Poems of the Promised Land
Women's Stories in the King James Old Testament
By
Jacqueline Hoekstra
B.A., University of Northern British Columbia, 1998

THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN
INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES.
© Jacqueline Hoekstra, 2000

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA
January, 2000
All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced
in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means,
without the permission of the author.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of Contents

11

Acknowledgement

v

Preface and Introduction
In the Beginning
Faith Healing
tree of life
Preface
Introduction

1

Chapter 1: Eve
Bite Me
Sweet sweet like sugar and spice
Tap-dancing on the Story
Shards of Mesopotamia broken
Eve: In the Beginning

2
3

4
5
22
27

28
29

30
31
32

Chapter 2: Sarah
Momma's gonna sing
The curl and spit of a foreign lip
El-Shaddai: Goodness, gracious, Lord-God almighty
Sarah: Mamma's gonna sing

44

Chapter 3: Hagar
Hagar's Story
Hagar's Epilogue
Hagar: The Dark side

59

45
46

47
48

60

62
64

ii

Chapter 4: Lot's wife and daughters
The pillar of salt
From where I sit
Bargains- at any price
Lot's wife and daughters: Salting the wound

74
75
76
77

78
87
88

Chapter 5: Rebekah
Rebekah my love
The trials of Rebekah
Rebekah, Rebekah, let down your hair

89
90

Chapter 6: Rachel
Sisterly love
Rachel and the Fathomless wellspring
Sitting on the sidelines
Rachel: sitting on the sidelines

102
103
104
106
107

Chapter 7: Dinah
Do, do, do, do, da,da, da, da
Someone' s in the Kitchen
More than I can do
Dinah won't you blow you're horn?

120
121
122
123
124

Chapter 8: Tamar

Tamar and the tale: Andante
The temerity of Tamar
The Temerity of Tamar

134
135
136
137

Chapter 9: Miriam
The Moses conspiracy
Miriam's song
Miriam, Centre Stage as she dances

147
148
149
150

iii

Chapter 10: Jephthah's daughter
The spirit of the LORD vs. Asherah
The Open Wound
Jephthah' s daughter In Memoriam

158
159
160
161

Chapter 11: The Concubine of Bethlehemjudah
Like a bone for the dogs
Because he played music
Oasis or sand-drowning
The Concubine of Bethlehemjudah: The resurrection and the
life

169
170
171
173
174

Chapter 12: Ruth
There is a way
Like Watermelons too
Saving Grace
Ruth: Love's Sojourn

191
192
193
194
195

Chapter 13: Tamar
Tamar's telling: PRESTO
Now I lay me down
Tamar's telling

207
208
209
210

Chapter 14: Jezebel
Litany of passion
Four and Twenty Blackbirds
Epistle to Jezebel

222
223
224
225

Chapter 15: Conclusion

236

Bibliography

242

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
My sincere appreciation for the talents and dedication of my supervisor, Dr.
Dee Horne, & my committee members: Dr. Marianne Ainley, Dr. Barbara
Herringer & Dr. Ross Leckie.
I would also like to thank the University of Northern British Columbia for
making this thesis possible.

v

PREFACE AND INTRODUCTION

1

In the beginning
With a fmger to my lips
and a quick glance around the room, I begin,
once more, the silent utterances
in the stories that I tell,
ensorceled in
the incantations
the metallurgic urge
for the weight of words
for the love of words
that which flies and linger
that which stop the hunger.
The words that are held onto
the charm of a medal of valour -the rusty red-gold soldier:
a talisman to touch,
it all begins with the teachings
steeped deep in the pilgrimage
of divine suffering.
Fetched and old-fashioned from tree beginnings.
Always there's the cross heavy
and difficult to bear becomes self-righteousness,
Jesus Christ, my head hurts.
My feet ache,
My hands clench,
I kept your secrets
glowing like the sickness of Hiroshima,
wounds so deep beneath the skin
sacrosanct ad nauseum.
It is a long thorny road to travel
from the celebration of murder -the crows of Damascus are black.
I hear them calling, the words
that I tuck
between my tongue and cheek.
There is no redemption in suffering.
I'll leave that goat to feed in the fields of fresh rosemary.
In the garden of Gethsemane I sleep.

2

Faith healing
I stand in shallow waters.
Baptised by the slick tongues of water
rising and breathing with the closeness of a lover.
The crunch of clacking earth:
bones beneath my feet.
Toes an old testament to being.
I play with the stones.
Straddling the blue,
riding the two worlds of
wave wet and dust borne.
A difficult position to sustain,
buoyed and anchored -skyward and earth bound.
I keep company with the moon
on the left hand
and the spirits of men on the other.
Following the twist of silver unmade by hands.
Unmanned by any sailor, boat or barge.
Only the water baptises.
The immersion of self in the uncertainty of Guadeloupe blue
Not for me the walk on water,
I am the water of life
amniotic and pure,
I swim in the lapis lazuli pulse of tides.

3

tree of life
shiny as the teacher's face, first day of school
treacherous as the undulations of curve and thigh
stiff like the rack and screw of childbirth.
Held breath and past the pink blossoms of spring:
the delicate petals--the rosy blush.
The nub of uncertainty in gravenstein or red delicious:
the tang of not yet ripe -the heady thick aroma of root cellar
spills forth in the blinking eyes of early morning in late summer.
The russet chagrin of early fall
the crunch, bite, and savour
in the curled palm, the waxy smell of unearthed and sky-fruit.
Particular in the licked edges of open-mouthed satisfaction
trickle of milk slides off the cheek:
the innocent globe of fresh scented skin.
Fruit deliverance afterall the casting out and about for something greater
than Eve and Eden.

4

Re-vision: the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a
critical new direction- is for women more than a chapter in cultural history: it is an act of
survival. Until we can understand the assumptions in which we are drenched we cannot
know ourselves. (Rich 33)

Preface
After many years of absence from bible reading my interest returned. I was prepared to
read the old words and old stories with fresh eyes. I had re-read other literature and had
been amazed at the difference that several years and a shift of perspective made. As a
teenager I had read certain novels and had aligned myself with particular characters. I had
identified with certain of the characters' perspectives. Reading these same novels now, I
discovered that my sympathies had changed. My ability to read the text anew enabled a
fresh vision. Within this new vision I am able to note what or whose experience is
marginalised or exempted.
My return to reading the Old Testament of the King James Bible1 was part of this
discovery process. I chose this particular version of the Old Testament because of how it
has influenced my identity. This effect extends from societal tenets to my own gender
identity and poetic ideology. The poetic convictions, which I employ, contain a certain
flair for repetition and inversions. It also contains a love for language: the way certain
words roll off the tongue and remain in the mind. I also retain a love for the archaic
language of the KJV of the Bible.
1

KING JAMES INI of Great Britain commissioned the KN . King James held a staunch anti-Roman
Cat110lic position. He had been born and raised during the Reformation. The Reformation, led by Luther
and Zwingli, was in direct opposition to what t11ey believed was the flagrant misuse of RC church power
and ostentatious display of wealth among other issues pertaining to church doctrine. King James believed
that a bible written in English that was accessible to the masses would prove of great spiritual worth as
well as advance t11e Protestant doctrines.

5

The very beginning of Genesis starts with the words: "In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth (Gen.1: 1)." This is directly followed with poetic
repetition of the words earth and face: "And the earth was without form, and void; and
darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of
the waters (Gen. 1:2)." The "Spirit of God" has no form either (like the earth) and yet the
waters have "face." This kind of paradoxical language causes a like suspension within the
reader. We don't know quite what to make of something that is "void" and yet has "face"
or something that is "Spirit" and yet makes "man" in his image. This duality is a poetic
device for causing a suspension of the expected.
I was prepared to re-visit the old stories and make new conclusions. Where I had
once received the stories through Christian Reformed 2 doctrine now I hoped to rediscover these stories for myself. It was the stories of women in the Old Testament that
loomed largest on the new horizon of my awareness. Within the Old Testament I found
stories that I now view in a feminist light. I fmd autonomy in many of the stories. Whereas
before I had accepted certain stories as being about "good" women and certain stories as
being about "bad" women, I have now come to see them as far more complex and
contradictory. Whether the women in these stories are actual historical figures, are stories,
or are allegorical devices, patriarchal societies use these women to edify the statutes of
patriarchy. Patriarchy is a concept that spans many definitions. A patriarchal culture is one
in which there is a hierarchical order where the eldest males hold the positions of authority
in family, government and religion. There is no one specific time period in which
patriarchy occurs. Instead, it has occurred over different areas and different time frames

6

throughout history. Women have influenced certain changes that have brought them in
direct opposition to what, has at times, appeared to be the "natural" state of patriarchy.
Feminist issues can often be addressed in terms of the environment and its oppression due
to the historically prevalent linking of women and nature. The western tradition negated,
subordinated and devalued what is considered or has been associated with the feminine;
thus, animals, nature, the body, and emotions are considered "other" to and lacking in.
Conversely that which is linked with the masculine has been edified as positive; this
includes, culture, science, reason and the mind. There are a multitude of historical reasons
and justifications as to why these value systems have come into existence.
Lori Gruen, in her essay "Dismantling Oppression", discusses the connections
made by mainly white, middle-class male anthropologists and sociologists for linking
women and nature. Several origin stories emerge to explain and justify the reasons for
women and nature's oppression and links. For example, the theory of Human Social
evolution includes "our" (humankind's) earliest history, as originating from a hunting and
gathering society. This includes the conceptualisation that as men hunted- purportedly
being bigger and stronger and less confmed due to lacking the ability to gestate, then men
as death-bringers, sought a displacement of self from "other". This led to the inception of
individualism and power hierarchies, which led to the advent of culture. Culture
purportedly originated as a means of mitigating between both god figures and nature.
Women, on the other hand, were and are, seen as being linked to nature as life bringing.

2

The Christian Reformed Church originated in Holland as a reaction to both Calvinism and persecution
by the Roman Catholic State. The doctrines of the Church tend toward moral and theological puritanism.

The ability to menstruate (life blood) without dying was linked to the rejuvenation of the
earth in its seasonal abilities. This menstruational and gestational ability apparently led to
women's non-hunting, non-culture-making status.
Further along in humans' social evolution was the change from nomadic huntergatherers to an agricultural- sedentary mode of life. With the advent of agriculture came
the domestication and breeding of animals; this apparently led to a further understanding
by the "reasoning" men that reproduction could be controlled. And thus women were seen
as bearers of a "work force".
Within the social evolution of humans is the advent and changing of religious
structures. Supposedly, "mankind's" dependence on that which it considered "other"
created a kind of fear. The uncontrollable nearness and dependence on nature led to
intermediatory belief systems. This included a further hierarchy of granting status to a
revered intermediator. As well, it included sacrifice, whether animal or human. Women,
being cyclical as nature is, (historically as seen in the Persephone/Demeter myth) were
often likely candidates for sacrifice as they were considered linked with nature. In creating
rituals "man"kind supposed themselves closer to the supernatural than women. Male
centred religious constructions furthered the image of women and nature to be used as
"other". The western Judea-Christian tradition is rife with holy advocating of "Mankind"
to utilise the environment. There is the patriarchal adjuration for man to be head of the
household and church. Although written by man the King James Bible is often considered
the word of God, and as such must be "believed" as God's word. In this we see the
construction of a belief system. This is a prime example of a Western hierarchical power
structure in existence since the evident dawn of Creationism. Genesis 1 verse 26: "And

8

God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness: and let them have

dominion over the ftsh of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and
over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth (italics my
own)".
Gerder Lerner, in The Creation of Patriarchy, considers some of the nuances of
the term patriarchy. She believes that the term carries with it misleading implications. Just
because a patriarchy by defmition places the eldest males at the head of government,
family, and society in general, does not mean that women are or were powerless.
Furthermore, Lerner, who states that patriarchy was "well established at the time of the
writing of the Hebrew Bible," also indicates that patriarchy's presence continues today
(239).
Patriarchy carries certain tenets and values that support its system of regulation.
Men have the right to access greater economic, social, political, and legal privileges. The
access to these privileges differs according to specific women's situations. What is most
often maintained throughout differing situations is the control of women's sexuality. This
restraint maintains patriarchy by ensuring patrilineage. Defming women as "good" because
they support the male's right to greater economic, social, political, and legal privileges (
the patriarchal agenda) and defming other women as "bad" because they do not support
the patriarchal agenda is part of maintaining the status quo.
"Good" women in the Bible tend to represent the compliant virgin ideal of the
time. This saintly ideal is problematical because it is not only impossible to attain or
maintain but also it presents women as malleable and with no need for autonomy. These
"good" women follow the edicts of a patriarchal society. This image also stereotypes

9

women into impossible icons. Within the Old Testament Sarah is a traditional example of a
"good" woman: she is held responsible for the continuance of the lineage of the
forefathers . Traditional readers see her as following her husband where he leads and doing
as he says.
"Bad" women are most likely, within this same literature, to be perceived of as
dangerous to patriarchal agendas. These stereotyped women demand autonomy with
disastrous results for the men involved. Eve is a traditional example of a "bad" woman:
thus Eve becomes responsible for the expulsion of mankind out of the Garden of Eden.
Upon re-reading these self-same stories, which as a child had been ascribed the
labels of "good" or "bad, I discover that neither of these women read as I had been
instructed. In her quest for knowledge, Eve is an allegory for the goddess-based religions
that surrounded the monotheistic God of Israel. Sarah as beauteous foremother to a nation
is hardly all "good": she deals harshly and ungenerously with her handmaid and child. In
every story there are the elements of negative and positive in the women characters. Like
women of today, the women of yesterday, despite attempts to create them as unidimensional, are complex and cannot be categorised as "bad" or "good." No one character

is entirely whore or entirely heroine.
The biggest problem with these "good" and "bad" images of women is how these
stereotypes remain in effect today. Within a stringently patriarchal society, such as the
Near Eastern culture of ancient Israel, these images of women worked to maintain the
patriarchal order. But even within the ancient Israel society, as evidenced by these stories,
women followed their own course. Often traditional exegetes withheld this view but we
may read between the lines to know that they had agendas and autonomy. They did what

10

they felt they needed to do. They bargained, bartered, demanded, absconded and used
subversive methods to do as they saw fit. Why does traditional exegesis insist on reading
these ancient texts in a misogynistic light? In today' s society, we attempt to cast off these
bonds of inequity and yet certain factions adhere to antiquated notions of womanhood.
For women raised within traditional Christian doctrines this causes a deep schism in how
we defme ourselves as women. For myself, I spent an inordinate amount of time hating the
fact that I was a girl and wishing that I was born a boy. For I knew that, within Christian
doctrine, had I been born a boy I would have had more autonomy.
There are some biblical stories that I frankly do not remember from my childhood.
These are stories such as Tamar in Genesis and Tamar in II Samuel. Throughout this
analysis, I reconsider the ascribed motives of these women. I examine literary repetitions
such as well motifs that are metaphors for women's fertility and sexuality and the triad of
wife-sister stories that compulsively repeat the male fear of sexually "sharing" their wives.
And as with all "good" stories I begin at the beginning with Eve -- who has frequently
been maligned as responsible for the expulsion out of Eden. I seek the historical
underpinnings for some of the imagery in this story.
The depictions and definitions of women in the Bible are with us still today.
Throughout many areas of culture and society we may see the effects or traces of biblical
influence. A scholar can find these indications whether she is studying English Literature
as in the standard John Milton's Paradise Lost or Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
They can be found when studying the more modern texts. In Canadian literature, Margaret
Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, is rife with biblical imagery and passages. Anyone can
turn on the television and be swamped by the biblical references that riddle modern music,

11

whether they listen to country music like Patty Loveless' "Like Water into Wine" or
whether they listen to rock music like Melanie Doane's "Adam's Rib."
The media, too, is rife with images and messages that hearken back to the Bible.
Movies such as Seven with Brad Pitt wherein the protagonist discovers that a serial
murderer is using the "seven deadly sins" as retributive punishment depicts the Bible as a
document which still has effect today. Often movies depict religious people as fanatics and
dangerous. The television show Millennium constantly portrays the battle of "good" and
"evil" with direct biblical references and depicts a certain fanaticism that embraces
prophecy. As much as the television medium dwells on religious fanaticism it is rare to see
religious people depicted as "normal" these days. New Age mysticism may be in vogue,
but the depiction of Christianity is less than admirable.

