Topic Research: Women in the Bible

Bathsheba Artemisia Gentileschi 

I should start off by saying that I initially started researching the OU Ghost stories section because I thought that's what I wanted to do my project on, but I honestly found it kind of depressing. I realize that's pretty lame but writing a project about the deaths of students like me kind of freaked me out so I decided to look into women of the bible instead!

The first story I read was the Witch of Endor because that one stood out to me as one I had no recollection of. After reading it I remember barely reading the passage before but paying little mind to the women (or witch, rather) who is barely a secondary character. What really stood out to me on this reading was the fact that Saul has outlawed witches and yet he uses one when he becomes desperate. To be honest it kind of felt like an allusion to prostitution (whether this is purposeful or not I have no idea) because witch craft, at least in this story, was practiced by women but both outlawed and utilized by men. Plus the whole meeting her in the shady part of town in the middle of the night thing. Overall I found this story really interesting - she gives him her cow even though he basically put her in danger - but I didn't really feel like it had enough meat on the bone for me to draw any real conclusions.

The next story I read was an old favorite of mine - Bathsheba. I swear this story truly has it all (and not in a good way). First there's the famous King, a man after God's own heart, known for his virtue and strength, lured by a beautiful but married women. Then there's the affair, the husband, the execution, and the dead child. I mean, woah! This story blows my mind because despite being an essential part of the story - with no beautiful bathing women there's no affair - we know almost nothing about her. She's given a little more characterization then the Witch of Endor (we know she's good looking and married) but nothing about what it was, other than her looks, that drew David to kill a loyal servant and take his wife for his own. I think we probably know very little about her because she isn't a women that Christian's want to imitate. Unlike Rachel or Esther we don't get a story told about Bathsheba and certainly not a book in the bible dedicated to her. I think it's interesting that this moment of mutual sin between David and Bathsheba defines her completely but we still know him as the Goliath slayer.

The last story I read was about the OG women in the Bible, Eve. This story was super interesting because it is one of those bible stories that you sort of skip over - we've all been hearing it for so long that it really has almost lost all meaning, so it was cool to read it again with fresh eyes! Honestly my main impression was a big loud "Booooo" on the whole multiplying the pain of childbirth thing. Like no thank you!! But after that I really focused on the part of the passage that talked about the man getting to rule over the women. Obviously everyone has different opinions on whether or not they believe the Bible is the literal word of God (I am so not weighing in on that on this blog) but I did think it would be interesting to study this Men ruling over women thing from a cultural perspective. It would be interesting to know that if the majority of patriarchal societies have a similar origin story between man and woman ( everything's awesome, woman ruins it) and be able to draw some conclusions about the way different places' religious texts shape their culture and views on women.