To be ordained, would-be PCUSA pastors had to interpret the worst story in the Bible

For students hoping to become pastors in the Presbyterian Church (USA), the exegesis exam is already stressful.

The dayslong exam—which requires students to answer multiple essay questions about a single passage of Scripture, looking at its original context, reviewing commentaries on the passage, and then interpreting it for a modern pastoral context—is one of the last things standing between them and ordination.

But the most recent exam was made even more difficult when the committee developing the test chose one of scripture’s “texts of terror”—the story of a woman who was raped and abused and later dismembered, found in the Book of Judges.