Time published an essay by Charles Krauthammer June 15, 1998. This essay
discussed the difficulty of holding Christian religious convictions in mainstream North
American society. Krauthammer fmished his urbane analysis by stating:
At a time when religion is a preference and piety a form of eccentricity
suggesting fanaticism, Chesterton needs revision: tolerance is not just the
virtue of people who do not believe in anything; tolerance extends to
people who do not believe in anything. Believe in something, and beware.
You may not warrant presidential-level attack, but you'll make yourself
suspect should you dare enter the naked public square. (64)
Warily, I enter the "public square." While I agree with the witty observations that
Krauthammer makes, at the same time, I must point out that this very discussion in such a
public domain emphasises that the issues of Christian religion and doctrine are prevalent

12

and relevant. The fact is our biblical history colours Western Culture. Intolerance of
religiosity indicates a preoccupation with biblical text.
Biblical references colour poetry, fiction, music, and media. My interest came from
a need to explore not just my history but the way in which biblical narrative still affects
Western Cultures today.
The use of the biblical icon is widespread in our culture. We are named
Sarah, Leah, Jacob, Joseph. We live in towns called Canaan, Bethlehem,
Jericho. We refer to a deceiving cheating woman as a Jezebel; a man is
strong as Samson ... We are so accustomed to being addressed by these
images that we scarcely notice their total impact. Indeed the tropes and
figures of the Bible reside in the collective unconscious of western culture
as well as in the conscious streams of moralising that drench our popular
media. (Bach 1)
As a child I had read the Bible and its stories of women through a patriarchally defined
lens which had been ascribed me through the doctrine of a Protestant Christianity.
Whereas I was taught there is only one way to read the Bible, I now realise that part of the
beauty of the Old Testament is in the multiple marmers in which it can be read. There is
not one truth: there are many. This "many" depends upon the reader and his or her biases.
Robert Altar, in his introduction to The Literary Guide to the Bible, discusses the
interpretative possibilities of the Bible. He comments on how the writers of these texts are
masters of intimation. He states that there is a certain narrative minimalism within the text
that enables multiple readings: "The masters of ancient Hebrew narrative were clearly
writers who delighted in an art of indirection, in the possibilities of intimating depths

13

through the mere hint of a surface feature, or through a few words of dialogue fraught
with implication (23)".
Alice Bach, in Women, seduction, and betrayal in biblical narrative, invites open
non-hierarchical interpretations of women's stories. Her argument supports my analysis of
multiplicity and individuality. She notes that reader and text intermix to fmd meaning.
There is no one reading, no one truth. Homogeneity is false. The text and the reader
negotiate for identification and alliance. Bach states:
While I agree with scholarly conclusions that the gap between the lives of
real and imagined women can be large, the process through which ordinary
readers identify with literary characters has largely been ignored, Similarly
the route that a reader takes through texts is largely unknown ... readings
need to incorporate the arena of contradictions: to acknowledge the
endless conflict and negotiation that goes on within the mind of the reader,
a matter of drawing lines, contesting boundaries, reinterpreting symbols,
and rearranging experience into constantly shifting categories- an effort
which corresponds to the efforts of readers to make sense of narratives and
the characters who live within them. (3)
As a child I accepted the roles assigned to women within the doctrine through which I was
raised and consequently this defmition of women as "other" became part of my own
identity. Bach describes her experience with women and their stories in the Bible. Like
her, I stumbled against the ascribed images of women. Bach states: ''For many women the
most difficult part of reading the Bible today is remembering how we read the Bible in
school, in church or synagogue, and what we were told about the good women and the

14

bad women" (Women in the Hebrew Bible, xiii). I viewed women as being powerless and
needed to align myself with the powered; thus I denigrated women and upheld a
patriarchal ideology. In doing so, I was unknowingly partaking of my own oppression. As
well, I was discouraged from questioning the Bible about the unfairness of women's
apparent subservience. The Christian Reformed Church still follows the doctrine of The
Belgic Confession, written in 1561 by Guido de Bres, believing that it is "the written word

of God" (Article 4) and that consequently it "is forbidden to add or subtract from the
word of God" (Article 7). As well, The Belgic Confession states: "We do not wish to
inquire with undue curiosity into what He does that surpasses human understanding"
(Article 13).
As an adult, as I resolve questions I have about my identity as poet, woman,
mother, and spiritual being, I encounter writers whose work has an immeasurable impact
on how I perceive the universe. This perception includes the lived universe and the written
universe. I noticed in my studies a revelation/revolution in women's storytelling. From the
atypical images in Sylvia Plath's poetic view of motherhood in Ariel, to Anne Sexton's
poetic biblical symbolism, as she becomes Mary and Jesus in An Awful Rowing Toward
God, all of these engendered a questioning and an ownership of sorts. These images and

emblems belong to me as an individual and as a woman. In my poems, I change, subvert,
and expose these images and stories.
I consider myself a spiritual person and I believe in a benevolent higher force. I do
not believe this "higher force" to be confmed to a single gender or a single facet. All of the
world's religions are proof of humanity's reaching out to connect with the divine and are
an attempt to make sense of the natural world. The Bible is an important historical and

15

literary document: it expresses how our Hebrew/Christian "forefathers" explained and
maintained their universe. It has shaped the Western World and continues to do so. With
these views in mind I was able to return to the Bible as a document that is spiritual,
literary and gender-defmed. My old views that had been ascribed were replaced with a
redemptive vision of women's stories in the Old Testament. This does not mean that I find
all the stories that deal with women in the Old Testament reprehensible nor do I fmd them
all laudable: some are and some are not. It is the process of discovering how to open up
and re-examine the text that is important; it is the journey rather than the end that is
significant. The practice of "creating" new meaning is in itself an act of redemption. Alicia
Suskin Ostriker, a revisionist scriptural poet, states:
Yet if a feminist's stance toward Scripture is inevitably adversarial, it can
also be more than that ... . If our object is to retrieve from the palimpsest
of patriarchal narrative what the narrative attempts to bury and deny, we
may seek for traces or tracks of the female story. Reading with eyes of
desire, we may peer between the lines for a lost past, and we may discover
fresh and transforming meanings within supposedly familiar stories.
Further, remembering that the Bible was- whether inspired from above or
not- written down here below, by human beings over a period of millennia
in acts of composition not so very different from our own, we may want to
recognize how filled it is with gaps and fractures, and take advantage of its
contradictions. When we do so, we cease to posit a simple polarity or
adversarial relationship between male text and female re-writers. Instead,
we begin to discover that our revisionist interpretations of the Bible are not

16

simply forbidden by the text and tradition we are challenging. They are also
invited and supported. (The Nakedness of the Fathers 164-5)
The Bible is an act of creation by many different authors. In the Old Testament women's
individual voices and characters have been clamouring for recognition for ages. Thus, it is
easier to see the Bible as malleable rather than sacrosanct. It is less difficult than I
imagined to strike a balance between a gendered and literary analysis and a spiritual quest.
Part of this quest is to fmd the female voices that tell their stories both overtly and
covertly. Another part of this quest is to share these voices with other readers and to
encourage many new readings of women's stories in the Old Testament.
Admittedly, I am driven by my eternal quest for equilibrium. I, in this project, seek
a balance between the teachings of my past and my inherent ideology that concerns a
responsibility toward others. I do not deny that this ideology has been shaped by my
religious upbringing. Much of the ways I believe that we (humans) ought to act are
derived from this religious upbringing. I teach my elder son "the golden rule": to "do unto
others as you would have them do unto you." I'm also inordinately fond of saying: "Let
those without sin cast the first stone." Unfortunately, the actual quotation is: "He that is
without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her" (Jn 8:7). All of us are human and
imperfect and we all make mistakes. The quotation emphasises, though, the patriarchal
power structure of male over female once again.
By no means do I deny the beauty of belief in a higher being. The Judeo-Christian
traditions have both positive attributes and negative ones. There are important questions
that can and should be posed toward the Bible. Inquiry into our Judeo-Christian roots and

17

a consequent questioning of gender roles and stereotypes will enlighten us (whether
Christian or non-Christian). This field of inquiry should be encouraged not squelched.
It is a struggle for me to balance my academic and theoretic voice with my poetic

and personal voice. Like many modern writers I wish to strike a balance between the
output of scholarly intention and accessibility. I neither wish to be discredited as a nonserious writer nor as a tedious and incomprehensible academic. Carol Christ comments on
this dilemma for feminists within the arts and sciences.
Many feminist scholars recognize that academic writing is often
unnecessarily opaque and inaccessible. Because we feel an obligation to the
community out of which our scholarship has emerged, we try to write in a
way that is both scholarly and comprehensible to the nonspecialist. This
sometimes means our work is unfairly dismissed as being unscholarly. Even
more critical, and more deeply challenging to the scholarly ethos, is our
recognition that 'objectivity' is a myth. (xi)
I bring my own idiosyncratic beliefs and visions to this project. This includes an academic
search for the historic-anthropological and social reasons for certain depictions within the
Old Testament and my own personal search for women' s voice and story within the text. I
have a need to share this discovery process. In my poetry the academic and the personal
come together in such a way as to posit a redemptive individuality to these women' s
stories. The common ground of gender questions will enable many new readings of
women's stories in the Old Testament. I openly align myself with such feminist postmodern writers such as Mieke Bal who states:

18

The alternative readings I will propose should not be considered as yet
another, superior interpretation that overthrows all the others. My goal is
rather to show, by the sheer possibility of a different reading, that
'dominance' is, although present and in many ways obnoxious, not
unproblematically established. It is the challenge rather than the winning
that interests me. For it is not the sexist interpretation of the Bible as such
that bothers me. It is the possibility of dominance itself, the attractiveness
of coherence and authority in culture, that I see as the source, rather than
the consequence, of sexism. (Bal3)
Many feminist biblical scholars seek to place themselves and their readings in the arena of
post-modernism. They value a non-hierarchical weaving of many truths. I too, believe that
we, as readers, all carry a personal history rife with assumptions and traditions that we,
often unknowingly, carry into the texts. Part of a post-modern examination includes a
conscious, and often self-conscious, reaction against earlier modernist theories. JeanFran9ois Lyotard in, "Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism", states that
postmodernism is an "incredulity towards metanarratives." Peter Barry sums up Lyotard's
definition of postmodernism as: "the best we can hope for is a series of 'mininarratives',
which are provisional, contingent, temporary, and relative and which provide a basis for
the actions of specific groups in particular local circumstances" (87). Accordingly, this
project admits to personal biases and a search for a landscape of freedom. It is not so
much that I wish to reinvent the text as I wish to posit the possibility of many
interpretations. One interpretation is the patriarchal standard to which I was exposed in
my youth. Other interpretations are the feminist explications of Mieke Bal, Alicia Ostriker,

19

Alice Bach, and Phyllis Trible, as examples. Feminist explications may mean a revisioning
of women's stories in search for women's autonomy or they may mean illuminating a
patriarchal agenda that negates women's voices and realities. I locate myself with Bach
when she states, in Women, seduction, and betrayal in biblical narrative:
... interpretations reflect what happens when a woman reading stories of
women stubbornly reads them like any reader reads, recreating, assembling,
connecting figures, freeing them from the prison house of language and
tradition that isolated them artificially. Altering the landscape, playing with
the texts, permits the hypothesis of an unreliable narrator, one who is not
the mouthpiece for the omnipotent deity, one whose version of the story
may be challenged. This game offers the player one way around the
ideological old-boy network that has held the Bible in thrall. (32-33)
The language and versification in the King James Bible is poetic. Its repetitions of entire
lines and repetitions of certain words are designed to emphasise and draw attention. It is
this reverence for language and for the spoken and written word that enabled my sense of
the poetic. Certain phrases and words will resonate in my mind's ear forever. "In the

beginning was the Word, and the word was with God, and the Word was God (St. John
1: 1).

There are framing techniques, an acknowledgement of the beauty in patterns, and
the love of sonorous wording within the King James Version. There is beauty in naming
and a joy in words. This joy in words -- the sound and exuberance of words has stayed
with me. But the King James Version also provides a dilemma: the wording and repetition
provide beauty and resonance and yet the gendered language is one-sided. Such a version

20

as the New International Version of the Holy Bible, uses inclusively gendered language
and yet it misses a sonorous tone. The NIV Holy Bible repeats the word "face" instead of
the word "countenance" in the benediction of Numbers 6: 24-26. The word
"countenance", from the KJV, contains many facets of definition. Countenance may be
defmed as expression, aspect, demeanour, composure or calmness (The Oxford English

Dictionary) thus leaving the word open to shades of differing defmitions. In The
Children 's Living Bible, the benediction of Numbers 6:24-26, leaves out some of the
poetic repetition that exists in the King James Version. This poetic repetition provides
important emphasis and lyricism. The King James Version of the Bible is incontestably
poetic. The resonance and the exact words that strike one as beautiful will change from
reader to reader. I fmd that at the oddest moment this benediction of my childhood wafts
through my memory fields.
The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:
The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.
(Numbers 6:24-26) 3

3

The issue of the masculine possesive pronoun being used for what I consider to be an inclusively
gendered LORD is a difficulty within the KN . The King James Bible was translated from a patriarchal
document from within a patriarchal society.

21

Introduction
This project entails a feminist examination of women's stories in the King James Version
of the Holy Bible. I focus directly on the Old Testament stories, beginning with Eve in
Genesis and ending with Vashti and Esther in Esther. I have engaged these particular
narratives for a number of reasons. I pick some stories because of how their oppressive
patriarchal interpretation defines womanhood. I choose some other stories because of the
manner in which they have been ignored. I select some stories of autonomy because of
their liberatory potential for contemporary women. I explore the emancipatory and
oppressive narratives concerning women in the text. This systematic approach to images
of women and the narratives of women's stories will enable a loosening of interpretation.
The academic research that follows the poems is part of the process of discovery.
The wide and divergent scope of written material on biblical stories and the depiction of
women are staggering. I have selected and cited writers who either support or challenge
my ideas about a particular narrative. The research I have undertaken and the ideas I have
consequently set down will aid in a closer reading of the poems that I have created. My
goal within this discourse will be to engage in a nondidactic dialogue with my readers by
retelling the tales of certain women in the Old Testament through poetry. The poems that
re-narrate the selected women's stories may cause readers to re-examine images of women
in biblical narratives. I chose to place the poems before the academic considerations and
before the biblical stories in order to create a brand-new point of entry. This allows
readers to enter familiar biblical stories in an unfamiliar manner. This creates a suspension
of previously held notions about these particular biblical stories.

22

I will, through the use of auxiliary reference material, detail the structures of
ancient Near Eastern patriarchy. Included in the larger structures of analysis will be the
detailing of the minutiae. These minutiae of day to day existence of Old Testament
women's lives will serve two purposes. One, it will open up an area for considering
women's lives with an immediacy that has formerly been distanced by a patriarchal lack of
detail both by biblical writers and traditional exegesis. Two, the detail will provide enough
information, in an evocative sense, to enable a larger image of the social, political and
personal lives of women to emerge.
The lack of detail about these women's lives in the Bible distances the reader from
the individual woman' s story. What we do not know personally, what we gloss over and
do not imagine in a fresh light is easy to denigrate as other. By exploding the lack of detail
with a poetic retelling in detail I will create new considerations of "old" material.
In poetry it is of the utmost importance to use as many factual and metaphoric
details as possible. This creates a synergetic balance between message (intent) and image
(details). Poetry is a dialogue in which the reader interacts with the multiple layers of
meaning in the poems. Poetry is a kind of balancing act with considerations of tone,
metaphor, language, meanings, theoretical alliances, and personal philosophies all working
together to create an exploration of the subject matter.
In a postmodern world the multiple areas in which one can locate oneself is
liberatory. It is emancipatory for its lateral inclusion of many identities, and its
acknowledgement and enjoyment of fragmentation and subversions of text, ideologies, and
time (Barry 83-85). It sets free a sea of voices in which none is privileged over the other.

23

As a postmodern writer I wish to include my voice with the voices of others. With
this in mind I use areas of anthropology, sociology, and poetics within my feminist
endeavour. What I intend is an exploratory celebration of women today. The poems start
from this point and circle back in time, creating a kind of re-visioning. When considering a
project for my thesis proposal I thought long and hard about traditional narratives like
fairy tales and Greco-Roman myths. I chose to examine and re-write certain stories of
women in the King James Old Testament because they are a large part of my personal
history: they coloured how I thought of gender issues and they coloured my poetic
sensibilities.
Examination and illumination are of utmost importance. As a child influenced by a
repressive Protestant church, the images I gleaned were of female oppression and man's
God-given "right" to dominion over women and nature. As a mature reader of these same
texts, and with the added perspective of autonomy and education, I see much more. I
perceive the areas in which women had agency and were autonomous human beings. I
witness where they achieve solidarity in "sisterhood". Where there is little room for
autonomy (for example, Hagar the slave-woman in Genesis 16) and agency, I have
illuminated the minutiae of the women's existences to include a consideration of their
"voice." This includes colouring outside the lines of what was written. The poems evoke
the senses so that a reader might place herself within the story.
I aim to replace and subvert the traditionally narrow confmes of women's stories in
the King James Bible. In doing so, I open them up, turn them upside down, and inside out
to portray a more probable existence. It is ridiculous to assume that no woman in the
ancient Near East could have acted in an autonomous fashion in order to meet her own

24

needs. Within the patriarchal structure of the Old Testament there are stories of women's
autonomy, cleverness, and cunning.
The anthropological texts and history books that have been written from a
patriarchal perspective enumerate how stifling and dominated are these women's lives.

