foster to drop by – not to seek his counsel, but to take a serious look at him as a suspect. They later put him under twenty-four-hour surveillance.

At the end of September a partially decomposed female body was discovered in a vacant, scrub-covered area immediately south of SeaTac Airport. The woman had been stripped naked, although a pair of men's black socks were wound tightly around her neck. The Port of Seattle Police Department had jurisdiction over this territory and handed the case over to the King County Police. The body was later identified as Gisselle Lovvorn. Given her similarities to the previous five victims,⁽¹⁾ Lovvorn was added to the Green River list. The police now had another suspect, James Tindel, also a taxi driver. Tindel was a roommate and lover – "not pimp," he claimed – of Lovvorn, and had filed a missing person report on her when she disappeared in mid-July.

Throughout the fall and into the winter of 1983, Melvyn Foster remained the major suspect. Through plodding and diligent footwork, the police determined that Foster had known all of the five river victims. The noose was tightening. In November, a search warrant was issued and the police ransacked Foster's house. Investigative efforts were scaled down and only two detectives, Dave Reichert and Faye Brooks, remained on the case. The pace of the investigation also slowed as the materials taken from Foster's home were being analyzed at the crime lab. By late January 1983, all suspects other than Foster had been cleared.

In March 1983, the crime lab reported that Foster's hair and blood did not match anything found at the crime scenes. Foster could not be tied directly to the killings. To make matters worse, more missing person reports were coming in – the number of missing prostitutes was increasing. For their part, most of the local prostitutes believed that the killer had left the area, or, in any case, that the police had control of the situation. Hadn't the police already found a strong suspect? During that spring the prostitutes returned to work along the airport strip in droves.

Major Kraske sought new detective help. He also asked Bob Keppel from Washington State's Criminal Investigations office to come over and present his opinion on the status of the investigation. Keppel was preparing his report when Carol Christensen's body was discovered in early May.

This interpretation of the Green River killings begins with the river staging solely for the purpose of chronological accuracy. However, the more obvious religiosity of the Christensen staging is what enables the river staging to come into focus. Carol Christensen's murder stands out as the linchpin for understanding the religious nature of the Green River serial killings.

If for no other reason, a connection exists between the Christensen and river stagings simply because of the presence of the symbols of Christ at each, as well as the appearance of Baptism. However, the sacramental aspect of the Christensen staging appears to go beyond Baptism. The killer may have intended this ritual to be penitential. The picture of the staging suggests that from the killer's perspective, Christensen was seeking forgiveness for her sins. The killer also indicated that reconciliation was achieved.

In his book, Profiling Violent Crimes, Ronald Holmes makes the point that serial killers sometimes mask the faces of their victims.⁽²⁾ There are several possible religious interpretations of this "masking" that are also consistent with the notion of staging; the killer may, in fact, have intended all of them. In the Old Testament the people of Ninevah put on sackcloth as a method of repentance for their evil ways, that God might relent, forgive and withhold his blazing wrath. (Jn 3:8) While a paper bag from the grocery store is not the same as a cloth sack, it is suggestive and did provide Christensen with a makeshift veil.

In the early Christian community Saint Paul was very concerned with the appearance of women in religious assemblies, and chastised those women who attended such occasions without wearing a veil.

In Paul's view, God established a hierarchy, in both the natural and religious spheres, in which the female is subordinate to the male. This subordination had to be recognized in both behavior and dress, the veil being one such symbol of lesser status.⁽³⁾ The veiling of Christensen symbolized her submission, and was, perhaps, also a reminder of the former Catholic practice of women wearing a head covering – that is, of being veiled – in church.

The veiling of Christensen with a paper sack was also consistent with the traditional practice of going to confession in a small, two-sided booth, masked from the listening priest. In this scenario, the killer may have acted like a priest, mediating the woman's confession to God. Christensen was veiled, submissive and repentant, with her gaze or sight fixed on the Lord.⁽⁴⁾

The killer staged Christensen as if she were acknowledging her sins. Her hands were doing the talking, pointing to her sexual sins. Throughout scripture, constant reference is made to the sins of the flesh, which are often linked to drunkenness. These images are found in both the Old as well as the New Testament.

While the dead woman's hands were pointing to her sexual sins, the wine bottle and the meat were specifically sexual as well. Christensen's hand gripped the bottle, which was a phallic symbol. The meat implied flesh, and thus sin. The wine bottle carried a dual symbolism, conveying both sexual and alcoholic – "drunken" – connotations.

