Originally published: http://feminismandreligion.

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The Harlot Shall Be Burned with Fire: Biblical Literalism in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo By Sarah Sentilles
January 13, 2012 tags: Bible, biblical literalism, david fincher, fight club, film, girl with the dragon tattoo, leviticus, misogyny, Phyllis Trible, rape, the social network from Feminist Theology, Rape Culture, Review, Sexual Violence, Bible, Fiction, Film

(spoiler alert) Against my better judgment, this past weekend I went to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, directed by David Fincher whos best known for Fight Club and The Social Network. I didnt like the book; it unsettled me that a novel filled with sexual violence against women a novel that seems to take pleasure in the violence, to offer it up for readers to consumebecame such a sensation. But Im a sucker for a trailer and a good soundtrack, and I was curious, so I bought a ticket. The plot revolves around a missing girl and the serial killer believed to have murdered her who uses the Bible like a handbook. He takes passages from Leviticus21:9 for example: The daughter of any priest, if she profanes herself by playing the harlot, she profanes her father. She shall be burned with fireand enacts them on womens bodies. On Jewish womens bodies. Please click here to continue reading this article at Religion Dispatches. Sarah Sentilles is a scholar of religion, an award-winning speaker, and the author of three books including A Church of Her Own: What Happens When a Woman Takes the Pulpit (Harcourt, 2008) and Breaking Up with God (HarperOne, 2011). She earned a bachelors degree from Yale and a masters of divinity and a doctorate in theology from Harvard, where she was awarded the Billings Preaching Prize and was the managing editor of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. At the core of her scholarship, writing, and activism is a commitment to investigating the roles religious language, images, and practices play in oppression, violence, social transformation, and justice movements. She is currently at work on a novel and an edited volume that investigates the intersections of torture and Christianity.