ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a confrontation with Hosea 1—3, a particularly problematic text for exegesis and interpretation. Feminist scholarship has long registered these early chapters as a rape text—and for good reason: in Hosea, female bodies are depicted as violently abused and tortured without mercy. The chapter provides a brief summary of Hosea 1—3, followed by an account of how Chinese biblical scholars treat this passage. Emphasis is given to their treatment of Gomer and the prostitution figures. The chapter reports the comments of the sex workers. Hosea 1—3 is not easy to interpret because the text keeps jumping between literal and figurative speech. What needs to be emphasised is that Hosea 1—3 casts prostitutes as deserving targets of physical violence and rape. The horror of this was clear to the sex workers. The sex workers deem Hosea 1—3 to be troubling and problematic because it is ineffective in its primary purpose—namely, to call Israel to account.
