Judah And Tamar Research Paper

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Bawan Awat 16-00006 civ 203 Judah and Tamar Does the end justify the means? This question has been the substance of many debates throughout the ages. In the book of Genesis there is a story that is an excellent example about this and that is the story of Judah and Tamar. The story talks about Judah who finds a woman to be the wife of his eldest son and that Tamar that same woman who is denied her rights. I believe Tamar is a righteous person even though she achieved her objective through deceptive means because she was a victim to the levirate marriage system, they denied her her rights and she was discriminated against when it came to her punishment. The story started when Judah left his brothers and stayed with a man of Adullam named …show more content…

He was afraid that Shelah would face the same fate as his two brothers. After Judah’s wife died when Judah recovered from his grief, he went up to Timnah for the shearing event with his friend Hirah the Adullamite. When Tamar was told about this, she decided to to take her widow’s cloth of and put on a veil and sat down at the entrance of Enaim. When Judah’s saw her, he thought she is a prostitute so he asked her to lay with him. Tamar asked what would she get for doing so. Judah said that he would give her a young goat from his herd. Then Tamar demanded him to give her his seal and its cord and the staff in his hands. So he gave her what she wanted and slept with her. As a result, she became pregnant. After a while Judah sent the young goat to her by his friend the Adullamite to get his things back but when he went there, there was no prostitute there so he came back and told Judah about this. Judah decided to let her have what she has because they would be laughingstock otherwise. Here we see that Tamar achieved her objective of having children but she did it in this manner because Judah denied her her right to be Shelah’s wife and have children according to the levirate marriage

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