2. Cities and Whores

 

Similar views can be found in the Hebrew Bible, as in several prophetic books other cities are equally addressed and condemned as whores. [13] The metaphoric use of Babylon operates against this background. I will analyse in what follows how the comparison between a whore and a particular city is made and investigate, more specifically, which of the images used in verse 16 are also present in those cases. [14]

 

Looking more specifically at the destruction of Babylon announced in 17:16, the closest parallel can be found in Ezekiel 16 and 23, where Jerusalem is pictured as a whore undergoing a similar fate. In both Revelation and Ezekiel, the punishment of the whore is presented as reflecting God’s will, although in both cases, the sentence will be executed by others. In Ezekiel, this is done by the woman’s lovers, in Revelation by the beast and its horns. Other, though less elaborate, parallels can be found in Nahum 3:1-7, where Nineveh is first addressed as city and then compared with a prostitute and in Isaiah 23:15-17, where the fate of Tyre is compared with that of a whore, but no judgement or sentence follows the comparison here. [15] However, it is important to note here that there is also an important difference if in Revelation, as I presume, Babylon indeed refers to Rome. In that case, Babylon is a symbolic name. Nevertheless, a disturbing correspondence between these prophetic traditions and Revelation exists as far as their rhetorical strategy is concerned, because the way the women in question are depicted, makes their punishment look as something they deserve. [16]

 

With respect to Ezekiel 16 it can be noted that Jerusalem is addressed directly by God through the prophet as a woman (verse 3). In verses 15-41, the woman is more specifically depicted as a whore. Her future fate is announced to her in verse 35 (‘Therefore, O whore, hear the word of the Lord’) and elaborated in the following verses: Her clothes will be stripped and she will be left naked (verse 39), she will be stoned and cut to pieces (verse 40) and her houses will be burned (verse 41). Several of these elements correspond with the ones found in Apocalypse 17:16, namely her being made naked and the burning, in this case, of her houses.

 

In another text of the same book, namely Ezekiel 23:2  two women are introduced who are first specified as Oholah and Oholibah and then identified with Samaria and Jerusalem (verse 4). They too are criticised for playing the whore and judged accordingly. [17] In verse 9, Oholah has already been delivered to her lovers. They have made her naked and killed her with the sword (verse 10). In verse 22, Oholibah is addressed: ‘Therefore, O Oholibah, thus says the Lord God...’. She will undergo a similar fate as her sister (verses 22-35): Her nose and ears will be cut off (verse 25), she will be hated and left naked (verse 29). Both Oholah and Oholibah will thus be made an object of terror and of plunder (verse 46) and the houses of their sons and daughters will burn up (verse 47). Here again parallels with Apocalypse 17:16 can be found, more specifically the mention of hatred (verse 29), the being made naked (verses 10.29), and the burning (verse 29). [18]

 

In two instances, non-israelite cities are condemned as whores. The first case is Nahum 3:1-7 where Nineveh is first addressed as city in verse 1 and later compared with a prostitute. Her fate is announced in verses 4-7. ‘I will let nations look on your nakedness and kingdoms on your shame’ (3:5). She will be made a spectacle. ‘Then all who see you will shrink from you and say, ”Nineveh is devastated; who will bemoan her?”’ (verse 7). In this text, we find the reverse situation as in Ezechiel, in that Nineveh is first addressed as city and then compared with a whore. The image of the city resurfaces in the following context, where more specifically her being devoured by fire is mentioned (Nahum 3:13.15).

 

The comparison is even more limited in the second case, namely Isaiah 23:15, where it is the fate of Tyre which is compared with that of a whore: ‘At the end of seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song about the prostitute’. The comparison with a whore is repeated in verse 17, where it is said that Tyre ‘will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth’. In this case, however, no judgement or sentence follows the comparison. [19]

 

What Nahum 3:1-7 and Isaiah 23:15-17 have in common with Ezekiel is that cities are condemned as whores. A major difference, however, is that these are foreign cities and that the notion of adultery is absent, because no relation between these cities and JHWH is presumed. The same is the case with Babylon in Revelation 17, where the issue of adultery is equally absent.