Another interpretation of Christensen's staging recognizes that meat and wine are Eucharistic, that they symbolize the body and blood of Christ. Not only is this view not contradictory to the previous penitential interpretation, it may be that the killer intended them both, and thus they are complementary. A Eucharistic interpretation completes the symbolic narrative, conveying the movement from penance to reconciliation.

Water and blood are symbols of the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist. Eucharist as sacrament is rich in meaning, most directly referring to the Lord's Supper, to the ritual of bread broken and shared in memory of Jesus' sacrificial life, death and resurrection.

The Christensen staging included symbols referring to spirit – the fish on the dead woman's throat; water – her immersion somewhere in a stream or other body of water; and flesh and blood – the presence or placement of meat and wine. Christians are well familiar with the Eucharistic symbols of bread and wine as representations – reality for some Christians – of the flesh and blood of Christ.

The bread of Eucharist is Christ's body, his flesh. The gospel writer John placed a particular emphasis on the "Word made flesh."

This was John's way of saying that the incredible had taken place, that the gap between God and man had been bridged by the Incarnation, God's self-revelation in the humanity of Jesus. Flesh was, and continues to be, an emphatic and shocking symbol for Christ. Precisely because it is shocking – much easier to imagine bread as Eucharist – for many Christians there would be little recognition of meat and wine as Eucharistic symbols, despite the Johannine influence.

With this background, the Christensen staging achieves greater clarity. With her hands, Christensen was joined to the Eucharistic symbols. The contrast of her staging against her former lifestyle was captured in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.

In this staging, Christensen – "the Christian" – was cleaving to the Lord. Through Baptism, she became one body and one spirit with Christ. Perhaps the most appalling aspect of this staging was the sexualization of the Eucharistic symbols. Christensen's hand was gripping the wine bottle, a most obvious phallic symbol. Despite the scriptural allusion to the Christian's bodily relationship with the Lord – in contrast to the body of a prostitute – there was something exceedingly vulgar about this display of Christian identification with Christ. No doubt it also revealed something about the mind of the killer. Sex is both functional and idealized, to be used for the glory of God. In this context, what is vulgar becomes merely symbol – or symptom of psychosis.

The exact wine chosen by the killer is further indication of his symbolic intention. Peruse a wine display at any large food store or wine shop and search for a wine that best symbolizes Christ. A Christian Brothers wine would work but would lack subtlety. The killer picked Lambrusco. Carol Christensen's hand is joined to the wine bottle. Lambrusco, a red wine, literally (in Italian) means "to lick roughly." The killer was not concerned here with the literal, but with the wine's connotations of "lamb" and "red." In baptism one is washed in the blood of the lamb (Revelations 7:14). In this tableau, Carol Christensen is baptized and joined sexually to the lamb: "Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb." (Revelations 21:9)

It is at this point that the river staging and the Christensen staging converge. The two victims in the river had been sexually connected to the Christ symbol: they were vaginally penetrated with pyramid rocks. Each of these stagings utilized Christ symbols and water to emphasize themes of Baptism and union with Christ. The sexualization of the Christ symbols with "newly born," that is, baptized, former prostitutes expressed a contrast between idolatry (harlot or prostitute) and faith in Christ.

The symbol of the sack completed this symbolic narrative of union with Christ. Perhaps the killer intended the sack to be a wedding veil. Those familiar with Catholic culture can readily conjure up idealistic images of brides of Christ. At the time of making permanent commitment, that is, taking their final vows, nuns wore actual wedding dresses, with veils, as they consecrated themselves as such brides of Christ.

The sexualization of the Christ symbols plays powerfully beside a recurrent theme in the New Testament of Christ as bridegroom and church as bride. This theme finds particular emphasis in the book of Revelation. "For the wedding day of the Lamb has come, his bride has made herself ready." (Revelations 19:7) In Revelation, the prostitute represents Babylon: idolatry. Jerusalem is the bride of Christ, the antithesis of the prostitute. In the Christensen staging, veiling and wedding appear as parts of a metaphor for becoming the bride of Christ, one flesh with Christ. "Come here and I will show you the bride that the lamb has married." (Revelations 21:9)

Many religious traditions have utilized the symbolism of marriage, as well as sexual union specifically, in order to express the relationship between individuals and God. The marriage metaphor of the New Testament finds its roots in the marriage metaphor of the Hebrew scriptures. The relationship between husband and wife can be traced through much of the Hebrew scriptures as a core metaphor for the covenant union of Yahweh to Israel. When the marriage breaks down through the unfaithfulness of the wife – never Yahweh – the wife is likened to a harlot or prostitute, deserving of Yahweh's vengeance. The faithfulness of the good wife is rewarded by the loving and tender care of her husband – Yahweh to Israel.