4

These particular examinations of Near and Middle Eastern women's lives come from a
male-biased etic perspective. Feminist anthropologists have been examining Near and
Middle Eastern cultures with an ernie look at women's lives. An ernie perspective, in terms
of cultural analysis, examines a text, situation, relationship, etc. from within its cultural
parameters. 5 Thus if one considers divination or the consulting of oracles a gift of the
god/s, from within the Babylonian culture, it is necessary or harmless. An etic perspective,
in terms of cultural analysis, examines a text, situation, relationship, etc. from outside of
its cultural parameters. Thus Babylonian divination or the consulting of oracles is,
considered from an Old Testament Israelite cultural perspective, evil witchcraft.
A feminist perspective, such as Lila Abu- Lughod' s ernie examination of Bedouin
women's lives, enumerates how this system functions and how women achieve autonomy
within cultural parameters. While acknowledging the inequality between the sexes in
Bedouin society, Lughod states: " ... a woman can resist a tyrannical husband by leaving
for her natal home 'angry.' This is the approved response to abuse" (101). Furthermore, a
woman might rely on supernatural forces to meet her needs. She could appear to be
possessed in order to get her needs met. "Supernatural sanctions, which seem to be
associated ... with dependents, provide the fmal check on abuse of authority" (103). She
4

For example Austin Kennet's Bedouin Justice & George Murray's Sons of Ishmael: A Study of the

Egyptian Bedouin.

25

goes on to elucidate that the Bedouin women whilst professing the need for modesty and
deference, admire young women who are rebellious and outspoken (110). Lughod states
that "the expectations regarding women's conformity to the cultural ideals that
dependents, including women, strive for honor in the traditional sense. They share with
their providers the same ideals for self-image and social reputation, which they try to
follow in their everyday lives" (111).
7

Feminist anthropology6 and feminist history acknowledge women's autonomy.
Further, they consider how and why a patriarchal society constructs a discourse in which
women, and their stories, are omitted. I choose to subvert this assumed exegesis, to give a
portrayal of what was, could be, and should be. My work has a theoretical and celebratory
nature not because I don't know the rules (of a Judea-Christian patriarchy) but simply
because I do and wish to pick them apart to see who else is in the "picture." Women are
indisputably in the Bible, but they have mostly been silenced or marginalised. In my poetry
and research I have heard the voices of the women.

5

See Carol Meyers discussion on ernie and etic perspectives in "Recovering Objects, Re-visioning
subjects: Archeology and Feminist Biblical Study" (281).
6
Such as Lila Abu-Luhod & Kamala Visweswaran's Fictions of Feminist Ethnography.
7
For example Sylvia Van Kirk's Many Tender Ties, Carol Cooper and Carol Deven's articles on First
Nation Women's autonomy in the Canadian fur-trade.

26

CHAPTER ONE
Eve: the beginning of it all
Genesis 1-3

27

Bite me
I swear I knew that snake from before
I was small and unforgiving
and always believed what I was told.
(because) the snake, snake, snake
called me again
from the garden and I fell
delicious to the soiL
And swimming, imbibing
getting drunk on snake
left me stupoured or stupid
and I laboured.
I knew it was too much to blame
on one silly consort.
The invention of wicked snake
evil snake, snake, snake, snake
came from the jealous eyes
of those drones uncomforted.
Knowing was, after all, what I was
and had been accused of
one little bite and ...
Poisoned like the snake that was harmless
and pretty in its camouflage.
Till they took on the image,
and now look at him
all bloated with importance
and full of venom
I liked him better as the
garden snake.

28

Sweet sweet like sugar and spice
The beauty of Eve like the evening
in delicious raiment of lavender pineapple
and kumquat.
A woman of such magnitude that she had to fall:
deep in the soil of the garden,
deep in the muck of the earth,
hard into the chasm and stick there
wracked with the pain of birth.
Hard to be earth:
volcanic and mercurial,
responsible for the continuance
of season on season.
And treason, after all,
no more than a small bitter green apple.

29

Tapdancing on the story
Genesis 1 verse 26
Let us make man in our image
after our likeness
gets up and runs around
on its own two feet
then we could go a'wandering.
We could (all of us)
go dancing on the tips
of the lianas
and swimming past the epiphytes
rub shoulders
with the apple tree
the kumquat
even that juicy peach
Just let us go a'wandering
let us go a'dancing
as we are: our likeness is
and we will be smiling
fosterparents to what we leave behind
not so unattended.
While we are day tripping
on the cobblestone stars
tapping past those crazy planets
then they can have dominion
we can abdicate
and leave the naming
that constant epistemology
will keep them busy
(those in our likeness)
we're going dancing.

30

Shards of Mesopotamia broken
It could not be more difficult:
the talent in the hands the mouth.
The mind
held captive after all
by the tresses the languor
the gravescence:
the undulating beauty of the lianas,
the cotton mouth.
The swamp has little in common
with forest and garden.
The fences,
are no more than boundaries
of the truths in delineation.
This is where I stand,
there is where you linger,
we may tarry here.
I want to get back to the garden
the paradise lost
too many times.

31

Eve: the beginning of it all
Genesis 1-3
I begin at the beginning, savouring the words and poetry of the written word and dubious
of the messages that I remember from childhood. I begin with the first woman's story and
my memory of the absolute blame and condemnation that had been ascribed to Eve. Her
role in the downfall of mankind -- that of seductress and betrayer names her weak-willed
Eve made from man, for man. She becomes the cause of mankind's expulsion out of
paradise. My memory contains images of Eve as responsible for women's travails in
childbirth and, as well, responsible for the umnentionable taint of menstruation. Eve's
transgressions, her original sin, coloured my childhood ideas of women. She, Eve, was
after all held responsible for the conversation with the serpent and the disastrous
consequences thereafter.
Because I had been raised to consider the Bible as fact and not as story these
remembered images affected my notions of gender, sexuality, and power over hierarchies.
It is impossible to reconcile any notion of gender equality with the patriarchal version of
Eve with which I grew up. Thus I embarked on a re-reading of the Old Testament to
discover what images of women I would glean from the stories. I ventured farther afield as
I examined what I felt is relevant theological and feminist discussion. More often than not
these textual discussions contained issues of gender and history. Examining the details of
history I looked at the mythos that likely gave birth to the King James Versions of
creation. I look at patriarchy and the male manifestation of the monotheism. The
omnipotent male monotheistic God of the Old Testament is separate from humanity and
difficult to reckon with.

32

THE FIRST ACCOUNT OF CREATION

What I noticed first in my re-reading of the King James Version of creation is the
equality that is found in the initial expression of the creation of Humankind. I rather like
the idea of Adam and Eve as either figuratively or literally being created in the likeness of
the "Gods". The notion of plurality in: "Our likeness" has a resonance that was missing in
the patriarchal exegesis of my childhood. Somehow this lateral manner of creation by
many gods lends a more egalitarian view of gender roles. The multifaceted ideas that can
be explicated from this one particular verse can then cause a re-reading or revisioning of
Eve.
My experience with biblical literature began with oral tales of the bible stories told
from a pulpit. The slant was decidedly patriarchal. "Our likeness" (Gen. 1:26) and the idea
of a plural god/s was certainly never mentioned. I came from a faith that was contingent
upon believing what one was told. Bible reading was an act of devotion: it was not an act
of inquiry. Seeking for myself what these stories say about women, societal norms, and
continued patriarchal prejudice I then considered how, here, these messages might be
subverted. The subversion is liberating. Men' s stories about women become a woman's
story of women. Men wrote the King James Version and the Dead Sea scrolls. They
focussed on the stories of men. The stories of women in the Bible either denigrate women
as "bad" for being in opposition to the patriarchal norms or revere women as "good" for

33

supporting the patriarchal norms. I seek clarity and detail in the lives and characters of
these Old Testament women.
There is equality of the sexes in the beginning, in the first tale of the creation. The
binary opposition that is so clearly indicated elsewhere in the Genesis does not exist in this
text. This particular part of text is overtly inclusive. The sharp delineation between male
and female, even humankind and god/s that are found elsewhere do not exist in this text.
Fewell and Gunn in their essay "Shifting the Blame: God in the Garden", remark upon the
notion of a god or gods with a malleable identity: "Thus, despite the appearance of a
world ordered and sustained by exclusive and fixed definitions, God's own blurred and
slipping self-definition suggests that things might be otherwise. This world might in fact be
as inherently indeterminable as the identity that creates it" (18).

THE SECOND ACCOUNT OF CREATION

For a fe~inist reader the King James Bible's second expression of the creation is
more problematic because of its emphasis on male primacy because man is created first.
This second account of Eve and creation is more detailed and yet tradition has long seen
these passages as supportive of the notion that women are secondary citizens. There is a

34

continued insistence that the firstborn is more important. This is part of a hierarchical
belief system.
Feminists appeal to God's judgment against the woman in Genesis 3:16'[man] will rule over you' -in their attempt to prove that female
subordination was caused by the Fall. A more thorough look at the biblical
evidence reveals, however, that this is not the case. Male headship is clearly
established in the creation account in Genesis 2 - before the Fall even took
place. Man was created first. And the woman was created from Adam's rib
to be his helper (Gen. 2:18). Certainly, both male and female were created
in God's image and were accorded personal dignity, but God in the creation
narrative set them in a nonreversible relation to one another- male in
loving headship over the female. (Rhodes 20)
The traditional Christian interpretation of the second act of creation is also problematic.
The emphasis of woman being made or created as "helpmate" to man has set the standard
for the consequent interpretation of man as privileged head of the family unit.

Traditional exegesis attributes the trials and tribulations of being a human animal to
Eve. She was the one to eat the forbidden fruit and all of humankind's difficulties are

35

from the source of her sin. She is, apparently, particularly more responsible than Adam for
the misdeed of succumbing to temptation. The perception of this particular act has many
consequences in both how men perceive women and how women perceive women. A
recent republication of a book on biblical women by a secular publisher is a good example
of this kind of slanted traditional explication. Edith Deen states in her book All of the

Women of the Bible, that:
After she had partaken of the forbidden fruit, she also gave it to Adam, and
he too ate it, thus sharing in her guilt. In this act we have an excellent
example of woman's impulsiveness and man's inclination to follow
wherever she leads, even into sin. Eve with Adam 'hid from the presence of
God' for they knew they had done wrong. Afterward, when Eve told God
that 'the serpent did beguile me, and I did eat,' she displayed the natural

tendency ofwoman to blame, not herself for her wrong doings, but those
around her[emphasis added]. (6)
In the very next paragraph Deen makes a case for women's redemption through marriage
and motherhood. The notion that suffering [like Christ's] is redemptive is problematic for
women. Within the idea of redemptive suffering the pain of childbirth becomes a pain that
ought to be embraced. ''Though Eve fell far short of the ideal in womanhood, she rose to
the dream of her destiny as a wife and mother .... In Eve, motherhood became a great
sacrifice and a sublime service ... for Eve, though motherhood often was achieved at the
price of anguish, it became her sacred responsibility" (Deen 6).
Such stereotyping of women's roles that arise from the belief that these are God's
edicts are damaging to women. To suggest that to be a wife and mother is to suffer
36

sublimely and redemptively is to place women in narrow and confining roles that do not
acknowledge the unique needs and personalities of the individual. The notion of an ideal
woman is dangerous for women who have been raised in a patriarchal system, because
they may buy into it, and may not perceive of themselves in terms of this ideal and thus
fmd themselves lacking. Even the great reformer Martin Luther King has spoken of the
need for women to bear children in pain so that they may be spiritually redeemed:
The pain and tribulation of childbearing continue. Those penalties will
continue until judgement. So also the dominion of men and the subjection
of women continue. You must endure them. You will also be saved if you
have subjected yourselves and bear your children in pain. Through bearing
children. It is a very great comfort that a woman can be saved by bearing
children. (as quoted in Fontaine 89)
Joanne Carlson Brown and Rebecca Parker write in their article about the connection
between Christianity and the abuse of women. In "For God So Loved the World?", they
state that we women, in North America,
... may still fmd ourselves so accepting of our own place as helpmate that
we catmot see that we are denied our full humanity because we are women
.... Christianity has been a primary- in many women's lives the primaryforce in shaping our acceptance of abuse. The central image of Christ on
the cross as the saviour of the world communicates the message that
suffering is redemptive. (2)

37

The patriarchal attribution of Eve's suffering in childbirth as both punishment for the
transgression of original sin and as redemptive is troubling. Because in this way, only
through pain and suffering can women atone for their sins.

1

Many theologians today have a broader concept of what Eve and Adam's actions
represent. These concepts range from notions of Eden as a non-hierarchical utopian ideal
to strive towards, to regarding Genesis as a parable of the question of responsibility for
the moral choices one (who is human and imperfect) makes. Elaine Pagels states: 'Thus
pain, oppression, labor, and death are punishments we (or our ultimate ancestors) brought

upon ourselves" (128).
In my research I came across many discussions of the pre-history of Genesis. 2 I
include in this endeavour the ones that interested or disturbed me. In my poetry I create an
Eve of grand proportions. As "first" mother she is both figurative/ allegorical and literal.
She is progenitress of humankind. Gerda Lerner comments that the ability to procreate
softens the harsh blow of mortality from the Fall and that Eve might be interpreted as "the
carrier of God's redemptive and merciful spirit" in her role as mother (188).
These historical underpinnings explain the patriarchal taint but even as humankind
creates story, mythos, and religion to support a societal structure, that very creation can
change society. Thus society creates religion and is re-created by it:
The hierarchical division between men and women was yet another social
institution that biblical Israel shared with her neighbours and did not think

1

See Trible's examination of traditional exegesis in regard to Eve's culpability in God and the Rhetoric of
Sexuality and Bal's story of Eve in Lethal love.
2
See Ilana Pardes' Countertraditions in the Bible, John D. Currid' s Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament

& Joseph Campbell's Occidental Mythology: The Masks of God.

38

to question. In the primeval history of Genesis, there is a 'historical'
explanation of the male dominance and hierarchy. A point in mythical time
when they carne along with culture as a result of the actions of Eve and
Adam. The divine declaration in Genesis 3: 16, 'your desire is for your
husband and he rules you' is part of the divine legitimisation of the difficult
but unquestioned conditions of human existence: work, pain, hierarchy, and
death. This divine warrant validates the status quo. It is a reification of the
social order that people already have before them. (Frymer-Kensky 128129)
New stories always contain an element of the old stories for we both create and are
created by the stories of ourselves. In the manner that Genesis contains elements of its
prehistory, this poetry that I create, contains the old stories too, whether as inversions or
revisions. As Alicia Suskin Ostriker, poet/writer, states of the Old Testament: "Yet the
beginning is not the beginning. Inside the oldest stories are older stories, not destroyed but
hidden. Swallowed. Mouth songs. Wafers of parchment, layer underneath layer. Nobody
knows how many" (The Nakedness of the Fathers: Biblical Visions and Revisions 15).
Joseph Campbell visions the pre-history that flavours Genesis in Occidental

Mythology and Tikva Frymer-Kensky's visions the Genesis pre-history In the Wake of the
Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth. The Old
Testament asserts that the Hebrew's polytheistic (gods and goddess worshipping)
neighbours were barbarous and evil. Frymer-Kensky notes that the polytheistic belief
systems of ancient Mesopotamian civilisations were concerned with "moral deliberation,
philosophical speculation, and penitential prayer. Instead of the benighted paganism of the

39

Western imagination, cuneiform literature reveals to us an ethical polytheism that
commands serious attention and respect" (2-3).
Tik:va Frymer-Kensky is adamant that the roles of gods and goddesses were
integral to the belief systems of the ancient Near East. Goddesses were not worshipped
only by women but were integral to all levels of society. She notes that women were part
of the creation of stories. In ancient Sumer the poet Enheduanna, who was both priestess
of the god Nanna and daughter of a King, composed poetry that is part of the literary
canon of ancient Sumer. Frymer-Kensky makes the connection between Eve and the
creation of culture. She believes that this is Eve's role as hero. Frymer-Kensky's reading
of the bible is informed by her knowledge of Near Eastern literature. Without the bias of
an ascribed Christian doctrine she is free to note the hero/culture making attributes of Eve.
While the statement below will strike some readers as essentialist -- as if it is an absolute
immutable truth, I posit that this "women's role" is provisionally dependent on time frame
and social constructs and circumstance:
Eve, the Bible's first culture bearer, is human. And she is female. This
depiction of Eve as culture hero has an inner coherence and logic to it, for
Eve's role in this primeval scene is the woman's role in the life of human
beings, and that of the goddesses of the ancient Sumerian pantheon. The
goddesses are figures of culture and wisdom just as women are the frrst
teachers of cultured existence, the transformers of raw into edible, grass
into baskets, fleece and flax into yarn and linen and then into clothes, and
babies into social beings. They are mediators of nature and culture in daily