 

However, if the elements used in Revelation 17:16 to describe the fate of Babylon, already show up in prophetic texts, there is one remarkable omission: no direct parallel occurs for the image that her flesh will be devoured. [20] For that we have to look elsewhere, namely in 1 Kings 21:23 where being devoured is first predicted by Elijah, and later recalled by Jehu in 2 Kings 9:36-37, as the fate awaiting Jezebel. The Septuagint version of this text shows a clear verbal correspondence with Revelation 17:16 as the same expression, namely ‘to eat someone’s flesh’ is used. [21] But there are also other features that these women have in common, which can serve as further evidence that the author of Revelation may have Jezebel in mind here. Striking is especially the reference to the many whoredoms and sorceries of Jezebel by Jehu in Kings 9. A similar accusation already shows up earlier in Revelation where the woman prophet called Jezebel is accused of practicing fornication (pornei&a: Revelation 2:20). This is also a key concept in the depiction of Babylon. Moreover, Babylon is also accused of having deceived all nations by her sorcery (Revelation 18:23) and a further hint may be found in the way Babylon sees herself ruling as a queen in Revelation 18:7. [22]

 

 

3. The Meaning of a Metaphor

 

What the parallels with Jezebel as well as the whore/cities in the prophetic texts in my view make clear, is that the Great Whore is a gendered metaphor. Both its being gendered and its being a metaphor, are relevant. First, as far as the issue of gender is concerned. I think gender is by no means accidental here. Babylon could not be just as well a male character. In a patriarchal society, to compare the enemy with a woman is a way of ridiculing and denigrating him on the one hand, and of ascertaining one’s own male superiority on the other. What Exum states for the prophetic texts under discussion also holds true here: ‘Already inscribed in the metaphors themselves is a whole range of negative views about women and about female behavior and female sexuality, as well as about power in gender relations: men dominate and women submit.’ [23] Therefore, I disagree with Schüssler Fiorenza, who considers the use of female images for cities to be ‘conventional language because then, as today, cities and countries were grammatically construed as feminine’. [24] To use a woman as metaphor for a city, is more than just a matter of grammar, because it reflects an androcentric perspective. In the case of Babylon, the woman/city represents the other, viewed as alien territory to be conquered and eventually destroyed, thus presuming and affirming an analogy between military and sexual invasion, the colonizer presented as male, the colonized as female. [25] Gender, then, is more than just a matter of convention, but plays a role in the message to be delivered.

 

However, Babylon is not only depicted as a woman, she is moreover presented as a whore (po&rnh). In the Hebrew Bible, this image appears to be gender-specific. [26] In my view, this is also the case in Revelation 17-19, as only the woman is called a whore, not her male partners. They are described in terms of their male power status as kings, while others, such as ‘the nations’ or ‘the inhabitants of the earth’, are said to participate in ‘her fornication’ (14:8; 17:2.4; 18:3; 19:2: pornei&aj au)th~j). Moreover, the use of this terminology, namely po&rnh / pornei&a and porneu&w, [27] is not merely descriptive, but implies a moral judgement. In line with its use elsewhere in the New Testament, prostitution appears here in the first place as a moral evil. [28] This also contributes to the negative image of the woman, who is held responsible for it. But, not only her being a whore, also her death is gender-specific, because it destroys her sexuality and makes an end to her seductiveness. [29]

 

Second, as far as its metaphorical character is concerned, the fact that the Great Whore is a metaphor does not make it less dangerous and harmful to ‘real’ women, because as metaphor it both reflects and reinscribes gender relations. On the one hand, such a metaphor can only work and be powerful if it is rooted in existing views and practices, which shape the lives of real people; on the other hand, its power and danger also lie in the fact that it confirms such views and practices and thus legitimizes them, which again affects the lives of real people. I agree with Stenström who states that ‘an image as ”Babylon the Prostitute” speaks, on one, explicit, level about an earthly power which is not obedient to God. Still, on an implicit level, it reflects, expresses and reinforces views of female prostitutes, which are linked to views of women in general. Therefore, a feminist analysis of Revelation must be concerned with all the implicit assumptions about gender in the text.’ [30] The view that the Great Whore is just a metaphor or image and therefore ‘does not speak about a female person or refer to actual historical wo/men,’ [31] tends to obscure this relation between metaphor and reality. As Exum rightly observes: ‘That metaphoric violence against women is not the same as real violence is true, but (…) it is nonetheless harmful to real women because it shapes perceptions of reality and of gender relations for men and for women.’ [32]

