Head Shaving as a Ritual of Enslavement in Deuteronomy 21:10–14

ABSTRACT No text in the Hebrew Bible is more central to the discussion of captives taken during war than Deuteronomy 21:10–14. This article addresses the scholarly reception of the text, revealing the ways biblical scholars recognize the social meaning of the captive’s experience but ultimately find themselves unwilling to acknowledge her enslaved status. This is partly the result of an overreliance on a narrowly philological approach to the text in isolation. Rather than attending to the violent conditions described in this law, scholars have tended to endorse interpretations that affirm the perspective of the perpetrator. This article argues that there is ample evidence in both ancient West Asian sources as well as in the Islamic practice of istibrāʾ to show that head shaving in Deuteronomy 21:10–14 is part of the captive’s transition to the status of an enslaved person. By attending to the haptic conditions faced by the captive, this article elucidates the striking cross-cultural similarities between rituals that are imposed specifically on foreign women and girls who are then enslaved after they are traded or captured in war.