40

life, and Eve the first woman is the first transformer who begins the change
from 'natural' simple human beings into cultural humanity. (110)
The remaining nuances of goddess centred linages ii1 Genesis and their denigration
support the attributions of the goddess in Eve. In, Occidental Mythology: The Masks of

God, Joseph Campbell considers pre-history and Eve. He traces the path of the goddess
and notes that in the village stage of ancient Near Eastern history the goddess is revered
and worshipped as both sustainer of life and recipient of the dead. He states:
In the earliest period of her cult (perhaps c. 7500-3500 BC in the Levant)
such a mother-goddess may have been thought of as only a local patroness
.... However, in the temples even of the first of the higher civilizations
(Sumer, c. 3500-2350 BC), the Great Goddess of highest concern was
certainly more than that. She was already ... a metaphysical symbol: the
arch personification of Space, Time, and Matter, within whose bound all
beings arise and die ... And everything havii1g form or name- including
God personified as good or evil, merciful or wrathful- was her child within
her womb. (7)
There remain traces of such a goddess in the depiction of Eve in Genesis -- there is the
connection of Eve with the serpent. Here she is evil, the devil in disguise. Within this
binary framework there is a marked separation between good and evil. The all inclusive
possibilities of the Earth goddess is gone. In many Near Eastern religions for some 7,000
years before the writing of Genesis, there existed the symbol and deification of the serpent
(Campbell9). The serpent's role ranged from beii1g a consort to a Goddess to being a God
who incorporated the endless mystic cycle of life (uroboros).
41

Although the beginning of the Bible (Gen. 1 26-27) includes the notion of godplurality the rest of the Bible condemns the religions of polytheism, which include both
male and female gods. The shift from polytheism to monotheism includes the suppression
and dismissal of goddess values. As Campbell observes, war and consequent occupations
brought new patriarchal values to Sumer, Assyria and the Mesopotamian areas by factions
who held strictly patriarchal values:
Towards the close of the Age of Bronze and, more strongly, with the dawn
of the Age of iron (c. 1250 BC of the Levant), the old cosmology and
mythologies of the goddess mother were radically transformed,
reinterpreted, and in a large measure even suppressed, by those suddenly
intrusive patriarchal warrior tribesmen whose traditions have come down
to us chiefly in the Old and New Testaments and in the myths of Greece
.. there is consequently an ambivalence inherent in many of the basic
symbols of the Bible that no amount of rhetorical stress on the patriarchal
interpretation can suppress. (Campbell 7, 17)
The depiction of Eve in Genesis laid the foundation for how women were to be viewed
and treated. Every tribulation of humanity -- starvation, depravity, sexual abuse, even the
very nature of childbirth, is apparently attributable to Eve. "For good and evil, Genesis 13, perhaps more than any other biblical text, has influenced the way men and women relate
to one another in the Western world" (Fewell and Gunn 16).
Traditional Christianity often sees the universe in terms of black and white. The
worship of God is good and the worship of goddesses is evil. Women are either very good
or very bad. It is important to re-examine these stories in order to blur these sharp

42

delineations. In order to maintain the position of male as innately superior patriarchy has
defmed for us what being a good or bad woman means. These stories can be re-examined
for more inclusion. As well, it is important to recognise that the Bible is an old text with
Old World values.
Look again, read between the lines, and savour the poetry. Within these texts,
there are shades in-between the vestal virgin and the whore. One has only to look with
fresh eyes to see the possibilities.

43

CHAPTER TWO
Sarah: Mamma's gonna sing
Genesis 12-23

44

Mamma's gonna sing you a lullaby
God the father did come visiting
while I sat in the tent during the heat of the day
and considered the endless game of please god please.
While I am bitter and disgruntled and hide behind the tent flap
I play with the notion of Asherah -- think of her rod
the tree of life flowering and blooming.
I am leafless in this desert heat when all is dry,
I drag my sandals across the mat and push aside my heavy hair.
The voices are what stir me from my lassitude
my recumbent game bent on some kind of pleasure.
Do I do what I am told?
Make the cakes and bake -- with them,
in the heat of serving the strangers while my husband
runs circles for his lord.
Under the tree in the heat of day they feast
while famished in the tent I listen.
I laugh at the grand boasting,
I, who neither bleed nor bed,
I, who trusts neither the words
nor the pleasure
promises from the god of men.

45

The curl and spit of a foreign lip
(women always the strange one)
Sarai wore her adornment of beauty
as adornment reigns on this earth.
The Egyptians
in her time of beauty worship
with cat-eyes,
with gold bracelet bangles
jingling the change in their pockets.
Abram wound the transgression
of his half lies, his forked tongue flickers
girdling his loins in gold.
His belly to the ground
and sliding on his words
tunnelling for his soul.
In the twist and turn of journeying
in the always of the foreign soil
the wife (Sarai) was given out as easily
as lending a horse or a favourite servant.
The rich rich soil of the fertile Nile
bore witness to the wife (her identity dependent)
Sarai the barren woman:
concubine to the philistine Pharaoh.
Abram was piled with gloaming hordes
of rain water gold
and he, endless descendant of desert dwellers
drank the sweet richness
of the sheep, oxen, men servants.
Maid servants, surely, cold compensation
for his wife wrapped in gold leaf
an eternal weaving to the admiration of men.
In the foreign arms and bed chambers
Sarai, fucked and plucked
and set as adornment
in the palace of the Pharaoh.
A desert sparrow midst
the tumble and fumble of darkness:
fledgling offering.
Lapis lazuli in her lap.

46

El-Shaddai- Goodness gracious, lord God almighty
Sarai never was a happy woman,
she lived her life within the sight of an anxious god.
Saw him in dusty mirrors
startled him when walking around corners.
Saw him at night in the stars that should have been sleeping.
Closed her eyes as tight as she could to keep god from leaking through
and disturbing her dreams.
Sometimes a woman gets tired of god.
Might even laugh in his face in exasperation.
Wonder if she thought of god
when she lay in chambers, just another harem girl:
concubine to the Pharaoh,
staring at the mosaic ceiling
given away by her husband and then returned
godspeed, godsent and godforsaken.
She mistreats the servant, beats her, really,
thumps on the mocking drum of her countenance.
Dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum.
Bitter and laughing, now,
at the angel -- her years of prayers unanswered.
Jumpy what with god rising up just about anywhere.
And now that the dryness of the desert has crept up and under and into her skin,
he goes to her husband circumventing her path, for once,
when he would have been welcome.
Always the sneak he sends his emissary directly to
her half-brother the one with a penchant for convenience
the one who fmgers his pocket-book
while he looks anywhere but at her.
Like he can be trusted.

47

Sarah: Mamma's gonna sing
Genesis 12-23
If Eve is the prelude to women's stories in the Old Testament, then Sarah begins the body
of women' s stories. Hers is the first story where a woman is fleshed out and given
substance. Her larger than life husband Abraham, the forefather of the Hebrews, generally
overshadows Sarah' s story in Genesis. After all, it is Abraham who is willing to sacrifice
his favourite son just on God's say so. Sarah herself is more willing to act in order to
defend her child than to injure him. Sarah's story is a convoluted one. When I was a child
her story seemed less important than Abraham' s did but now I wonder. I speculate about
many things. How did it feel to be barren in a society that placed respect upon fertile
women and not on barren wives? Exactly what did happen to her in the court of the
Pharaoh and in King Abimelech's court? As mother of a nation, she is upheld as virtuous
and faithful. It seems to me that she is less than an exemplary character of these traits.
What she is is human, complete with inadequacies and frailties. She has needs that she
attempts to meet and consequently follows her own agenda. I will never think of Sarah
only as matriarch of a nation ever again. She is so much more.

This blessing of becoming "a great nation" is promised unto Abram through his
wife Sarai. Sarai or Sarah, is one of the reigning matriarchs of the Old Testament. It is

48

through Sarah that the Royal house of Israel is founded. But what do we know about
Sarah as a person, or even her position in the stories of Genesis?
I have always felt remarkably ambivalent about Sarah. She has ascribed positive
attributes and displays negative character traits. She was ascribed the role of mother of a
nation, and not just any nation-- God's chosen people. She serves in traditional doctrine
as a patriarchal example of appropriate womanhood. She has been upheld as a fme
example of womanhood: someone to emulate. She goes through much wandering and
turmoil following her husband. Sarah, as all women in the Old Testament, has little voice
or dialogue of her own. Her actions, although hardly exemplifying kindness and
"brotherly" love, nonetheless are upheld as approved of by God. Even the transgression of
laughing at the word of God is forgiven.
Mostly Sarah is remembered by Christian readers as recipient of the miracle of
bearing a child at an impossibly old age. She is not remembered for her captivity by
Pharaoh or for her captivity by the king of Gerar. The captivity that is sanctioned by her
husband is seldom remarked upon. This trade of Sarah's beauty for wealth remains
unquestioned by traditional Christianity. They commemorate her role as mother of the
Israelite nation but not the manner in which she treats her handmaiden. She is remembered
for her barrenness and the miracle that was visited upon her but not for her individual
character. Who was she? What does her barrenness symbolise? Is she an individual with
her voice erased or is she a symbol used to propagate the rulings of a monotheistic God?

49

Sarai, as the wife of Abram, journeys from her homeland wherever Abram goes.
Her beauty is so noteworthy that anyone who sees her makes comment to the Pharaoh
about it. She is passed off by Abram as his sister and taken by the Pharaoh as concubine,
when they entered Egypt. This half-truth about being siblings is not a direct lie because
theologians believe that Abram and Sarai share paternity-- a common enough practice
amongst ancient Near Eastern patriarchal cultures. Kirsch writes: "We cannot be entirely
sure whether Abraham's belated claim that Sarah is his half sister is yet another deception,
but rabbis and scholars have taken Abraham at his word and concluded on such sparse
evidence that marriage between half siblings was permissible under the laws of ancient
Israel" (45). Luckily for Sarai the Pharaoh discovers the truth of her being a married
woman before he consummates their union. Luckily for Abram that he ends up being
extremely wealthy because he traded off his wife.
This story of Sarai saving Abram by becoming her husband's "sister" is repeated.
In Genesis 20 Sarah becomes Abraham's "sister" in order to fool Abirnelech king of
Gerar. These two tales may be differing versions of the same story. There are no
references within the text to indicate that bartering one's wife for one's own personal gain

50

or safety is a moral misbehaviour. Abraham is not punished by his society or his God. As
Alicia Suskin Ostriker states:
There is no indication in the biblical text . .. that ... Abram is
blameworthy in making his wife available to a ruler or in asking her to lie to
save his life; in each case violence is avoided, God intervenes to protect the
wife (the husband's property), and the husband is enriched. (The

Nakedness of the Fathers: Biblical Visions and Revisions 56)
The notion of a wife being passed off as a sister appears incestuous to the modem reader,
as we do not have the same figurative conventions within our culture. We are not

•

surrounded with the mythos of cultures whose creation stories have intermarrying
brother/sister gods and goddesses. Many scholars believe that the term sister was used to
convey an extra-special connection between a man and a woman. According to Phyllis A
Bird, in Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities: Women and Gender in Ancient Israel, a
woman, especially a young woman, may be described as sister within the structures of
ancient Near Eastern love poetry (61). Kirsch makes the supposition that this wife-sister
motif "is based on a long-forgotten tradition of an ancient people known as the Hurrians
who placed such importance on the brother-sister relationship that a man might adopt his
wife as his sister at the same time he married her" (46).

This image of Sarai as barren overshadows any other attributes she has within the
narrative. The theme of childlessness in the Old Testament occurs frequently. Sarai' s role

51

within the story is to exemplify the unfulfilled infertile woman and then to exemplify the
woman to whom God grants the favour of fertility. This serves to emphasise God's role in
child bearing and to emphasise the importance of procreation. Whereas in polytheistic
cultures procreation was the domain of the goddesses, in the monotheistic belief system of
the Israelites there was a constant need to reinforce the role of the "One God" in regards
to fertility and procreation. The neighbouring belief systems of polytheism could not be
annihilated and so there was always the influence of goddess centred beliefs. These beliefs
were ingrained in the neighbouring cultures and the Israelites could not help but be
affected by them. Thus these neighbouring cultures' beliefs needed to be constantly
denigrated.
One imperative to consider in this part of Sarai's story, told within the tale to
enforce the edict of God's will, is that every matter, even fertility, falls under the realm of
God's omnipotence. In order to be considered worthy as a woman, and have some
measure of security, power, and respect in the ancient Near East-- one must bear children.
Fertility, which is traditionally a goddess domain, has been supplanted by God's dominion
over all. Tikva Frymer-Kensky elucidates the importance of a constant affirmation of
God's role in fertility. It is only through constant repetition that His power is ensured and
believed.
The ancestor stories of Genesis also underscore the divine nature of
reproduction and God's power over it. In these narratives God can shut
and reopen wombs .... God' s role in childbirth extends beyond
conception to all functions previously under supervision of the mother
goddesses . . . . There is no more need for a mother goddess, or for divine

52

midwife-assistants and divine labor-attendants. God, the master of all the
other elements of the natural world, is master of human reproduction as
well. (Frymer-Kensky 98)
A further consideration needs to be evaluated: perhaps it is not God that is so envious of
the goddesses' fertility attributes but it is man 's envy of women's ability to bear children
that is the problem of Judeo-Christianity. If God needed to denigrate the goddess and
make her seem evil, then man must denigrate women. Naomi Goldenberg discusses a
psychoanalytic approach that considers male envy of women and procreation. She draws
on Melanie Klein's groundbreaking work Envy and Gratitude and Other Works 1946-

1963 as her area of entry.
Envy is created because men desire the ability of the female body to nurture and
sustain life. If this is the case then the usurpation of the role of a woman in procreation
must constantly take place in the patriarchal tradition.
A few Jewish and Christian ideas relating to male fecundity and maternity
are these: A male god creates human beings and everything else in the
world. In one version, the god, although spoken of as male, is imaged as
containing both sexes. He thus can clone himself to create both human
sexes. In another version, the god creates a man, makes him pregnant and
together they give birth to a woman. Later, Christian themes continue the
story: first, a male god bypasses all physical contact with a female body and
reproduces himself through a virgin. Then, the male son of the same god
insists that his father's words are more important than 'the womb that bare
thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked' (Lk. 11.27). (Goldenberg 200)

53

Naomi Goldenberg furthers her argument by noting some of the current ways in which
"ritual activities directed by a male hierarchy continually displace women's agency and
creativity" (200). She lists the rites of circumcision, baptism, bar mitzvah, and sacrament
as superseding physical birth, menstruation, and the female body's ability to nurse and
sustain physical life (200). She states that "Incessant repetition of such rites reasserts the
basic religious principal that men are the primary, if not the sole, agents of creation" (200).
There are many reasons for the Old Testament emphasis on procreation regardless
of who is written as responsible. In this manner culture and religion are secured. The need
for procreation is prevalent in harsh or marginal climatic regions. As well as socioeconomic imperatives there is the cultural taboo of barrenness (in the Bible) as depicted as
punishment for some transgression by an angry God. To have children was to have status
and a guaranteed place within a patriarchal culture. "The Israelite man must commonly
have understood his conjugal rights to include the right to progeny, especially male
progeny. A wife who did not produce children for her husband was not fulfilling her duty
as a wife" (Bird 26). A barren woman suffered social and psychological trauma: ''The
barren woman was deprived of the honor attached to mother hood- the only position of
honor generally available to women, representing the highest status a woman might
normally achieve" (Bird 35). Thus the encouragement of childbirth was vital to both
Israel's and to an individual woman's survival needs. Childlessness meant insecurity in a
patriarchal culture:
... a woman's identity, her social status, and even her livelihood were
utterly dependent on the men to whom she was related: first her father,
then her husband, and later her sons. A woman was forced to rely on her

54

children for support if her husband died because a widow generally did not
inherit property from her deceased husband in the ancient Near East; under
biblical law, a man's estate passed directly to his children (Deut. 21:16-17).
(Kirsch 136)

Sarai wanted a child so badly that she instructed her husband to have intercourse
with her slave-girl so that she might then have Hagar's child as her own. This is a
common enough occurrence in Genesis (see also Rachel's story).
When Hagar shows her hatred for her mistress, Sarah reproaches Abram for
Hagar's insolence. Abram responds by telling Sarai -- 'she's your maid-- deal with her as
you want' (Gen. 16:6). Sarai, in turn, "dealt hardly with her and she [Hagar] fled from her
face" (Gen. 16:6). This is not the only bitter treatment the slave-woman is dealt by Sarai.
When Sarai has her own child (a miracle of God) Sarai, now Sarah, instructs the slavewoman and her son to be cast out in the desert. This is a sure death sentence but for the
intervention of God.
Not only is God responsible for procreation he is responsible for death and
salvation in this story-- thus usurping another of the goddesses' roles. God himself speaks
to Abram instructing him to do as Sarai tells him. Since God approved Sarai' s actions they
must perforce be correct or righteous. This, at least, was what I was taught in Catechism

55

class. It never sat well with me. Sarah is one of the only female figures in the Old
Testament God actually speaks to and she's not a very sympathetic character at times.