 

Reading for gender, therefore, reveals, as Pippin puts it, the ‘apocalypse of women’ [33] turning, in the case of Revelation 17, into a ‘pornoapocalypse’. [34] Schüssler Fiorenza, however, criticizes Pippin’s interpretation stating that ‘reading simply in terms of gender reinscribes cultural femininity by naturalizing Revelation’s symbolic figurative language.’ [35] In my view, however, this critique is not justified, because Pippin is not reading simply in terms of gender, nor does she reinscribe cultural femininity. ‘Here, the strategy is to imply (or, indeed, argue) that if an interpreter describes how something works, she or he is advocating for the maintenance of the practice.’ [36]

 

Schüssler Fiorenza’s own view is that ‘although Babylon is figured as an elite woman, the rhetorical-symbolic discourse of Revelation clearly understands it as an imperial city and not as an actual woman.’ [37] But, as I have stated earlier, Revelation 17:16 resists such a reduction of the woman/whore to just a metaphor. The killing of the whore is too disturbing for that. It is like watching a horror movie telling yourself that the blood is not real. That may well explain why this verse often gets so little attention in the discussion of these chapters or that the focus is solely on the destruction of Babylon as city.

 

However, rather than focusing only on Babylon as city, it seems important to me to consider both sides of Babylon as Great City and Great Whore, as oppressive, colonial power and prostitute. I agree with Schüssler Fiorenza that ‘the ”female” personifications of mother, virgin, or whore in Revelation must be problematized not only in terms of gender but also in terms of systemic structures of race, class and imperialist oppression.’ [38] However, it is hard to understand then why she herself sets up an opposition between two reading strategies, namely a reading which focuses on gender, and a rhetorical-political reading. The first reading is identified as the position of white Western feminist scholars and the second as that of feminist subaltern and postcolonial studies. I find this opposition problematic and dangerous, because it suggests that gender research is a-political. As Stenström states: ‘feminist researchers must repeat basics: to speak about gender is to speak about a structure of power. To speak about power structures is to speak about something political. We must not allow that ”gender” is taken from us and used as a code word for depoliticized research.’ [39]

 

Moreover, I find the formulation of this opposition is problematic. In the first case, ‘being white’ and ‘Western’ are used as seemingly unproblematic labels and the focus is on individual scholars. The other position, however, is described as feminist subaltern and postcolonial studies. Here no reference is made to the scholars in question nor to their color or cultural background. Thus the first category is presented as exclusively white and western, while the second category seems to include all ‘others’.

 

 

4. Double Bind

 

In her postcolonial reading of Revelation 17, Kim observes how female readers of this text are placed in a double bind ‘because we are forced to betray our sexual identity in order to share the perspective of the author/God; otherwise we have to identify ourselves with the female object in the text.’ [40] Kim further argues that the Whore not only refers to Rome as colonizing power, but also represents a colonized woman, exploited by the colonizers and abandoned by her own man. Thus ‘sexually oppressed women are caught in a no-win situation between foreign and native men.’ [41] I would like to complement her analysis with some observations from my own context, namely that of a colonizing country.

 

I find myself caught in another double bind here, because I share the critique of an oppressive and violent regime, while I resist the violence done to the whore. However, there is more, as citizen of Fortress Europe, I rather find myself identified with Babylon as locus of colonial power and oppression. The red light district of Amsterdam with its prostitutes from all over the world is only one block away from where I work. The traffic in women is flourishing there. Since the eighties the European sex-business has become big business. Women from Asia, Africa, South-America and Eastern Europe are lured to Western Europe with false promises, and often false passports too, and then forced into prostitution. One famous luxury brothel in Hungary is actually called ‘Villa Babylon’. [42] Soon enough, however, the women who arrive in Europe find out about the real nature of the jobs or wealthy husbands they were promised.

