Dismembering the Whole: Composition and Purpose of Judges 19-21 Cynthia Edenburg The book of Judges ends with the Outrage at Gibeah, a bizarre narrative of sex and violence. In her study of this troubling tale, Cynthia Edenburg applies a fresh literary analysis, recent understandings of historical linguistics, and historical geography in order to explore the origin of the anti-Benjamin polemic found in Judges 19-21, the growth and provenance of the book of Judges, and the shape of the Deuteronomistic History. Her work exposes how Judges 19-21 functions as political polemic reflecting not the premonarchic period but instead the historical realities of the settlement of Benjamin during the Babylonian and Persian periods. Cynthia Edenburg teaches Hebrew Bible in the Department of History, Philosophy and Jewish Studies at the Open University of Israel. She is the coeditor of Is Samuel among the Deuteronomists? Current Views on the Place of Samuel in a Deuteronomistic History (Society of Biblical Literature, 2013).