Sarah has a healthy portion of personality and this is important. In fact, Sarah has
such character that she essentially laughs in the face of God. "Me, an old woman, have
pleasure and procreate, really? Hah!" She even has the gumption or gall to lie about it.
Sarah's character is not uni-dimensional. Her husband-brother gives her away, she is
barren by the will of God, she maltreats her maidservant and son, she laughs in the face of
God, and gives birth to a son at the ripe old age of ninety. These events and Sarah's
response to them hints at a complexity of character that is not merely part of an allegorical
device. In her ambiguity of hero/villain Sarah is more human. Whether Sarah's story is
literal or allegorical, there is no denying that her ambiguity of character leaves the reader
with a multi-dimensional view of Sarah as an individual.

56

There is a constant and continual reinforcement that it is God and his will which
determines procreation throughout the Old Testament. In Israelite society the manner in
which a woman was considered valuable was through her ability to bear children-- to
continue the lineage, the religion, and provide a work force. But what is important to note,
as well, is the continuous repetition of how it is God upon whom procreation depends.
Without the favours of God, women are barren -- with the favour of God -- women's
wombs are opened and they become pregnant. Tikva Frymer-Kensky makes note of
procreation per the grace of God. She states:
Procreation ... had remained the domain of the mother goddesses ... the
mother-goddess never loses her prominence in creating and assuring
childbirth until YHWH 1 asserts control over this area of divine activity.
YHWH's prominence in this area is not simply a matter of one (male) god
replacing another, and 'His' activity in this area must be consciously and
explicitly stated and added to the inventory of YHWH' s powers. The
emphasis that the Bible places on divine control over all aspects of
pregnancy and childbirth is an indication of the radical nature of this
idea. (97)

Sarah is upheld as the mother of the Hebrew nation. As such, her actions are seldom
examined. Traditionally she is considered a good woman. Examination of her story tells us
another story. Sarah was not just a good woman: she was human. She had flaws and

57

virtues. She did as she was told and she did what she wanted. What she wanted most was
the respect, love, and loyalty that a child of her own could secure her. She went to great
lengths to attain this goal. And she succeeded. Her success in the story is attributed to the
omnipotent God of Israel, but it is Sarah who ensures her needs are met.

1

The ancient Hebrews believed God's name was so powerful that to invoke it meant certain death. The
tetragrammaton YHWH was used.

58

CHAPTER THREE
Hagar: The dark side
Genesis 16-21

59

Hagar's story
She was a maidservant always knocking
against the way it felt:
the fire was too hot
the tents too stifling
the desert too cold at night.
Her belly too large: uncomfortable
with a child not of her making.
She was Egypt
who had made pyramids.
Now the belly before her rising
to the sun.
She was pregnant
full like a pomegranate foreigner in Canaan:
the seeds slightly bitter.
She hated that old woman.
Shrugging off the weight of doing God's work
Abraam had left what was women's business
to his barren wife.
Sarai of the pursed lips and
concubine to Egypt
kicked the can of her hatred all over
Hagar.
Anything to get back at what is ever
only hinted at.
The dance of submission
twisted but compelling.
Hagar ran through it all,
the maidservant eyes
both on the horizon and behind her
at the vengeful shadows.
What does Anubis, Thoth or Bastet have to do with
the angel
flaming or dark beside the well?
There was no sympathy for a pregnant servant
crying beside the road to Shur.
The unseeing eyes focused on some distant
futile sanctuary.
Now is what Hagar feels.

60

Surely hopeless.
It is not women who do the naming.
No reassurance, no mercy.
It was a hard road and perhaps the water tasted bitter
or was sweet.
Submit, the angel directed.
Like there hadn't been enough of that already.
And then a bit of cajoling -the start of a litany.
A tradition of
"don't think of yourself, think only of my needs."
Not a bribe but the promise of elusive
continuance.
Ishmael, my son my son.
Like God was listening but to something other
than the sorrow of a maid hard treated.
Always the bigger picture.
It is no wonder and hardly a brilliant deduction
to figure that Ishmael's hand would rise up against everyone
-a wild donkey of a mankicking at the traces.
It becomes a man's story once again.

61

Hagar's epilogue
I am hated in the sharp sun,
bitten by the sharp tongues
and my blood is bitter.
That bitter tang of metallic rust
will dwell in the mouths of my descendants.
Promises, promises.
I carried my belly-full of god
when hers was empty
and now the full blown
miracle of her fecundity has me
once again rolling in the dirt.
The only moisture tears
leaking into the unrepentant dust
of my forefathers.
We use to kick it up to watch it dance.
My son -- my Ishmael
my laughing boy
my wild one.
His fight is obvious.
The slave limbs of Egypt
lissome and longing for the dance,
the desert dunes,
the love of singing
in the sand the old tunes
have turned their back on the only love left to me.
The soil rises up against my knees
and I am stricken.

Mute, sent out into the very landscape
that once beguiled me,
I now hate the wind's lullaby
the death song for my son
carried a hundred yards away.
I cannot listen to his crying
but keep him company with mine.
I hear voices in the wind.
The voice of heaven in that turncoat wind
called me "Oh slave" and
"Oh maidservant"

62

I am used to being told what to do.
It is easier to enter the wind
than to rail against it;
the voices in it scour me clean and empty.
What skeletal remains are left
are white, pure, and sharp.
You could cut your tongue on my love
that picked my boy up and found that well
springing bountiful.
He is grown now,
goes everywhere with his bows and arrows,
brings back small things he has killed
so that I might drape my white cold bones with softness.

63

Hagar: The dark side
Genesis 16-21
Hagar: slave, stranger, and woman. These are three strikes against her autonomy in Old
Testament Israel. It is easy to feel sympathy for this seemingly faceless woman -- forever
standing as a depiction of subjugation. We, if we are so inclined, can only imagine her
face, her skin, her age, her feelings. In a sense her utter subjugation and facelessness
leaves an area open through which the reader might empathise with her plight. The
particulars of her plight, which we may identify with, depend more on ourselves than on
Hagar's character. We learn very little of Hagar's personality within this story except that
we are told that she becomes proud or at least scornful of her mistress upon being
"elevated" to concubine status. Hagar is representative of the foreigner in our midst,
Hagar is the "other" , Hagar is us when we feel at our most beleaguered. Hagar is a
symbol of the oppressed.
Phyllis Trible proposes that stories "of terror with women as victims" which come
from the sacred scriptures create a "collage of understanding" with reader, text, and writer
united. Trible's approach to the problematic and violent tales of women in scripture not
only recounts a sympathetic reading and documents misogyny historically and socially but
as well "appropriates the data poetically and theologically''(3). For Trible, Hagar is woman
written as victim:
Hagar becomes many things to many people. Most especially, all sorts of
rejected women fmd their stories in her. She is the faithful maid exploited,
the black woman used by the male and abused by the female of the ruling

64

class, the surrogate mother, the resident alien without legal recourse, the
other woman, the runaway youth, the religious fleeing from affliction, the
pregnant young woman alone, the expelled wife, the divorced mother with
child, the shopping bag lady carrying bread and water, the homeless
woman, the indigent relying upon handouts from the power structures, the
welfare mother, and the self-effacing female whose own identity shrinks in
service to others. (28)

Hagar must, because she is poor, unmarried and owned, do as her mistress bids her. There
is no other recourse. Her value to her mistress, upon whom she is dependent, is because of
her youth and fertility. Hagar is an early example of the surrogate mother. Except she is
not paid for her services and has no choice in the matter. Of course, this raises the
question of whether or not someone who is in a fmancially dependent situation can make a
1

free-will choice about bearing a child for another person .
1

This issue is not resolved today. At the American Surrogacy Center Inc. website, Mark A
Johnson writes "Some Observations Concerning the Law of Surrogacy'' (American). In his section on
"Allowable or Prohibited Expenses" of the surrogate mother he considers the notion of compensation and
"pay''. He states: "States often draw distinctions between what is allowed to be paid to or for the benefit of
a woman impregnated in the "out of wedlock" context, who intends to relinquish the child to another ....
Many states do not allow compensation of the pregnant woman in the adoption or surrogacy context,
believing it either to be a disguised form of compensation for placing the child up for adoption ("baby
selling"), or as offensive to public policy. (np)

65

Hagar is an object to Sarai. A vessel through which she may achieve her end-- that she
might have a child. Hagar becomes more than a mere recipient to Sarai only after she has
conceived. It is only after she has conceived do we note any written consideration about
the person of Hagar: we are informed that "when she [Hagar] saw that she had
conceived, her mistress was despised in her eyes" (Gen. 16:1-4). Through taking note of
her handmaid's emotion, Sarai might consent that Hagar is not an object but is a person
with emotions. Whether Sarai believes her handmaid has emotions is a moot point: she
does not care. Sarai's agenda is what is important.

Sarai quickly does what is necessary to put her relationship with Hagar back onto
the old footing: Sarai is above Hagar in the hierarchy of the Old Testament structure. That
Hagar has looked upon her mistress with new eyes causes a "need" for violence. To
maintain the status quo Sarai must adhere to the hierarchical structure. Sarai "dealt
hardly" with Hagar in order to reestablish her primacy over Hagar. The injustice and
violence is great enough to cause Hagar to flee into the wilderness. The difference in
power and the need to maintain the hierarchy is one of the paramount issues within
Trible's discussion of the story of Hagar. She states:
In conceiving a child for her mistress, Hagar has seen a new reality that
challenges the power structure. Her vision leads not to a softening but to
an intensification of the system. In the hand of Sarai, with the consent of
Abram, Hagar becomes the suffering servant, the precursor oflsrael's
plight under Pharaoh. Yet no deity comes to deliver her from bondage and

66

oppression; nor does she beseech one. Instead this tortured female claims
her own exodus. (13)
Hagar is dispensable: another vessel could be found to carry a child for Sarai. She is on
the bottom of the hierarchical chain of importance. Traditional Christians sometimes
explain Hagar's harsh treatment at the hands of her mistress as attributable to her own
arrogance. Such fmger pointing toward victims is pervasive in many traditional Christian
doctrines. The blaming of underlings ensures that hierarchy is maintained. If the
'dependent' can be made to feel responsible for any abuse then the status quo of the
person in the superior position will be maintained. CaroleR. Bohn's article, "Dominion to
Rule: The Roots and Consequences of a Theology of Ownership," discusses how
traditionalists use the Bible and Christianity to perpetuate a "theology of ownership"(104).
In reading the following quotation, consider how the angel of the LORD instructs Hagar
to "Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands" (Gen. 16:9). Bohn states,
"Religious traditions are relied upon to provide the underpinning of social norms" (105).
Part of maintaining this social norm includes victim blaming. She lists several often-heard
comments from ministers. The following commentary reflects how the victim is made to
bear the responsibility of someone else's actions. This quotation deals primarily with wifeabuse, but the underlying message is relevant to any structure of hierarchy, such as the
relationship between master and servant, parent and child, and human and animal. Bohn
states that, ministers give victims of abuse,

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... advice reflecting the minister's belief in a theology of ownership, advice
such as,
Marriage is sacred and you must do whatever you can to hold it together.
Your husband is the head of the household; do what he tells you and he
won't need to resort to violence.
You must have done something to provoke him; go home and mend your
ways so he will not need to behave in this manner.
All of us must suffer; it makes us more Christ-like. Offer up your suffering
to Jesus and he will give you strength to endure.
In most cases, pastors are poorly trained to handle such situations. Yet they
are generally unable to admit to their inadequacies, since to do so would
require a challenge to the traditional norm. ( 106-7)
The following statement by Edith Deen will rankle most modern theologians and
academics. The statement argues just cause. In order to explain Sara's (the matriarch of
Israel) harsh treatment of Hagar (the slave woman) Edith Deen explains: "Hagar became
proud and assuming and quickly forgot her mistress' generosity in exalting her from the
position of bondwoman to that of concubine" (12).

The messenger of God himself negates the courage of Hagar's flight and attempt
at autonomy within the story. Evidently God would have the status quo of hierarchy

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maintained. Instead of crying out to the LORD Hagar has taken matters into her own
hands by fleeing. God's angel questions her. In so far as the Christian God is
acknowledged to be omniscient -- it is then obvious that this questioning of from whence
and why Hagar flees must merely serve as the emphasis that God has power over her.
The God of Israel, who set in motion the freeing of the Israelites from slavery by
the Egyptians, has no mercy for this one lone pregnant Egyptian slave woman. She is told
to return and submit to further punishment "under her [Sarai's] hands" (Gen. 16:9). Thus
the hierarchical status quo is maintained for God's "chosen people," and used against the
stranger, who is a woman.

The holy annunciation of the birth of Hagar's son is intriguing for two reasons.
First, the LORD is making a covenant with a stranger, a slave, and a woman. Second,
once dispensed with for her role as vessel for her son Ishmael, this story in Genesis
becomes a man's tale once again. The God of Israel has seen this woman and she is visible
to him, but then she all but disappears from this scene.
In Islamic tradition, according to the Koran, Ishmael becomes the founding father
of the Arabs. Thus his descendants, Muslims, are the chosen people. In Judea-Christian
tradition, it is Isaac, Ishmael's half-brother whose descendants are the Israelites-- the

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chosen people. In this we can see the supporting structure for two differing origin
accounts of two differing religions: both centering on the male progeny. The intriguing
twists and possibilities of Hagar as individual become sublimated once again in the
reversal. The address from the angel is about Hagar's male offspring. She is told to
submit, but her son will fight on and on. The androcentric agenda of the Old Testament's
male authors mean, at times, that the feminist reader must glean information about Old
Testament women from where they appear and disappear within a narrative. Cheryl Exum
considers this androcentric agenda:
The fact that occasionally the matriarchs are given the spotlight and are
allowed to emerge as well-defined characters whose actions shape the plot
does not mean that the Genesis writers are suddenly interested in them in
their own right. Rather the matriarchs step forward in the service of an
androcentric agenda, and once they have served their purpose, they
disappear until such time, if any, they might prove useful. (Exum 97)

The issue of birthrights or inheritance is glossed over. "Ishmael, Abraham's
firstborn by Hagar the Egyptian, the first Other Woman in the family portrait. She is
foreign and she is slave and she and her son must soon be painted out of the picture to

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make way for Isaac" (Nolan & Fewe11137). What does remain clear is the transfer of
emphasis from the LORD's covenant with Hagar to the LORD's covenant with Abraham.
Hagar is no more the founding matriarch but becomes instead a mere vessel to Abraham
as the founding patriarch to two nations. It is a man's story once again.

Once again Hagar is in the wilderness -- a place not of refuge but a place of
despair. Hagar is not fleeing of her own accord this time but has been cast out with her
son. They have scant bread and one bottle of water. Hagar reappears as the central figure
alone in the wilderness. She is without the direction of any patriarchal command except
the command of being cast out. In this part of the story, Hagar is often the subject. She
departs, she casts the child, she went, she said, she sat over against him and wept. In this
scene Hagar is both subject of the story and object to be cast away.
This wandering in the desert is not some kind of liberatory relief. Hagar has been
cast out -- not liberated. It is not freedom to be condemned to watch the death of your
child and have no recourse. It is important to note that it is the voice oflshmael's

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tribulation that God responds to and not Hagar's lamentation. "What aileth thee?" the
angel asks (Gen. 21 :17). Hagar' s son is dying, she has no recourse to save him, and they
will die in the wilderness far from any home or family.
Hagar is not given the opportunity to respond, unlike the other time when she has
occasioned her own fate. This time Hagar is muted and it is the voice of her son to whom
God responds. "Although the mother's weeping elicits divine silence, the lad's voice
evokes divine speech" (Trible 25). Once again it becomes a man's story.
Hagar remains a strong figure for women on the margin of the existing hierarchy.
As such her story remains important today because the power structure remains. Although
Western society has made great strides in securing a certain amount of equality for
women, this is not equality for every woman. Race and economics play an enormous role
in regard to exclusion by the power structure. Middle class white feminists are implicated
in this power structure. Lest I present myself as identifying too strongly with Hagar's role
as oppressed "other," I acknowledge that while I have been on the periphery of a
circumstantial power structure I have never been in/at her particular periphery. I was
raised in a white working class family with strong traditional values. I raised my first son,
as a single parent, in poverty for years, but I do not share other than my womanhood with
this ancient woman. It is important to acknowledge that feminism has many voices. Ellen
T. Armour insists that feminists tread carefully in regard to questions of identity:
Womanist critiques and responses to them suggest that white feminist
theologians have assumed that all women share a common female identity.
Feminist theologians tend to align women together as victims of oppression
(which differ only in degree depending on race/ class/ sexual orientation)

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and all men as perpetrators of oppression. If women are all, at bottom, the
same and if the oppression they suffer differs only in quantity degree
(depending on race/ class/ sexual orientation), then women share a
common enemy/ oppressor: patriarchy. (7-8)
We all have our individual alignments and identities. Investigate what affmities you
discover in this text. Read between the lines by sifting through this story. Abraham does as
God tells him. Sarah does as Abraham tells her. Hagar does as Sarah tells her. Both Isaac
and Ishmael do as their parents tell them. The power structure continues to spiral on. But
there is always resistance. There is always the hesitation between what we are informed of
and what we are informed by. There is a world of difference between the two .

