June Spiritual ethoughts Monthly

Old Testament Female Bible Heroines and How Jesus Redeems Eve

Ancient Near Eastern literature is filled with many things, but it is not filled with tales of bold, assertive women. It is not filled women as lead characters, or as initiators, or heroines, or as decision-makers, with the huge notable exception being the Bible. For some reason, well, for good reason, Moses’ hand was moved by God to recount the stories leading up to the Treaty at Sinai in a way that would show God as merciful and gracious. The point was to show humankind as in great need of his help.

One way to highlight the plight of weak Israel was to symbolize their stories by matching them against those of the weakest and lowliest in society, namely that of marginalized, underprivileged, foreign women. No one would be consider more worse off. As God aided these women in their true life stories, and made them the unlikely heroes, they became the archetypes for all God could, would, (and will) vanquish. How easily the Book of Ruth could have been called, The Book of Boaz, and the leading man could have been crafted as the central figure. He was, after, all the Redeemer of the story. On the contrary, the story starts with Ruth, and her underprivileged plight, and then finishes with her redemption, and blessing. She is the great-grandmother of the great king David we read.

Just the same things happen with dubious ladies Rehab, Hagar, and Jael. Rehab, was a common, run-of-the-mill prostitute. She was not just on the fringes of her society, but housed in the fortification of the city’s wall casement itself. Nevertheless, in her story, she devises a plan to save, not only the unnamed Israelite spies, but her entire family from destruction. She’s a heroine of faith. God's plan puts her as the mother of Boaz. She might have made a kind mother-in-law to foreigner Ruth.

Jael is a very lowly tent-dwelling foreigner woman. Considered, the low of the low, she is one of the most unlikely heroines you would ever meet. Still, God uses her, not Israel’s army commander Barak, to defeat Sisera, the Canaanite army commander. She laid a trap for Sisera and killed him, by putting a tent peg through his head when he fell asleep in her tent. Warm milk is very soothing, as it turns out. It turned the tide for Israel.

It is asserted by a good many feminist Christians that the Pentateuch was written purposefully to malign women, and exclude them from God’s blessings. Throughout the years Abrahamic religious teachings have placed women as the chief cause of corruption of the human race, as well as inferior in mind, body, and resolve, they say. The influence permeates the three major world religions. If this is concept even partially true, we still find something very interesting happens when we come to the New Testament, and witness the kinsman redeemer of Jesus Christ.

Jesus attitude toward women is shockingly different from any other Rabi in history. He has female pupils. He was the first one to do that. He travels with women, and speaks to them, and very kindly. He consorts with them. He allows them to touch him, and provide for him.

As the ultimate Provider, the Bread of Life allows us to be saved, and to not “surely die”. He says, “Take, eat”, to the disciples at the Last Supper. He offers his body, to be broken, to fix what the forbidden fruit stole, and broke. That day when Eve said, “Take, eat” to Adam echoed perhaps in Second Adam’s ears as he said it that day to his disciples. He knew that half of humanity would suffer so dearly more than the other half would, for those words our first mother spoke that day. Jesus came to right the wrongs.

Yes, the Bible full of women. The Bible is full of characters, both male and female, that are in the margins, that are lowly, and who have very questionable ethics. It is full of people who need God, and who need to be helped and saved. God is the star of the Bible. He is the Main Show, and he graces us with mercy upon mercy. And, the best part is, he doesn’t mind doing it.

Bibliography

Unlikely Heroes: Women as Israel, Rendsburg, Gary A., Bible Review, Vol XIX, No. 1, 2003

Literary Structure of the Old Testament: A Commentary from Genesis to Malachi Dorsey, David, Baker Academic Publishing, 2004

Feminist Theology Vol 15(2) January 2007

©2007

Lisa DeLay