Reading B: Women in the Bible

Queen Ester - Edmwin Long

The second half of my Women in the Bible reading was a lot like the first - strangely unsatisfying. Like - WHO WERE THESE CHICKS?? If we're lucky we get their first name and a long list of the sons they were able to produce. Otherwise we aren't given much to work with. I already talked about Bathsheba (I randomly feel like she's my girl - is that weird?) and how bizarre and confusing it is not to hear any of this from her perspective. I feel like it would be incredibly strange to be married to a man one day and then all of the sudden you're pregnant with the kings baby just because you were bathing at the wrong time. Bathsheba is so completely defined by this moment (one in which she arguably did nothing wrong) that we know little else about her besides the names of her children.

In this section we are also introduced to a women with a similar story, Susannah. Susannah was bathing outside which a couple of upstanding men in the community got the hots for her and decided that they would try to force her to sleep with them. She refuses and is almost put to death for defending herself. The real question this story poses (besides why any women in the old testament ever felt safe taking baths) is why on earth is it about Daniel? Susannah is the one who has to make a terrible decision - give in to the men and save her reputation or allow them to assault her and be legally safe - - all Daniel does is a basic cop movie interrogation. And yet the only reason this story is even included is to demonstrate the heroics of Daniel who catches Susannah's would be rapists in a lie #patriarchy. 

Overall reading about women in the bible has been super illuminating for me. There are definitely some great examples of the kind of women (and people in general) that we should all hope to resemble. But there are also a lot of pretty one-dimensional women characters who's only purpose seems to be to highlight the heroics of the men in the story. This is definitely not unique to the Bible and can probably be found in a number of religious texts but is it definitely something that stands out to me as a Christian women. 

Women in the Bible Untextbook - Old Testament / New Testament