In order to understand the Green River stagings, it is necessary to also comprehend how marriage and sexuality were interpreted by the Biblical authors. An understanding of the Biblical use of the marriage metaphor helps clarify the sexualization of the Christ symbols seen in the stagings, as well as setting the stage for grasping the correlative metaphor of prostitute as unfaithful wife of Yahweh.

The mystical ideal of marriage or union with Christ, becoming one flesh with Christ, finds its purest expression in the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist. Carol Christensen was purified through baptism and joined to the Eucharistic presence of Christ.⁽⁵⁾ I gave you all in marriage to a single husband, a virgin pure for presentation to Christ. (2 Corinthians 11:2) Carol Christensen continued to live through the presence of Christ within her. Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood lives in me and I live in that person. (John 6:54) This idealization, or mystical marriage of Christensen to Christ, stood in contrast with the young woman's former status as prostitute, a role deserving of punishment.

(Need to add that sack may not be a symbol for Christ, but veil may be a symbol of Christ, as found in the Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament.

In the Old Testament book of Genesis, Yahweh blessed the descendants of Jacob – or Israel (Genesis 35:10-11), and in the biblical narration that continues in Exodus, Yahweh sealed a covenant with Moses at Sinai. The people of Israel, the chosen ones, were promised land, and a glorious future by their God Yahweh. Their part in the bargain, or covenant, was that they would keep total fidelity to their one Yahweh, and a commitment to His law (Ex 19). Later, Yahweh promised protection for the Davidic dynasty, and the reign of its subsequent generations, in exchange for fidelity to Yahweh (2 Sam 7:1-17).

Three thousand years ago, David, anointed by God, ascended to the throne of Israel – in 1000 BC – setting up his kingdom to rule from the city of Jerusalem. In so doing, David united two kingdoms – Israel to the north (once ruled by the house of Saul) and Judah to the south. His son Solomon succeeded him and continued this golden age. When Solomon died, the political struggles began anew, as the two kingdoms – Israel and Judah – competed with one another.

The "prophets" of the Old Testament were a phenomenon that had come into existence in full swing by the historical time period of the reign of David. Prophets were "seers" who spoke out on the religious, governmental, and societal affairs of biblical times. The prophets of the Old Testament are considered by scholars to be unique to the Hebrew people.⁽⁶⁾ Their emphasis was moral censure, and was primarily religious in content. Prophets both criticized and encouraged the Hebrew people, railing against them for their worship of false idols and their sinful ways, and exhorting them with a vision of God's faithfulness to their original covenant.

Part of the prophets' vision foresaw the restoration of the Davidic kingdom in all its glory, materially and politically. If the people would only be consumed with faithfulness to God and with good works, all would be well. If not, the Hebrews had their own human sin to blame, and God's retribution would be severe. The prophets' utterances were considered by the Hebrew people to be the actual divine revelation of Yahweh.

The prophet Isaiah [the first Isaiah - historically there were two, and possibly three⁽⁷⁾] preached from the second half of the eighth century BC in Jerusalem, the capital of Judah. He strongly discouraged foreign alliances, sensing a setup for disaster because Judah was small. He preached a religious message, calling the people to repentance and reliance upon Yahweh. Political and environmental (drought, famine) troubles were understood as God's retribution on His people who had broken the covenant (Isa 1:1-5:24).

In his rhetorical method of delivering his message, the prophet Isaiah personified the city of Jerusalem as a harlot, or a promiscuous woman (Isa 1:21-23). Isaiah used this metaphor as something that would be universally understood by his listeners. In one breath, Isaiah preached against the sinful ways of women and prostitution⁽⁸⁾ in general, and in the next, he referred to the sinful ways of the entire country. The harlot imagery accentuated the point he wanted to make: that the people were unfaithful "like a harlot," and needed to turn from their sinful ways.

Isaiah's contemporary, the prophet Hosea, employed the image of the unfaithful woman even more forcefully. Hosea preached in the northern kingdom of Israel from about 750 BC until 725 BC. Chaos prevailed and the kingdom fell to the Assyrians in 721 BC. Four kings were assassinated within fifteen years.

