The skull, the cross, the drink-the symbols of the death of Christ might have their precursors in one of the first heroine stories of the Bible.Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection is the most widely known story of the New Testament-indeed, the foundational narrative in Christianity itself, one that has been retold and examined endlessly. Even though the accounts of events given by the four Evangelists have been at the center of academic research for centuries, scholars have rarely considered intertextual evidence connecting them to the Old Testament. In this revelatory book, The Cross and the Tent Peg: How Jesus Retraced Jael’s Story, Julie Walsh explores new links between Jael from the Book of Judges and the crucifixion and resurrection and persuasively argues why this nexus is a fulfillment narrative pattern.
Many scholars of Genesis have considered the protoevangelium of God’s declaration to the serpent in the Garden of Eden as the first messianic prophecy, which was fulfilled in the death of Christ. Walsh, however, invigorates this discourse by taking a fresh look at the story of Jael as evidence of a link between these two events. Although Jael was a member of the Kenite tribe, which was at peace with King Jabin, Jael killed Sisera, the general leading Jabin’s army against Israel, driving a tent peg through his skull. Walsh delves deep into this oft-overlooked chronicle to detail twelve striking similarities connecting this gruesome murder to the crucifixion narrative, thus casting both in a new light.
The Cross and the Tent Peg is an eye-opening work of assiduous scholarship, drawing on a wealth of existing literature and distinguished by an astute, original analysis of Biblical verses. By demonstrating that Jesus saw a woman’s action as having significance for his own death, Walsh raises crucial questions about the traditional roles of women in the family, in society, and within the church. The Cross and the Tent Peg is Walsh’s second book, and the first theological text of a promising new author in the field of egalitarian research.
Julie Walsh (Th.M., Regent University, M.A. Ministry, Nashotah House Theological Seminary) is a writer living in the Washington D.C. area.