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CHAPTER FOUR
Lot's wife and daughters: salting the
wound
Genesis 19

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Lot's wife/ the pillar of salt.
It was always because she couldn't control herself,
the shaking of heads,
the tsking between the benches,
the slender thread of condescension:
women are like that.
I always thought,
sitting thin, wood hard beneath me:
voice high and uncertain,
that I wouldn't have looked.
I would have been obedient.
I was good at that
and non-complaining.
Compliant
except in my head.
I thought, rubbing shoulders with the righteous:
the flesh of weakness is garbed in woman.
But I catch myself, create myself,
before I fall headlong once again
into the enjoyable bones of that trap
wondering-There could have been a thousand reasons.
Did she have doubts, second thoughts
to the third and fourth generations?
Thinking of her children still cloaked,
kept captive in sin.
Who stayed behind?
Her grandchildren splintered by sun and sand.
Her friends hiding under tables,
her mother and sisters flayed by fire, now free?
She had to see what became of them.
Better the knowing than the living death of uncertainty.
You can only hold your breath so long.
The reasons rise up like a threnody
where before I had heard a patronizing fugue.

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From where I sit, recumbent.
Reading,
Headbent on fmding pleasure somewhere,
seeking solace from the drift of sand and salt,
smelling the straightforward smell of donkeys and men,
I lift my countenance unto the baking sun.
Enter,
Looking to be washed clean from memory,
scorched blank of history.
I would have no daughters in this moment,
Fight hard against the late nights of rising and waking
Nursing their fragility until it was mine.
I am brittle.
Dust hard, hard-baked by the beating sun,
flayed clean by the rising wind.
God is playing tricks on me,
toying with the sounds I might be hearing,
imagining my name being called.
Sweet voices of angels or my grandchildren.
If it were that easy to embrace amnesia
I would still be walking,
Eyes to the earth,
Dragging the chains of yesterday behind me.
The horizon is not all I ask for.
What I am is who I was.
I will not forget.

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Lot's daughters
Bargains -- at any price
See how they run,
See how they run.
Lot, the only man in two entire cities who is worthy
and faithful-a servant of God.
See him offer his two
virgin daughters to a mob of angry men intent
on sexual assault and buggery.
Fornicators the lot of them.
Sodimizers too.
This is why God's mad at them in the first place.
Like the destructive path of volcano
brimming over and good to the last drop.
The ftre still catches at the hem of my consideration
it is the old world and they play fair.
It has nothing to do with now except
those that go on believing and keep teaching
their children, their virgin daughters.
Offering up what is not theirs to offer.
In the saline trickle from the face down to
Umbilical remnants;
if I was going to be anyone in this story
I'd be the pillar of salt.

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Lot's wife and daughters: salting the wound
Genesis 19
Lot's wife's and daughters' actions in this story contain elements that are difficult to
understand. When I was young and going to church every Sunday, Lot's wife was used as
a depiction of how women are weak and need to be punished by God for not doing what
they are told. Lot's wife came to stand for women in general and for how they were weak
willed and could not help but act upon their impulses. Lot's wife-- the infamous pillar of
salt, I inferred, got what she deserved.
Rebecca Goldstein writes that the story of Lot's wife was one of the most
frightening to her as a child. She, too, felt the burgeoning depiction of Lot's wife looming
over her:
She was told not to look and she looked; and her punishment came swift
and horrible. Frozen in the moment of her transgression, exposed to the
eyes of all in her moment of rebellion, she was transformed into a spectacle
of salt, reduced to an element vaguely ridiculous, as if to turn back any
notion of pity in us. And for what? She was told not to look back, and she
looked. Why did she look? (3)
Re-reading this story now, I question Lot's actions in this story and I wonder why his wife
turned to look. I question why Lot's daughters acted as they did and how this is/was
considered acceptable. Moreover I question this story and its female characters not just as
lessons or allegory but as individual persons with emotions, individuality, and autonomy.

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This prelude to the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah's destruction and the flight of
Lot, his wife, and their two daughters is not as often told as the tale itself is told. The three
women's identities, which I focus on in this story, are dependent upon Lot -- the patriarch
of the family. I continue the use of their identity being dependent upon Lot's in order to
emphasise their namelessness. This first portion of this story is reprehensible from an etic
or outside perspective whether or not it is considered a literal story or a figurative
allegory. This introduction to the family's flight from their home is as reprehensible as the
afterward of their flight from their home is incredible. This story begins with a supposedly
righteous man offering his two virgin daughters to an angry mob bent on rape. This story
ends with these same two daughters committing incest so that their lineage might
continue. Neither bizarre (by today's standards) act is outwardly condemned within its
biblical narrative.
Lot, apparently, is the only man holy or virtuous enough in the entire two cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah to be spared from God' s honible wrath. This righteous man offers

his two virgin daughters to an angry mob bent on raping the male visitors in his household.
Even given Near Eastern edicts toward hospitality it is still difficult to believe that
hospitality is more important than family. We are asked to accept that their fathers
considered children, especially female ones, as chattel.

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This patria potestas (father-right) was standard procedure in early law.
Two biblical tales, Lot's offering his daughters to the men of Sodom, and
the man of Gibeah' s offering his daughter to the men of Gibeah show what
such right can imply. These men were attempting to cope with an
emergency situation in which they felt their lives at risk, but the narrative
considers them within their rights to offer their daughters. Lot, in
particular, is considered the one righteous man in Sodom. (Frymer-Kensky
192-3)
It is perplexing, the very idea that an act of such barbarity against one's own flesh and
blood might be considered justifiable and an act of hospitality. That such reception of
guests might supersede the needs and well being of one's own children seems abominable
but apparently is condoned by God, nonetheless. Gail Corrington Streete remarks on what
has been considered a justifiable excuse for Lot's behavior: "the frequent justification of
commentators that one must understand the law of orient hospitality, in which male
guests, whether heavenly or earthly ones, have rights that supersede those of the daughters
of the house to bodily integrity" (26-27).
Lot is Abraham's nephew. Abraham, patriarch oflsrael, intervenes with God in
regards to the fate of Lot. Lot is spared because he is the nephew of the patriarch father
Abraham (Gen. 19: 29). It is not Lot I am concerned with in this story except how he
figures in relation to his wife and daughters. Lot's actions are all but impossible to
understand. When I was young it seemed that Lot did things in this story that were pretty
reprehensible but they seemed entirely plausible. I did not question why he acted as he did:
just that he has a right to act this way according to God's word.

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Lot and his wife had other daughters besides the two Lot offered up to the angry
mob. As per the sacred messenger's request, Lot went out and spoke to his son-in-laws.
This in itself is a reaffirmation of the hierarchy of this story. The male is head of household
and decision-maker. Lot doesn' t talk with his daughters but he talks with their husbands
instead. They decide he's making fun of them and ignore his warnings.
These passages do not mention Lot's wife. She is absent from these discussions.
She must do as her husband says according to her societal laws just as her daughters must
do as their husbands say. The text does not reveal what she thinks or fears. She must have
dwelt upon the lives of her children that are left behind.
Edith Deen writes in her book All of the Women of the Bible that scripture
indicates that Lot was a wealthy man (Gen. 13: 10.11). She then makes a supposition that
supports the ascribed patriarchal framework and the use of Lot's wife as a stereotype.
Deen states: "We can easily assume that Lot's wife was a worldly, selfish woman, one
who spent lavishly and entertained elaborately" (17). The conjecture is that Lot's wife
loved the city life so much that she risked God's wrath for just one more glimpse of the
easy life and luxury she was leaving behind (18).

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In order to liberate Lot's wife from being stereotyped as weak or selfish, I revision
her from a feminist perspective. I prefer a story that includes women as multifaceted
characters with a plurality of motives and reasons rather than a single supposition which
unfortunately reinforces the patriarchal allegation that women are selfish and weak willed.
According to Silvis Schroer in her chapter " Toward a Feminist Reconstruction of the
History of Israel," the stories found in the Old Testament "transmit androcentric ways of
seeing"(89). It is for this reason that one must read depictions of women with a certain
scepticism. She writes: "There is selective depiction of the world of women, exclusion,
polemics, distortion, idealizing, and ideology. The texts may well contain important
information if we unmask them as such" (89).
Lot's wife is a nameless woman. Furthermore: she is used as an example. It is
difficult to draw a portrait of this woman other than the one we are given. Still, we must
acknowledge the biased depiction. By doing this we open up the text.
What are the implications caused by the depiction of Lot's wife? In traditional
exegesis she is considered weak for turning back. Like Eve in the Garden of Eden, Lot's
wife has disobeyed a direct order from God. Lot's wife is punished for her transgression.
Alice Ogden Bellis considers women's stories in the Hebrew Bible in her book Helpmates,
Harlots, Heroes: Women's Stories in the Hebrew Bible. She quotes Nunnally-Coxon the
story of Lot's wife.
The stories themselves are very ancient myths and should not be taken
literally. The story of Lot's wife turning back was most likely a tale told to
account for some unusual salt formations in this particular region .... But
once again, in the stories themselves, we can see subtle prejudices on the

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writer's part. It is Lot's wife, not Lot, who turns back and is destroyed, as
she has less importance. (as quoted in Bellis 80)

What Lot's wife fears the most actually happens. Lot and his holy messengers are
right. God destroys the cities in a rain of fire. Her daughters -- her grandchildren are all
destroyed by brimstone. Her babies are gone. She turns and turns and turns. She turns
herself inside out with looking. Lot's wife becomes a pillar of salt. Salt-- sustenance, as
she gave of her body for her babies, so the earth gives for her people. God, the father, has
other ideas. Now she is salt, salt of the earth.

The depiction of sexual intercourse between father and daughters within the pages
of this holy text is difficult for the modern reader. The incest that is apparently condoned

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in this story of the Holy Scriptures is more problematical for those reading it today than
for those listeners of its time. The mythology of the ancient Near East abounds with
stories of incest. There is the Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris, the sister/brother and
wife/husband union of the gods. Pharaohs in Egypt might wed kin in order to solidify
succession. Within Canaanite mythology the god Baal "knew" his sister goddess Anat.
We know of patriline marriages in the Old Testament; that is, the marriage of a woman to
her first cousin on her father's side (such as Isaac's marriage to Rebekah).
In fact, the very direct stipulation in the Bible against incest invites comment on its
existence. Leviticus 18 specifically lists the exact people with whom one is forbidden to
have sexual intercourse. Particular to this story is the command: "None of you shall
approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the LORD.
The nakedness of thy father, or the nakedness of thy mother shalt thou not uncover" (Lev
18: 6-7). The legal codes regarding sex and sexual conduct that binds God's chosen
people in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy had not been written down
when this Genesis story was written but certainly these laws were not made without
precedent.
Lot is Abraham's nephew. Abraham apparently married his half-sister Sarah (Gen.
20: 12). Thus incest, where the fate of the tribe is concerned may be condoned. In this
story the fate of the descendants of Israel and continuity of the chosen people are at stake:
"endogamy -marriage, intercourse, and procreation within the tribe to continue tribal
identity in situations where it is at risk, as critically demonstrated by the ... story of Lot
and his daughters ... is of paramount concern in these texts" (Streete 27).

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It is important to note that in this instance, it is not God opening up the wombs of
the virgin daughters, but it is the daughters themselves who take it upon themselves to
manage the fate of their lineage. This act gives them agency. There must be procreation.
They (the chosen people) must be fruitful and multiply, but this progression/transgression
is at the hands of the daughters. God takes away life in Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot's
daughters return life to their people. Lot's daughters satisfy for themselves their need to
bear children in a society where fertility and children meant continuation. They do so for
self-benefit:
... there can be no doubt that in a society in which women's role is defmed
by motherhood and her status depends on it, barren wives can be expected
to feel anxious and unsatisfied. Furthermore, in ancient Israel, women did
not inherit property. As a result, the well-being of older women depended
on their having sons to care for them in later years. For all these reasons, a
wife's desire for a child might be considered a search for self-benefit.
(Frymer-Kensky 125)
One of the alternate readings of this portion of the story is that biblical writers made the
daughters responsible for breaking the taboo of incest. With Lot drunk (by his daughters'
hands) and with the daughters written as planning and plotting the whole scenario: Lot is
no longer responsible.
What we do know is that these two unnamed women become the matriarchs of
two nations: the Moabites and the Ammonites from which a lineage can be traced through
Ruth (a Moabite) down to the birth of Jesus. A condemning God turns their own mother

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into a pillar of salt for looking back. God remains strangely silent about these two
unnamed women from whom Jesus descends.
Laws, precepts handed down from God, are from an anthropological perspective
more likely tribal taboos and edicts that ensure the continuance of the tribe's survival. And
survival for the people of the ancient Near East is a difficult road. These women, to ensure
continuation, bent laws. God, in this narrative, has taken away life in the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot's daughters have ensured new life although they transgressed
biblical law to do so.
The demons of our past repeat themselves today. The Bible is a testament to the
vagaries of fortune, the weakness of the flesh, and the strength of the spirit. Whether, as a
reader, you believe the Bible to be the gospel truth that must be believed verbatim and
lived out today or whether you believe that the Bible is a collection of stories about a
people attempting to come to terms with their origins, we must acknowledge how the
stories have affected our societies. Through these stories, people seek solace in a harsh
landscape and try to make sense of their lived universe. These stories of women remain
strong, even if they are unacknowledged, and are evident in our music, our theatre, our
poetry, our painting, and our laws.

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CHAPTER FIVE
Rebekah, Rebekah let down your hair
Genesis 24-27

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Rebekah-my love
Going as fast as she wants in the direction intended,
the oblique rolling over as sand rolls over desert.
Where the camels once slumbered on feet of gravel
she looked in their faces -- the amused, arched brows of
the "don't look at me" ships of the desert.
Naming her lineage,
association of the mother tongue
linked to the forefather.
She remembers the day of dismounting
of the veil in the field
and how it fell in Isaac's mother's tent.
She is the mother now,
no mewling cubs her boys as they struggle within her body.
God held her womb captive for so long
it rang empty like a bell.
She hears echoes even now.
This woman is like the desert dogs
from so far east that the howls:
the constant yipping is barely heard over the camels, cattle, and nimble-footed goats.
She turns ideas over in her head: patchworks like the goats.
Schemes to turn the order upside down.
Topsy-turvy brotherhood-a mother's right
upperhook to the sternum.
Her husband is blind and easily fooled.
She does as she wills.

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The trials of Rebekah
A woman could spend an eternity playing what if
in the choices that align themselves so pretty.
Like the lotus blossoms sweet in the evening,
like cinnamon and honey melting on the tongue
and sliding down the bare throat of beauty.
She gave the man what he asked and watered his camels.
Her grace of movement evident
her hip slapping against the pottery jug:
she lifted and dipped
lifted and dipped.
He gave her a nose ring in glinting orange gold
maybe some bangles to tinkle and tangle on her arms.
She invited him to her house,
to the house of her mother
Listened to her brother and father:
mouthpieces of reed
piping up through the dry air.
Kept her own counsel and considered.
Herself lucky after-all.
A strange journey
blood calls to blood after all.
Who wants to partake of foreign men for marriage?
She and her nursemaid went with him
from her home and out into the desert
riding the waves of uncertainty.
Her beauty as astonishing as a kingfisher
drinking from the sands they swam across.
Bright flashings of fmgerlings her eyes sliding silver.
When her intended saw her
he left off his meditations to stare.
He stared Rebekah right off her camel and into
his mother's tent and in the darkness
or the light of smoking embers
he took her places she'd never been
a hurried trip fast bang travelling down narrow streets.
The wind kicking up behind them.
Isaac was comforted.