In these tumultuous, chaotic times, Hosea utilized the technique of personification as well, drawing an even more compelling metaphor. Hosea was the first of the Hebrew Testament prophets on record to use the marriage metaphor to describe and exemplify the special covenantal relationship between Israel and their God Yahweh.

The prophets viewed the relationship between Yahweh and Israel as a personal one. A divine-human relationship, it was marked by both hierarchy and intimacy. Yahweh had made a promise to Israel, that as His chosen people they would receive land and be kings over nations. Yahweh always had the upper hand; there were no equal partners in this relationship. Israel was under strict obligation to be obedient to the moral laws, and to worship Yahweh only or be punished – no insubordination allowed. However, Yahweh was not heartless. His mercy was – and still is – everlasting and overflowing.

In the prophets' view, therefore, much was at stake. As God's chosen people, the Hebrews jeopardized themselves by their sinful ways. Time and generations had passed since the original covenant. Since the Hebrew people had wandered from the power of their intimate and obedient God, it was inevitable that God would seek vengeance for this unfaithfulness. As the prophets experienced the direct revelation from Yahweh, they knew that they were called to bring back a recalcitrant people. To get their attention, and make the divine messages understandable to the Hebrew people, metaphors were used.

There are five common metaphors used in scripture to express the relationship of Yahweh to Israel. They are:

The language of the Hebrew Testament is historically based on a certain time period in the history of the people of Israel. The use of metaphor as a method of underlining a point or explaining a relationship is commonplace in scripture. Metaphors were used to apply to the relationship between God and God's people the common societal understanding of relationships at that time. For example, in order to describe God in human terms, the prophets were pressed into such descriptive phrases as: God is "like the bridegroom," and Israel is "like his bride." They were referring to that particular husband-wife relationship as it was experienced in their Hebrew culture. The metaphor of the relationship between husband and wife is of particular interest in this essay; it is the metaphor commonly used to describe the sacred and loving – yet bound by law – union of Yahweh to Israel, and it weaves through much of the Hebrew Testament.

The institution of marriage in ancient Israel was an unequal partnership. In the society of Israel at the time, the male enjoyed rights and privileges. Essentially, a woman did not. Her position held approximately the same status as a man's property holdings. In ancient times, a marriage was even conducted as a contract of purchase, and the implications of that lingered into the Hebrew society of Hosea's time.⁽¹⁰⁾ A woman's sexuality marked her defining contribution to the household, expressed primarily through the bearing of sons who could carry on the family name and maintain the family's property.

Within Hebrew culture, the implications of the marriage relationship carried some interesting nuances. In general, the cultural concept of honor differed between the sexes. A man was expected to provide for his family, be courageous in protecting his family, and, in general, be assertive with his masculinity when required. An honorable woman was properly deferent to male authority, showed weakness that properly implied her need for the man's superior strength, and maintained sexual purity.⁽¹²⁾ Perhaps most important for this discussion, a man's honor also depended upon the sexual behavior of the women important to him, especially his wife, but including his mother, sisters, and daughters. If they were disobedient or promiscuous, it was a reflection on his masculinity.

Obviously, no sexual activity outside of marriage was tolerated for a married woman. Men, on the other hand, had to be caught in the act of sex with an engaged or married woman. This double standard was well accepted. Sexual activity with a prostitute was, within the social scheme, acceptable for a man. Nothing having to do with honor or shame was at stake, since no other man's lineage was threatened. The writings of the Hebrew Testament refer to a woman's infidelity against her husband, much more so than to the husband's infidelity to his wife.⁽¹³⁾

In conclusion, a man had total control over the sexuality of his wife. Paternity might be questioned in instances of adultery; this was not tolerable. Adultery was a major offense, punishable by death through stoning for both men and women (Lev 20:10; Deut 22:22), or for women by being stripped naked and exposed (Ezekiel 16:37-39; Hos 2:2-3). While the law also made adultery illegal for a married man, in practice the woman bore the brunt of the stoning punishment.⁽¹⁴⁾

