Reading Notes: Women in the Bible A

Is this what Bewailing looks like?
The Daughter of Jephthah, by Debat-Ponsan

For this weeks reading I decided to do Women in the Bible since that is a unit I am strongly considering for my overall project! Reading A is really interesting because I've got to be honest these Women in the Bible aren't giving me a lot to work with. All of these women are from the Old Testament and actually every single story involves sex or love in some capacity. The women are wives / concubines (Eve, Leah, Rachel, Hagar, etc) or they're seducing the men and up to no good (Potiphar's wife, Delilah). Even the one women in this section who doesn't explicitly fall into either category - Jephthah's daughter - still makes it a point to "bewail her virginity" before being sacrificed. I'm obviously not super surprised by this emphasis on women as wives and mothers rather than as people but it is a little bit of a bummer. I'm not saying that there aren't good stories to be told about women who are mothers, but it's hard to get a real feel for who they are outside of their drive to provide children in order to prove their worth in their marriage.

Man this reading really makes you feel for the handmaids - and for anyone who's read The Handmaids Tale really terrifies you with it's potential application. The whole concept of multiple wives and concubines is a little hard to grasp, but I realize that was largely the norm back then. Still, I feel like the stories want me to hate women for being bitter about not having their husbands affection (Leah / Hagar) but I've got nothing but empathy over here. I mean I hope I wouldn't raise my sons to sell their half brother into slavery but I think a little jealously and spite may be warranted. Another thing that stood out to me was how often the man's age is mentioned in reference to when he is married / children are conceived but we never know any of the women's ages. Which gives me a bad feeling that's probably question better left unanswered.

Women in the Bible UnTextbook - Old Testament