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Rebekah, Rebekah let down your hair
Genesis 24-27
Who is Rebekah? What image comes to mind of this particular woman? If the reader is
familiar with the Bible, probably then she is remembered as being beautiful and willing to
leave her family to wed a man she has never met. These are laudable characteristics from a
patriarchal point of view. But Rebekah is a trickster character-- sometimes acting in good
faith, sometimes following her own will. Sometimes she is admirable, and sometimes she is
less than admirable. She begins her story by giving the appearance of "proper" behaviour.
Although she does appear wilful: she is without guile. She ends her story with trickery.
Initially she is the poster girl for the perfect bride. She is young, beautiful, a virgin, and
eager to please. But she decides her own fate. She decides she will go with the servant to
her new husband's place. She turns what appears to be status quo womanhood upside
down.
There are some things that are never mentioned in Sunday school, Catechism, or
from the pulpit. Sex is one of the unmentioned items. There are oblique references to it in
terms of procreation. The abrupt consummation of her betrothal wasn't what was
mentioned. What was mentioned was her trickery of her poor old blind husband Isaac.
According to the doctrine with which I was raised, she later became a representative for a
bitter, conniving, shrewish wife. Whether she is heroine or villain depends on who tells the
story, how, and to whom the story is told.
I have been taught that Rebekah was wrong and less than righteous in her dealings
with her husband but perhaps Rebekah, by the end of the story, had eventually learnt

enough about life to know that sometimes you have to please yourself. If you do not
please yourself no one else will.

Within Genesis there are three women associated with wells. Hagar is depicted
beside a well in Gen.16: 4 and again in Gen. 21:19. This story of Rebekah and her
betrothal mentions the well she came to at least eight times. Part of this repetition in the
Rebekah story is a case of poetic emphasis. It also deliberately draws the reader's
attention to fertility, continuity, and survival. The sexual overtones contained in the link
between this maiden and the well is unmistakable. The continuity of the tribe depends on
the life-giving moisture. Rachel, (who will marry Rebekah's son Jacob), too is depicted at
a well in Gen. 29:6. Their association to the founding fathers of Israel links this interesting
triad of women and wells. Hagar is concubine to Abraham and mother to Ishmael.
Rebekah is wife to Isaac and mother of Esau and Jacob. Rachel is wife to Jacob and
mother of Joseph and Benjamin.
These three generations of biblical women and wells may have an association with
fertility older than that of a monotheistic belief. This motif of women and wells intrigues
me. Obviously the people of the Near East would have a certain preoccupation with
water; their very lives depended on this resource.

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Wells represent the ability of humankind to tap into their environment for their
own purpose. There also exists the linking of wells to sustenance and the linking of
women to the continuity of their tribes and families. Both are necessary to the survival of
the tribe. If the well is dry the fields are barren, so also with humans. Water equals life in
the Near East and this is depicted in the well motif: "Isaac, the traumatized, near-sacrificed
man, must marry Rebekah, the water bringer, the life giver" (Rosen, ed. Buchmann and
Spiegel23).

My own political and personal leanings tend toward both a re-visionist storying but
also a socio-political attempt at an understanding that includes an approach of favouring
the ernie over the etic. Where one reader could assume that Rebekah is bought and paid
for by a few shekels worth of baubles, I see decisive decision making. Rebekah is a young
unmarried woman, and yet she takes it upon herself to talk and assist a stranger whom she
even invites home for shelter and food. She describes herself in terms of lineage that is
remarkably equal sided: she is the daughter of Bethuel (father) who is the son of Milcah

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(grandmother). Moreover she runs home to tell her family "them of her rrwther's house
these things" (Gen. 24:28).
What has been hidden and ignored by traditional exegetes can become illuminating
for feminist exegetes. The bias of a patriarchal lens obscures details of female autonomy.
Considerable independence marks these passages of the betrothal of Rebekah. Carol
Meyers in "Recovering Objects, Re-Visioning Subjects" discusses what occurs when the
Old Testament stories of women are read with traditional biases:
Bias is that which foregrounds and favours male activities. This tendency,
which relates to the preoccupation with political history already noted in
discussing biblical archeology, is manifest in the way history or prehistory
is written. The past is construed from the perspective of what males did in
terms of leadership, allocation of resources, establishment of marital ties
and so on. It ignores the possibility of female agency, direct or indirect, in
such areas of social behavior. For historic periods we know that the
relative invisibility of women's activities, because of the bias of verbal
informants and written sources alike, is not a legitimate indicator of female
subordination in the dynamics of day-to-day gender relations. (Meyers 279)

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Endogamy means that one's faith and wealth are kept within the family and tribe.
For women in the ancient Near East it secured their position of importance and meant they
were accorded a respect they would not have had if they had married exogamously. As a
member of the patrilineal family they were assured respect. It is a common enough
practice today in the Near East 1 . It is no wonder that Rebekah embraced the notion of
marriage to her unknown cousin.
One consequence of patrilinear organization is that women are to some
extent either aliens or transients within their family of residence. Married
women are outsiders in the household of their husband and sons, while
daughters are prepared from birth to leave their father's household and
transfer loyalty to a husband's house and lineage. Preference for endogamy
seems to have operated in certain periods as a means of reducing the strains
associated with the "alien" wife (Gen. 24:4; 28:1-2). (Bird 55-56)

See Lila Abu-Lughod's book Veiled Sentiments for an in-depth example of the custom of Arab marriages
to patrilineal cousins.
1

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Rebekah is a determined character. She is, as well, a character who not only
follows her own agenda (proven again with her trickery of her husband; Gen. 27:10 & 13)
but does so at her own pace and her own discretion. She is the one who is consulted as to
her departure date and it is her decision which decides this outcome: "Rebekah personally
consents to go with Abraham's servant to Canaan, where she is to wed her kinsman whom
she had never seen . .. " (Gordon & Rendsburg 121).
The ascribed notion that a woman in the ancient Near East was completely without
autonomy or agenda is problematic. Women have had, and continue to have, a vested
interest not just in their own survival and the survival of their children but also in living
well. Any society in which women could survive without any respect is a society that
denies human spirit. Elizabeth Huwiler writes about the historical reconstruction of
women's roles in the ancient Near East and how it is dangerous to read our own cultural
and recent history into the biblical stories of women. She, too, argues for an ernie rather
than etic consideration. Readers may assume that because women still feel the restrictions
of a patriarchal society that the lives of our female ancestors must have been more heinous
and completely without autonomy. Huwiler writes:
Women' s roles a generation ago-or even several generations ago- cannot
be read back into biblical times. First, although men and women's roles
were different in ancient societies, neither those differences nor the respect
accorded sex roles was the same as today. In our society, work outside the
home often provides higher status than work within the home. But during
much of ancient Israel's history, the extended family was the society' s basic
unit of economic production, and virtually everyone, male and female,

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worked from the home. Second, the idea of women as property is only
partially accurate. In most ways, women were treated as persons in biblical
law, and we see them acting as persons in narratives. (5)

The description of Rebekah running to "her mother's house" in Gen. 24:28 is a
foreshadowing of Rebekah being taken to Isaac's mother's tent in Gen. 24: 67. Rebekah
passes from her mother's home to his mother's home. This oblique link hints at a similarity
between the two women. Sarah is gone and Isaac is "comforted" by Rebekah. Thus
Rebekah replaces the role of matriarch within the narrative. Sarah was barren-- Rebekah

is barren. God allows both women to conceive. Sarah is passed off as Abraham's (her
husband) sister to King Abilemech of the Philistines unto Gerar. Rebekah is passed off as
Isaac's (her husband) sister to none other than King Abilemech of the Philistines.
Sarah and Rebekah are both characters who act autonomously. Sarah does so in a
direct manner in regard to directing her husband to first "obtain" a child by her slave
Hagar and then directs her husband to cast Hagar and the child Ishmael out in order to
obtain a secure place of inheritance for her son Isaac. Rebekah tricks her husband into

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passing the first born's birthright onto the second son, whom she favours (Gen. 27). These
two matriarchs undo the law of succession in order to have inheritance ceded to whom
they have chosen.

This is a thrice repeated tale in Genesis, that of wife-sister. Twice it is told about
Sarah and once about Rebekah. Certainly all three times the husband gained by his
falsehood and is not punished for endangering his wife's sanctity. Even knowing of
figurative conventions within Near eastern cultures that may allow for sister-wife
connections as expressions of intimacy, it is unavoidable to notice just who it is in these
stories that stands to benefit and who it is that stands to lose the most. If the woman is
raped, then her body and spirit are at risk, as well as any respect accorded to her as wife
and mother. The notion of honour being equated with women only having one sexual
partner, her husband, is a construct not only of ancient Near Eastern patriarchal societies
but also of modern North-American society.
J. Cheryl Exum proposes a psychoanalytic analysis of the triad of wife-sister tales

that concludes that these tales work through a male suppressed desire-- the

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dangerous/desirous notion of another man having intercourse with one's wife. The
husbands are complicit in this taboo in that the telling of these tales works through the
repressed unconscious. What is both feared and is attractive is worked through by the
telling of the tale; thus, Exum believes the tales are figurative -- part of a repetitious
compulsion that is necessary in order to work through its tantalizing aspect. "Repeating
the story, working over the conflict until it is resolved, provides a semiotic cure for the
neurosis. By the charmed third time the cure is effected; that is to say, it is believed"
(Exum 155).
What did this handing over of Rebekah to another man mean to Rebekah? Of
course, I cannot know for sure, and each of us, as readers will find alternate ways to
identify or empathise with this part of the story. As a child, I believed that this sort of
thing, while unjust, was within the rights of the patriarch.
The passing off of Rebekah as Isaac's sister does two things in this fabula. First it
emphasises Rebekah's kinship and her endogamous marriage. In a sense, it ensures
Rebekah's safety because she is living within her patrilineal family group. Second, by
trading Rebekah off, that familial protection of the sister-emphasis is nullified. Indeed,
Rebekah is not any more secure as wife within her patrilineal family group than if she had
been a foreign wife. It lends nuances of "alien" or other that explains Rebekah's trickery of
her husband in Gen. 27. Isaac treats Rebekah as object to be used for his own personal
agenda and Rebekah does the same to Isaac in the latter passages of this story.

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I find a liberatory and laudable potential in this aspect of Rebekah's story. She has
her own agenda and follows through with it. She instructs her younger son to take the
birthright of her elder son. It is her plan, her actions, and her instructions that carry out her
agenda. That she practices deceit in order to place the birthright upon the youngest son is
not "bad" behaviour unless one chooses to read it into the text. She is subversive. To be
sure this has been done many times by those seeking to support the doctrine of patriarchy.
The biblical passages themselves, if not outright condoning such trickery, certainly do not
punish it. We are left to believe that the end justifies the means. The saga unfolds as it
should. Rebekah uses her superior cleverness to ensure that her agenda be promoted.
Exum believes Rebekah's trickery has and is received as ')ealous, manipulative and
untrustworthy" (133). She concludes that "The matriarchs' depiction reflects a male view

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both of the way mothers behave- maternal instinct leads them to protect their sons and
promote their interests- and of the way women in general behave" (133).
Such variable readings of the same text supports the necessity for the study of
what some readers have been traditionally indoctrinated to believe about these stories. It
necessitates a re-reading of the stories for themselves. Cullen Murphy comments on the
differing reactions and to women's stories in the bible but he does not comment on why
traditional exegesis of women's subterfuge frequently leads the reader to condemn its
practice:
The bible's most vivid stories about women often raise issues that are at
heart ideological: they have little to do with recovering, or perhaps
uncovering, the larger thematic purpose of the biblical message. Again,
from the point of view of women, the meanings we carry away can be
variable. Take a theme as apparently straightforward as deception.
Deception, dissembling, trickery, subterfuge- as any thematic census will
reveal, these are among the chief functional roles played by women in the
bible. In Genesis 27, for instance, Rebekah devises a plan whereby her
favorite, the younger son, Jacob, secures the blessing of his father Isaac, in
place of the elder and rightful son, Esau. (Murphy 113)
One need not look at this subversive trickster-like behaviour as being "bad" as does Esther
Fuchs in "Who is Hiding the Truth?" (137) and one need not look at the trickery as being
solely liberatory. There is room within the study of women in the bible for the inclusion of
multiple perspectives and voices. The traditional Protestant metanarrative must be opened
up and re-examined with fresh eyes. Traditional Protestant interpretations of biblical

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narratives have established and maintained the patriarchal norm. This version has
obliterated or written over any other possibilities without even acknowledging that this is
what is happening. The dominant patriarchal reading gives way to a multiplicity of
readings. As Mieke Bal states in her introduction to Lethal Love: Feminist Literary
Readings of Biblical Love Stories: " ... there has been in Christian, Western culture a
continuous line toward what I refer to as 'the dominant reading': a monolithically
misogynist view of those biblical stories wherein female characters play a role, and a denial
of the importance of women in the Bible as a whole" (2).
Rebekah 's traditional role is one of the matriarchs of Israel. That is what is often
emphasised and yet, in reading her story, she becomes more fleshed out and real. What is
more is that she is no meek, submissive, traditional "good" woman. She is good: good at
trickery and good at getting what she wants. She is the one who decided she would marry
Isaac and she, for her own reasons, decides that her youngest son deserves the firstborn's
birthright. Rebekah is a "good" mother to Jacob and a "bad" mother to Esau. If the reader
looks closely at the ascribed definitions of women in the Old Testament as "good" and
"bad" one will see that women are, of course, neither one nor the other in entirety.

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CHAPTER SIX
Rachel: sitting on the sidelines
Genesis 29

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Sisterly love
Like palm branches beneath the hooves of donkeys:
Leah won the man
held him in the palm of her hand:
set him in motion like a whirligig -like a jigging man,
The silence that sounded everyday like noon:
louder than the donkey braying at prayer
louder than the village dogs in heat
louder than the beaten camel.
She heard it in her sleep.
When she turned to smile at her sister she felt it.
Felt it burrow deep.
Then travel up her spine to mingle
With her thoughts of rain and dancing
That same tap tap, shuffle and slide.

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Rachel and the Fathomless wellspring and over
(the fairy tale beginnings)
Once upon a time in Northwest Mesopotamia
There was a woman waiting beside a well
just like all those woman
working or lounging or standing on their heads
skirts to the open sky
or held steadfast to earth with demure hands and obedient eyes
all of them wellsprung.
Dutiful daughter this woman.
Beautiful player this child.
No echo of wayward disgrace.
We could rifle through the pages
maybe dance a little to the tune of women like wells so deep:
wellspring of water and milk and honey.
Even after an heroic act like rolling the stone away from the mouth of the ...
well now, pretty sure what that means.
Jacob kissed Rachel's beauty and wept aloud
small flowers blooming at his feet.
Worked seven years to see her smile in the dark at him.
His blood ran cold during the scorch of the day
and hot during the frost of desert nights alone:
Thinking of her whenever he saw water and water was all he saw.
Was given Leah the weak eyed older sister instead on the wedding night.
No mention of how that felt.
It felt like shackles to share the man,
bracelets of one week, two weeks:
Another seven years of work
and Jacob only loved Rachel.
In a rare moment of favour
for Leah beating her head against the mattress
God opened her womb-- the unloved's solace
in children.
Rachel is the barren chamber of Jacob's heart
each thump thump falls away into oblivion
the refrain of "give me children or I die"
still resonates.

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Thus began the constant shove and push
of procreation -- a juggling of swords:
sleep with me, sleep with her,
sleep with the servants.
It is the women' s desires that Jacob enhances
dances for them in the tents.
Give her mandrake root and she will barter
take her power and mould it.
A foreshadowing of the burning times.
A forest-frre of fertility.
There is a zest, a tang in the downwind of Rachel,
she takes the bit between her teeth and makes it
a race, a galloping hurdling
straight forward plunge.
agrees to follow Jacob back to his father's land.
Rachel earns her son
and upon leaving her father's land steals
his household gods.
This rare jewel, a desert rose
folded in upon and convoluted.
Scheming, stealing, lying,
goat-bride,
manipulating woman.
Acting as if she had the right.
The story ripples with an undercurrent.
Fair play in these artesian games.

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Sitting on the sidelines like Karen
Born on a Saturday, Rachel wore the face
she was born with:
tired easily of the "my such a pretty girl" speeches.
She would have worn French braids
she would have worn Calvin's
back in the eighties when jeans were worn tight.
She would have laughed at the teachers
and pushed her friends into the paths of boys they liked.
Karen was the girl in gym class
the one who wouldn't play
the one who declined to run the race:
Karen sat on the benches and talked behind her hand
demanded to be taken seriously-- while she laughed.
Just that earnest and guileful.
Telling the gym instructor:
she had cramps and smiled
a mouth full of metal, gleaming,
beaming when he blushed and excused her.
So too, Rachel held her ground,
sat her horse or camel
smiled with a mouthful of pins
like she'd just finished sewing curtains for the kitchen in home ec.
Did the Mona Lisa first
long before da Vinci.
The same smile the girls in gym class perfected,
the same line-- it's an old one,
while the camels cast shadows
and one dare not dismount for fear of the heat.
The scorching silica of the desert,
sandcastles of truth
not nearly as malleable as tradition.
And nothing is too sacred
and nothing is too embarrassing,
for long hair and beauty
finds its own freedom.