The people who gathered to hear the prophets, therefore, knew well, and often firsthand, the capriciousness of the marriage relationship. They only had to look at their own lives for an easy correlation of the marriage metaphor to the covenant between Yahweh and Israel. When Israel was unfaithful and worshiped other gods (played the whore), Yahweh (the husband) took sudden and swift vengeance – an expected and appropriate outcome given the shameless disobedience of Israel (the wife). Retribution on Yahweh's part was regrettably necessary, although it was mediated by the steady and intimate presence of Yahweh's love for Israel.⁽¹⁵⁾

It was with this common understanding, then, of marriage and of the expectations of the male/female behavioral roles in Hebrew society, that the prophet Hosea invoked the marriage metaphor. In fact, Hosea used his own marriage to Gomer to underscore his point. According to the scriptures, Hosea himself was an example of a loving husband who was deserted by his own wife. Gomer took other lovers, for which he punished her, then took her back. God's unswerving love for Israel would return Israel to Him; Hosea's love for his wife was also sure to bring her back.

Hosea's marriage to Gomer is an illustration of the relationship of Yahweh to Israel as it existed in his day. Yahweh has appropriately punished Israel – through her defeat and humiliation at the hands of the Assyrians – for her unfaithfulness, but He stands ready to take back His lover. He is joined to her for all time.

The prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel followed Hosea by more than a hundred years. Each borrowed liberally from the marriage metaphor introduced by Hosea, expressing a similar cycle of marriage, unfaithfulness (hers) and retribution by a loving and angry husband. In the Hebrew Testament book of Jeremiah, however, the husband does not take back his punished bride, for her defilement is too great. The fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 587 BC was devastating. The hope God had for the people of Israel and their freedom was destroyed; once again, the people of Israel were slaves in exile (Jeremiah 2:14-19). Israel was disgraced and impure, worshiping false gods and playing the whore, so much so that Yahweh completely turned his back on her (Jeremiah 3:1-5).

In the subsequent generation (but roughly at the same time period), the prophet Ezekiel, while admitting the appropriateness of the punishment of the unfaithful Israel, is able to promise the hope of the restoration of Yahweh to His bride:

In the New Testament, the marriage metaphor continues, but develops into a metaphor between Christ and the church. Jesus refers to the divine indissolubility of marriage (Mt 19:4-6; Mk 10:6-8) but also preaches that it will no longer exist in the kingdom of God (Mt 22:30; Mk 12:25; Lk 20:35f).⁽¹⁶⁾ The implication is that individual marital unions are of the temporal world. However, the true and universal marriage of the kingdom of God is between Christ and the Church (Eph 5:22-33).

The Lamb of God in the above Bible verse is Jesus, who has taken away the sins of the world. The bride metaphorically represents the church.

In the early Christian church, then, there is a new covenant between God and his people.⁽¹⁷⁾ The people are no longer to prescribe to the letter of the law (the old covenant), but rather to the spirit of the law (the new covenant).

The well-established use of marriage in the Hebrew Testament as a metaphor for the profound love of God is, in the New Testament, reaffirmed through the gift of God's son, Jesus Christ, to the church. Through the marriage of the Christian church and Christ, the people of Christ are redeemed, their sins forgiven.

The hierarchical nature of the marriage relationship also continues. The husband is the rightful head of his household, just as Christ is head of his church (Eph 5:22-25). Obviously, it was a common cultural understanding in New Testament times as well that the female was subservient to the male.

A male's sexual relationship with a female or female(s) is a reflection of his sexual prowess, and of his ability to dominate and be in charge of his household and manage his property. These cultural realities in Old and New Testament times contributed to the power of the marriage metaphor as it was used in scripture.

The unfaithful wife is a stain and a defilement on the power and the virility of the man who cannot control her: "who can control her when she is on heat." (Jeremiah 2:24) In the cultural standards of the time, the husband who lost power over his women was shamed, and the behavior of his women was a poor reflection of his own sexual virility.

The sexual dimension of the marriage metaphor, therefore, captures the antagonistic feelings of both pure love and shame. Even the threat of humiliation brought out men's deepest feelings and fears regarding female sexuality. A woman who challenged a man on this level may even have brought about psychologically exaggerated shame, sexual fears, and strong feelings against women to the point of misogyny – a hatred of women in general.

While it may seem too easy in the metaphors of the prophets that only the women are to blame for all the infidelities, and bear the brunt of all the horrible consequences in the marriage relationship, yet it appears that this unswerving judgement is what the prophets taught. In the parallels they draw from the disobedient wife to the disobedient Israel, it is solely the woman's waywardness that is to blame in the one case, and, by metaphorical implication, solely the human sin and disobedience of Israel that is the cause of all the trouble.