 

The fate of Babylon described in Revelation 17:16 reminds me of the violence done to the women who refuse to prostitute themselves. Sometimes their passports are taken from them, sometimes they are guarded, locked up, intimidated and threatened, abused, raped and most often financially exploited. The death of the Great Whore reminds me of Nicolasa Duarte, a Dominican woman who worked in a striptease bar in Kortrijk, the city where I was born, and whose dead body was found packed in a suitcase thrown in the river in 1984. The pimp, who was responsible for her death, was arrested and even admitted the murder, but spent only three years in jail. Nicolasa had accepted a contract as bailarina in Europe to earn money for her poor family, but her life literally ended in this strip-tease bar. [43]

 

Reading Revelation 17 from this particular context or Sitz im Tod, [44] makes me aware of yet another aspect of the gender ideology embedded in the text, namely how the negative depiction of the whore obscures the social reality of prostitution. The focus of the text is on the character of the whore and the strategy is to present her as morally evil. This is done in a number of ways. Not only is she presented as a prostitute, but as actively pursuing prostitution. ‘She has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.’ (14:8) This clearly puts the blame with her, since she made them drink and it is ‘her fornication’. What also contributes to her negative image, is that she is presented as being drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus (17:6). As the consumption of blood is explicitly forbidden in the Torah, this practice appears as particularly repulsive. Besides the negative elements in the description of the whore, there are also more explicit value judgements in the text. Babylon is accused of blasphemy, impurity, abomination, iniquity, deceit and corruption, [45] and her sins are said to be ‘heaped high as heaven’ (Revelation 18:5). What all these elements have in common is that the woman is pictured as a bad woman and this in turn makes her punishment look as something she deserves. The measures taken against her are legitimized as well as sanctioned by presenting them as in accordance with Gods will. The violence against her thus appears as justified.

 

However, in order to reach this conclusion the Great Whore needs to be isolated and the social dimension of prostitution blended out. With social dimension I mean here prostitution as trade, and thus as a specific form of labour. [46] The only, though indirect, trace in the text that the whore is rewarded for her services, may be found in the description of her wealth. According to Revelation 17:4, ‘the whore was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls’. This description is repeated in 18:16 by the merchants who mourn for the destroyed city: ”Alas, alas, the great city, clothed in fine linen, in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold, with jewels, and with pearls!” Although in the previous context reference has been made to the commercial activity of the city, it is never made explicit where all her luxury comes from. [47] The suggestion of the text seems to be that she is making profit from her lovers, one way or another. That may be fairly obvious as far as the wealth of Babylon as colonial power is concerned. And it could even hold true for a whore, but than again the focus is on a particular whore, and the social reality of prostitution remains out of sight.

 

Still, a trace may be left, precisely in the gendered character of the metaphor. What the metaphor also reveals is namely the ‘gender-based division of labour’. That the Great Whore is a woman has everything to do with economics and power. As Uy Eviota puts it: ‘The intersection between economy, politics and gender is embodied in the sexual division of labour: the demarcation of those tasks which are paid and those not paid, differentials in pay, concentrations in occupations and job-levels within these occupations, and sexual servicing as the paid work of women.’ [48] Gender ideology not only determines what sexual behaviour is considered male or female, and what sexual needs are natural and how one is supposed to fulfill them, but also the kind of work men or women are supposed to do. Economic and political forces play their role in the social and financial valorization of this work as they determine if and what labour is being paid and how much.

 

What is only a trace in the picture of the Great Whore, is further substantiated in the examples I mentioned from my own context. They show, on the one hand, how the ‘traffic in women’ serves the sexual and economic needs of the still colonial West, and how on the other, these women are used and abused as slaves. In my view, the ideology-critical power of Revelation falls short when it comes to gender ideology. The abuse of a whore as metaphor for a colonial power reveals this, or as Kim puts it: ‘the whore metaphor does not simply stand for the imperial city of Rome but also stands for women sexually involved in a colonizing context.’ [49] The dramatic consequences of such metaphorization are exposed in the violence done to her. And the reader is supposed to rejoice in her death, but not every reader does. At least not the resisting reader.