She appeals to mankind’s desire to learn, better themselves, and pursue the truth. Indeed, the Book of Proverbs speaks of Lady Wisdom as a separate being created by God who appears to have played a role in the creation. They were considered repositories of “wisdom,” grammatically a feminine noun in both ancient Hebrew and Greek. While scholarly pursuits and societal leadership roles were off limits, their sophisticated technical skills-turning grain into bread, wool into cloth, herbs into medicine-combined with their lasting impact on the psyche of the children they reared and taught, gave them a certain gravitas. The respect accorded to Sarah, Rebecca and other women in the Old Testament can be understood, in part, as the product of cultural factors. It was left to Rebecca to divine its meaning, which she did. But the message from Jehovah was ambiguous regarding which child should receive the birthright. The role of Isaac’s wife, Rebecca, as a mouthpiece for the Lord was even more explicit when she received an oracle about the destiny of the twins she was carrying: Esau and Jacob. “Esau and Jacob Presented to Isaac,” by Benjamin West (17388-1820) įor example, when Abraham exhibited reluctance to ask Hagar and Ishmael to leave his household as he had been commanded, God admonished him to listen to his wife: “hearken unto for in Isaac shall thy seed be called.” Just as the Oracle at Delphi was the means by which the Greeks believed their gods spoke to them, women in the Old Testament were sometimes the vehicle through which the Lord’s will was made known. For example, they functioned at times as oracles, a role often performed by women in ancient times. Īlthough women were not considered deficient or lacking, they were most certainly viewed as different, sometimes in mystical ways. Second, portraying women as powerless and subordinate while being man’s equal spiritually and intellectually allowed Israel to make sense of a world where it was subordinate to the power and authority of the dominant nations surrounding it. As a result, society’s structure is never discussed in the Old Testament-but nor is it defended, since the possibility of social change for the better is integral to biblical thought. Male dominated societies were the norm in the Near East, predating the Israelites by 1,500 years. There are two likely explanations for this incongruity. To the contrary, the Hebrew Bible is replete with inspiring stories about women, many of which portray the female protagonist as a resourceful adversary or worthy partner but never as man’s inferior. While men in our modern world-including, regrettably, some leaders of our church -have employed unflattering stereotypes, made condescending remarks, and voiced derogatory opinions when discussing the intellect and abilities of women, the Old Testament is devoid of such insults, save a lone verse in Ecclesiastes. In the words of the Psalmist, “Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house ….” īut here’s the thing. They were subservient to men, and their sphere of influence was largely confined to the home.
Women had few legal privileges or institutional responsibilities in either the civic or religious arena. To say that the ancient world was hierarchal and patriarchal is to state the obvious. This is a vast topic about which many books have been written, so I will focus my remarks on the way women in general were regarded in the Hebrew Bible and on experiences in the lives of a few of them. Īs much as Margaret would love to be the subject of my talk, I have been asked to speak on women in the Old Testament. There was no way I could endure the ordeal of child birth without a couple of really stiff drinks and a valium beforehand. That was our original intent, I told him, until I learned she wanted me by her side in the delivery room. When Margaret was expecting our first child, a colleague of mine asked whether we were planning on a natural, drug-free birth. Set forth below is the text of a talk I gave on Mother’s Day, May 8, 2022, in the Sacrament Meeting of the Arlington First Ward, Arlington, Virginia.
0 kommentar(er)