Just as the prophets' marriage metaphor casts women in a completely unfavorable light, it casts men in an all too favorable light. The husband of the marriage metaphor is as pure and blameless – full of power and authority and beyond all reproach – as the woman is impure, weak, and prone to infidelity.

In the Hebrew Testament and in the New Testament, the love of God has always been pure; so also must be the love of men and women for their one true God. This love relationship has been no less erotic for its purity.

God's love is an erotic love. The Biblical prophets and writers used the female body and the expectations of her behavior in society as a metaphor, a way of expressing the faithfully subordinate, pure and sensuous love called for in return: "A virgin pure for presentation to Christ." (2 Corinthians 11:2)

For Jews and Christians alike, the gap between the profane and the sacred, between the human and the divine, was bridged by language through metaphor. The marriage metaphor, in its expression of the intimate and the ecstatic, best portrayed the ideal of the personal love relationship between God and God's people.

(1) "[Gisele Lovvorn] was nude, lying on her back with her legs spread apart; a pair of men's socks, black, had been tied together and knotted tightly around her neck. …

"But was this a victim of the same killer who had put the five bodies in the Green River? That's the way it seemed to Kraske: After all, there was the use of the socks to strangle." C. Smith and T. Guillen, The Search for the Green River Killer (Onyx, 1991), pp. 135-136.

(2) R.M. Holmes and J. DeBurger, Serial Murders (Newbury Park: Sage Publication, 1988), pp. 71-81.

(3) The veiling of a bride, and of women in general, may be linked to a patriarchal mind-set in which women may be considered more physical and sexual, and thus more sinful than men. The veil of a bride might be compared to a veil of a penitent. There is a kind of implied shame in the veiling, a need to keep her sexuality from public gaze. The woman is thus less of a temptation to the man. (This insight was offered by an anonymous consultant.)

(4) A related interpretation of the sack over the head is found in the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians:

We walk by faith, not by sight. I repeat, we are full of confidence and would much rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:7)

We do not lose heart because our inner being is renewed each day, even though our body is being destroyed at the same time. The present burden of our trial is light enough, and earns for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. We do not fix our gaze on what is seen but on what is unseen. What is seen is transitory: what is not seen lasts forever. (2 Corinthians 4:17-18)

(4) "John spiritualizes the notion of sacrifice: the animal sacrifices of the old covenant are replaced by the spiritual offering of every believer who makes of his own life an offering to God. With the understanding that the temple in 11, 1-2 is a metaphor for the Church, the altar does not represent either of the two altars in particular, but it symbolizes more generally the Christian notion of sacrifice. The references to Christ as the Lamb who was slaughtered and is standing … as well as the references to the martyrs, can be understood as symbols of the sacrificial dimension of the Church. Christ's death, which was the death of a condemned man, is understood in sacrificial language in order to express its redemptive value for humanity. This event is perpetuated in the Eucharist to which Christians associate the spiritual offering of their own lives." Temple of God to God as the Temple: A Biblical Theological Study of the Temple in the Book of Revelation (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1997) 169.

(6) "The Eng word prophet is derived from Gk proph_t_s, "one who speaks before others"; the Gk word almost always denotes one who communicates divine revelation. In the Gk Bible proph_t_s translates Hb N_b_, the usual word for prophet. The meaning of the etymology of the word is uncertain; many scholars connect it with an Akkadian root meaning "to call," "speak aloud," and interpret it as speaker; others suggest an Arabian root which means "to bubble" and interpret it of the frenetic character of prophetic utterance. W. F. Albright with great probability derives it from the Akkadian root in the sense of "one called" (by God to speak for Him). … Hb prophetism is generally recognized by scholars as a uniquely distinctive Hb phenomenon; parallels which can be adduced from other ancient Near Eastern sources are superficial." John L. McKenzie, S.J.: Dictionary of the Bible, (Touchstone Publishing, New York, NY, 1995. (Copyright 1965 by Macmillan Publishing Company), 694.

(7) "Only chs 1-39 [of Isaiah] can be assigned to Isaiah's time [742 until 701 B.C.], and even they contain later materials; it is generally accepted that chs 40-66 come from the time of Cyrus of Persia (539 B.C.) and later, as shown, by the differences in historical background, literary style, and theological emphases. … Chapters 40-66, commonly called Second Isaiah (or Second and Third Isaiah), originated immediately before the fall of Babylon (October 29, 539 B.C.) to the armies of Cyrus, king of Persia, and during the generation following." The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version, New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 866 OT.

(8) "The practice of prostitution in the ancient Near East seems to have been under no moral censure whatever and was extremely common. … The number of allusions to prostitutes and houses of prostitution in the OT show that the practice was found in Israel (Gn 38:15 f; Jos 2:1 [the scene here is, however, the Canaanite town of Jericho and not an Israelite town]; Jgs 11:1; 16:1; 1 K 3:16, two prostitutes sharing a common house). Prostitution lay under moral censure in Israel; it was prohibited in Dt 23:18 and the prophets include it in lists of sins (Je 5:7; Ho 4:14; Am 2:7)." John L. McKenzie, S.J.: Dictionary of the Bible, (Touchstone Publishing, New York, NY, 1995. (Copyright 1965 by Macmillan Publishing Company), 700.

(9) George Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible, (Philadelphia: Westminster; London: Duckworth, 1980), 177.

(10) "The contract between families was sealed by the payment of the m_har to the parents of the bride; on the gift made by the parents to the bride cf DOWRY. There is some disagreement among scholars on the meaning of the m_har , and some insist that it is incorrect to translate it as "price of the bride." It seems more probable, however, that the m_har is an ancient custom which goes back to a conception of marriage by purchase; this conception left other traces in Israelite marriage practice (such as the terms ba'al, "owner," to designate the husband, and ber ul_h, "owned" to designate the bride)." John L. McKenzie, S.J.: Dictionary of the Bible, (Touchstone Publishing, New York, NY, 1995. Copyright 1965 by Macmillan Publishing Company), 548.

(11) "In a labor-intensive agricultural society such as Israel's, the birth of children was crucial for survival. Sons were especially valued because they were the beneficiaries of the father and did not leave the household. In fact, they brought into the household additional human resources in the persons of wives and the potential children they would bear. The wife's primary contribution to the household was her sexuality, bearing legitimate sons to carry on the family name and keep land and property in the household. The sexuality of wives and daughters was therefore carefully guarded and controlled." Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe, Eds., The Women's Bible Commentary (Westminster/John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 1992), 197.

(12) Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe, Eds., The Women's Bible Commentary (Westminster/John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 1992), 198.

(13) "Adultery carried with it a penalty of death for both partners (Deuteronomy 22:22), to be sure, but a man who raped an unengaged virgin could get away with paying her father for despoiling the latter's property (22:28-29). Moreover, the priests came up with bizarre concoctions to test a husband's suspicions about his wife's fidelity (Numbers 5). No mention is made in any of the codes of any similar measures devised to test wives' suspicions about their husbands' fidelity." Renita J. Weems, Battered Love: Marriage, Sex and Violence in the Hebrew Prophets, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), Footnote 3 to Introduction, 121.

(14) Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe, Eds., The Women's Bible Commentary (Westminster/John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 1992), 198.

(15) "The metaphor of the promiscuous wife attempted to tell the prophets' audience something about God's ways, unique things about God that only marital and sexual imagery was capable of conveying – such things as the love of God, the honor of God, and the grace of God. We will see how a metaphor normally associated with romance, love, and sensuality is, in patriarchal thinking, transformed into a commentary on God's power. That is, the God who loves and rescues is the same God who destroys and abandons. According to the prophets, as a husband justly retaliates against his wayward, straying wife, so God justly terrorizes and destroys nations of people who fail to follow God's dictates." Renita J. Weems, Battered Love: Marriage, Sex and Violence in the Hebrew Prophets, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 7-8.

(17) "In the NT too, God's salvific activity in the OT is called the 'covenant.' When the covenants of the OT were entered into, the blood of animals was usually shed in sacrifice, and the NT too knows of a blood in which a covenant (Mk14:24), a 'new covenant' (Lk22:20; 1 Cor 11:25) is instituted, namely, the Blood of Jesus. Henceforth it is clear that official, public *saving history comprises two successive covenants (Gal 4:24; 2 Cor 3:6-18). An authentic theology of the New Covenant, in which the partners are God and redeemed mankind, is developed in Hebrews (7-10), which fully acknowledges the dignity of the Old Covenant (*New Testament)." Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler, Theological Dictionary; Ed. Cornelius Ernst; Trans. Richard Strachan, (NY: Herder and Herder, 1965) 105.