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Rachel: sitting on the sidelines
Genesis 29
Throughout my early years, while I still attended church, Rachel was not an especially
large character. I remember her most for her quotation: "Give me children or give me
death." This exclamation, taken out of its context, was used to support the notion that
every woman's main goal in life ought to be to grow up to be a mother. Within this notion
of ideal womanhood, Rachel was frowned upon for holding her husband Jacob responsible
for her barrenness. "Everyone" within the traditional Protestant doctrine knew that she
ought to have had more faith in God and maybe then she would not have been barren.
Only God could control a woman's fertility. The fact that Jacob, her husband, chastised
her further indicated, within the doctrine I was raised with, that men are more religiously
responsible than women are.
Now when I read Rachel's story I am fascinated with her bold and headstrong
character. I appreciate how she might rail at her husband. It seems a human thing to do.
There is no need to read between the lines because Rachel's lines speak for themselves.
She is a slick trickster, telling a bold-faced lie while hiding her sly smile.

In the very beginning of the story of Rachel we read a continuance of certain
biblical motifs. Once again we have the com1ections of women and wells. This may be

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especially noted in regard to their betrothal scenes: just as it was with Rebekah and Isaac
(Gen. 24) and Moses and Zipporah (Ex. 2). We read, as well, of the emphasis on
endogamy as an assured continuance of lineage. "Anthropological studies have shed
considerable light on kinship patterns in the Genesis narratives and contribute to our
understanding of the ideological function endogamous marriage serves in this material.
That the matriarchs belong to the same patriline as the patriarch's ensures that the
patriarchs (=Israel) will not have to share their inheritance of the land of Canaan with the
indigenous Canaanites and that their privileged position as the chosen people will not be
compromised by intermarriage with 'foreigners"' (Exum 109).
Later in the story there are the motifs of trickery and barrenness. As well, within
this narrative there is a reversal back to the status quo of the elder having rights over the
younger. The matriarchs Sarah and Rebekah had subverted this status quo. In Genesis 21,
Sarah claims the birthright for Isaac over Ishmael. In Genesis 27 Rebekah tricks Isaac into
giving the birthright to Jacob the younger son. It is a well-documented system within the
ancient Near East that birth order secures birthright and fondness for an individual wife or
child does not. In fact, there is direct law in the Old Testament that must be attended to.
Although Deuteronomy is written later in time, one must suppose that the law was not
without precedent. In Deuteronomy it is written:
If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have
born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son
be hers that was hated:

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Then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that
he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the
hated, which is indeed the firstborn:
But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the frrstborn, by giving
him a double portion of all that he hath: for he is the beginning of his
strength; the right of the frrstborn is his. (Deut. 21:15-17)

It is seldom that the Bible overtly states the length and breadth of a patriarch's
love for a woman. Certainly respect and love is often implied. Yet in this passage the
writer waxes eloquent. "And Jacob served seven years for Rachel; and they seemed unto
him but a few days, for the love he had to her" (Gen. 29: 20). The question that arises
from this particular verse is whether or not we learn anything about the very personhood
or personality of Rachel. What we know is that she is so beautiful and favoured that seven
years of hard labour passes by like a wind. She, Rachel, is objectified in this instance. She
is like a glamorous still life photo: poised and posed. But her personality and agenda
cannot be suppressed within the narrative. Depending on how we read or what we bring to
the reading, we can believe different things about her described actions. Two possibilities
that arise are that we may believe that she is petty and manipulative or we may believe she

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is strong-willed and wily. The attribution of "petty" and "manipulative" arise from
1

patriarchal traditional exegesis . The secondary assumption that Rachel is "strong-willed"
and "wily" arises from reading her story in a feminist light.
I ascribe to Rachel the latter category-- she is not an object but an unsuppressible
actor. There is no hint, within the text, of accusation that Rachel "uses" her beauty to get
her way: instead she relies upon her skills as liar and trickster. Her beauty is irrelevant.
Edith Deen in her book All of the Women of the Bible states, in support of the patriarchal
exegesis of this narrative: "Rachel was the more petulant, peevish, and self-willed of the
two; Leah was more meek, submissive, and gentle" (31). This statement is not only
condemnatory of Rachel's autonomy but it also upholds the notion of meek suffering as
laudable. Such sentiment is dangerous in that this interpretation is often passed off as
gospel truth.

Within this particular passage Jacob gets his just due as Leah the eldest is given
first to him in marriage and then Rachel the younger is given to him. Whereas Jacob had
subverted the "natural" order of inheritance when he stole his brother's birthright, he now
reaps his reward. The younger sister is switched during the wedding night for the older
1

See Edith Deen's All of the Women of the Bible.

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sister. "Laban's move, as many have noted, serves as a symmetrical punishment for
Jacob's cunning usurpation of his elder brother's birthright. Just as the blind Isaac
"misfeels" Jacob, so the young trickster, blinded by love, becomes a victim of an inverted
"bed trick" as he lies with the elder sister instead of the younger one" (Pardes, ed.
Buchmann & Spiegel29).
Polygamy is common practice in the Ancient Near East, as is concubinage. Ancient
Israelites shared these practices with their neighbouring cultures: Mesopotamia and Syria
(Bird 20). Deuteronicallaw explicitly comments on the need for equality in inheritance for
the children of multiple wives. The law of primogeniture must stand regardless of affection
(Deut. 21:15). There is no mistaking that Jacob favours Rachel.

Here we see another recurrent motif of the matriarchs. Rachel is barren as was
Sarah and as was Rebekah. Rachel shares something else with the story of Sarah. She
shares the image of barrenness being linked with the state of being loved. God apparently
grants strange favours. Or favours strangely. Hagar was unloved but fertile and Leah is
unloved but fertile. Apparently fertility is adequate compensation for being hated. It is
important to note that once again it is at God's omnipotent behest that wombs are opened
up or stopped. So far we have learnt nothing or little of Rachel or Leah as individuals:
they seem, at best, characters that are created in the likeness of the previous matriarchs.

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Here the glossed patterns of Rachel being like all the rest of the matriarchs ends.
Here she is given voice. And she speaks loudly: stridently with her emotions unchecked.
She is jealous and demands: "Give me children, or else I die." According to this
ultimatum, we learn that Rachel believes that her husband is at fault and does not attribute
her barrenness to God. The mandrakes that the sisters bargain with hark back to a fertilitygoddess-centred belief system rather than a monotheistic God. Mandrakes are narcotic
plants of the nightshade family whose roots resemble a human shape and whose use is
magical and medicinal. Jacob, who understands enough about procreation to ensure that
he has the most flocks (Gen. 30: 37 -43), places the responsibility of human procreation
upon God. Only after Rachel conceives does she attribute a role to God.
When Rachel instructs Jacob to "go in unto" her slave Bilhah we discover a
repetition of a human agenda. Sarah does this and so does Rachel. God doesn't intervene
but instead these matriarchs take matters into their own hands. This is not the most
admirable of actions in the eyes of a reader from today' s society but certainly accepted by
those in power within the Genesis narrative.

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Mandrakes have long been associated with their use as aphrodisiacs. They may
well have been used as such in this context: thus ensuring fertility (Pardes 32 &
Westermann 475). There exists within traditional exegesis the notion of Rachel and Leah
as stereotypical embittered sisters vying for the love of their husband. As well, their vying
for as many offspring as possible has also been commented on by conventional exegesis.
This strikes me as a glossed over reading of these women and their intentions. Traditional
exegesis points to the apparent infighting between the sisters over children. This battling
to have the most children is emphasised in this biblical narrative:
And Rachel said, With great wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and
I have prevailed: and she called his name N aphtali.
When Leah saw that she had left bearing, she took Zilpah her maid, and
gave her Jacob to wife.
And Zilpah Leah's maid bare Jacob a son.
And Leah said, A troop cometh: and she called his name Gad. ( Gen.29: 811)

Traditional exegesis considers the real life struggles and concerns of these particular
women as being envious and competitive. Unfortunately this only serves to support a
patriarchal reading of this narrative. It is the attribution of pettiness or vindictiveness that
injures the women characters in this narrative.

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The text can be read as liberatory, rather than confming, because the women create
their own agenda and then follow through with it. Certainly it is obvious that it is the
wives who are making the decision about who sleeps with whom here (concubines). The
co-wives follow their agenda but they also insist that their concubines do as well. The
slavewomen are being objectified and there is no note here about how they feel or perceive
of this treatment. An earlier concubine, Hagar, has voice. These women have no voice.
They have no say in the matter.
Rachel proclaims, "sleep with Bilhah my slave woman." Leah declares," Now
sleep with Zilpah, my slavewoman." Then, they even bargain betwixt each other for
conjugal rights. Rachel pronounces, "I'll trade you a night with our husband if you give
me that aphrodisiac." Leah asserts, "Now husband you are coming with me tonight." With
a different focus the story of two battling bitter sisters becomes one of co-operation and
sisterhood:
The two women manage, in collaboration that materializes entirely without
their husband, to conquer each other's shares by abandoning their privilege.
Leah gives her sister the fruit that fertilises, while Rachel sends her the
husband. This encouraging story rests on the efforts the two women
accomplish to break out of the narrow limits set by their father and
husband. The exchange is thus thoroughly subversive. (Bal 85)

This passage includes yet another forthright example of women having autonomy.
Jacob consults Rachel and Leah. God has just told him to go and what does Jacob do? He
asks his wives. Realistically, he would need their help in order to make such a journey.
This appears to be another occasion of sisterly solidarity just as is the trading for favours
over the mandrakes. The women stand together in this endeavour, they share like opinions
and goals. This may appear remarkable, considering the biblically attributed rivalry of
these co-wives/sisters. And remarkable considering how obvious this solidarity is and how
infrequently it is noted by traditional exegesis. Traditional doctrine would have us believe
that there is no female autonomy within the text and that women certainly did not work
together to achieve like goals.

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I thoroughly enjoy the trickery of this particular part of the narrative. Rachel's eyes
and mouth are clever and smart. She uses taboo to her own ends. She upends the
unmentionable and plays on the fears of the "fathers." There are very clear and concise
sanctions stipulating who is unclean, what is unclean and for how long one is unclean
within the Old Testament. The laws governing contact with a menstruating woman
consider her impurity contagious. These laws of Leviticus spend a great deal of time
considering the many states of uncleanness that befall humankind; particularly there are
citations on women's uncleanness regarding menstruation. This "uncleanness" may be
passed on by touching the bedding, clothing, and person of the woman in her state of
"uncleanness'. Anything, which a woman sits upon during menses, becomes "unclean."
And if a woman have an issue, and her issue in her flesh be blood, she shall
be put apart seven days: and whosoever toucheth her shall be unclean until
the even.
And every thing that she lieth upon in her separation shall be unclean: every
thing also that she sitteth upon shall be unclean.

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And whosoever toucheth her bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself
in water, and be unclean until the even.
And whosoever toucheth any thing that she sat upon shall wash his clothes,
and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.
And if it be on her bed, or on any thing whereon she sitteth, when he
toucheth it, he shall be unclean until the even.
And if any man lie with her at all, and her flowers be upon him, he shall be
unclean seven days; and all the bed whereon he lieth shall be unclean. (Lev.
15:19-24)
And the priest shall offer the one for a sin offering, and the other for a
burnt offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for her before the
LORD for the issue of her uncleanness. (Lev. 15:30)
Tikva Fryrner-Kensky discusses menstrual taboos in her book, In the Wake of the

Goddesses: Woman, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth, she
considers the extent of the impurity contagion:
In Israel, a woman was impure for seven days after the beginning of her
menses. During this period, her impurity (as all impurity) was contagious,
and could be contracted by anyone who touched her, or even sat where she
had sat. Intercourse with a menstruating woman was considered absolutely
forbidden, and was sanctioned by the karet penalty, which means the belief
that one's lineage would be extirpated. The reminder in menstruation of a
sexual dimension of existence would not account for the seven-day
impurity, however. Another element is present- blood and its associations

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with death- for contact with death also results in a week-long impurity.
(272)
Depending on who is doing the reading, Rachel steals her father's gods for a variety of
reasons. In the following passage Rachel's intent is painted in a patriarchal hue. The point
of view is decidedly masculine: Rachel has stolen the gods for her husband and children,
not for any reason of her own. In this interpretation by Gordon and Rendsburg Rachel's
use of the taboo to conceal the gods, emphasises Laban's role in what is predominately a
female-centred narrative. What is noted is Laban's "courtesy" that prevents him from
"forcing" Rachel off "the camel's furniture." This reflects a decidedly patriarchal lens.
According to Gordon and Rendsburg' s view:
Rachel's motive was the securing of some prized advantage in family
affairs for her husband and children. Since they were bound for Canaan and
were leaving Mesopotamia for good, it is not likely that the gods conveyed
valuable property rights. The possession of the gods may rather have
betokened clan leadership and spiritual power to an extent that made
possessing them of paramount importance. (126-127)
For J. Cheryl Exum what is of import is the power of a woman's word. She has an
equilateral view, noting that Rachel is using the male "fear" of the contagious aspect of
menstruation to her own advantage: "She [Rachel] uses male fear or respect for a uniquely
female condition to gain power over a man. The issue, in other words, is the testimony of
a woman, the power of a woman's word" (138).
Rachel gains advantage over situations from which any person, male or female,
would have a difficult time gleaning autonomy. Further, she does it with style. Rachel is

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and never has been just another pretty face: she is wily, courageous, bold, and intelligent.
These are traits admired in the patriarchs but seldom mentioned as admirable traits in the
matriarchs.
Rachel uses her power over her handmaids to guarantee children. If God won't
provide, she will. She bargains with her sister for mandrakes to ensure fertility. The
subversive twist in Rachel's tale wherein she utilises taboo to her own ends indicates that
she fears neither the consequence of besmirching the idols nor the patriarchal Yahweh's
wrath. Rachel is another clear-cut example of women's autonomy. She is also another
clear-cut example of a matriarch who is neither all "good" nor all "bad." The binary
opposition of good and bad as applied to women, once again, has no real relevance. They
are women -- flawed and often ingenious.

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CHAPTER SEVEN
Dinah won't you blow your horn?
Genesis 34

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Do do do do. dada da da
I couldn't be happy staying at home
though God knows I tried.
There was something that ebbed and rose
on the nights of the new moons that kept me panting
and tied to the bed posts of the desert tents.
Sniggering behind my hand
at the posturing of boy oh boy,
and I kept at the dangerous difference.
Stroking, petting, feeling the softness of it,
even now that I am old and my throat is dry.
I was enamored of myself
of the way I looked with my eyes rimmed with kohl
at the way I danced--my hips sway sway swaying,
saying to myself. Lord girl you look good
Lord girl you can do do do
what you wanna do.
And lest I forget the attempt and the memory of me in his arms
wound snake-like and lithesome
but always unyielding.
I spit on the very notion of defilement.
Woke from my sleep of self
"My choice"-- I shrieked at them,
while they stood stupid with bloody hands.
The same looks on their faces as when father caught them
red-handed when they threw rocks at the servant women.
It makes no difference that I, too, am grown,
for I, one of their own, am still the "other."

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Someone's in the Kitchen
I can circle back and forth:
meditate like the rocking of an empty cradle.
Hear the thump thump thump,
consider how the hot and dusty
turnings of the dirt devils
amuse
the small children,
the ones that were stolen
from the hot and dusty yesterday.
My brothers have no children
and do not remember
the smooth breasts, the soft smell-the milk and honey on their tongues.
They are long ago weaned.
These brothers
I love,
these brothers
I hate,
the brothers who spun me round
and laughed at my dizzy face.
I am still spinning,
constantly breaking the thread,
constantly pricking my fmgers
while I play with my memories.
I left them all when I went to town,
kicking their dust off my feet.
My feet with the delicate skin stretched tight
like a drum over ankles so thin.
I am still spinning,
I am still turning
over in my sleep,
I still hear the thumping of my loom.

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More than I can do
To make something out of nothing
or to be as small as
one star unmentioned in the sky
or one nameless grain of sand on desert or beach.
For every time she is mentioned
there is only the connection of
Dinah the daughter
Dinah the sister
Dinah the beloved
Dinah the ravished.
It is more the kick in the gut
of what is never mentioned
than the brutality of what is.
It is not Dinah's story
and yet
the beginning and ending of that old tale
of over and over is enough.
I could be Dinah
off visiting the foreign daughters
having chai over a smudge fire.
Could be I fell for some dashing Prince
his teeth bright, his eyes eager.
Could be I was happy to stay
in the glitter and tumble after
so much journeying.
For once to fill the whole room
to make his day with one smile.
Could be I hated
bright red tears of hatred for another man to take again
that which was not and never would be his.
Could be I hated, hated him and, of course, myself.
But it is not my story
not even her story.
It is the men' s
their pride ravished.
It is Old World justice
and I am young.

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Dinah won't you blow your horn?
Genesis 34
When I think about all the hours, as a child and teenager that I spent in church, Sunday
school, Calvinettes, and Catechism it is only the stories where women were indicted or
revered that I really remember. Lot's wife and Mary come to mind. But there is another
category as well: the women whose stories were ignored or glossed over. These are the
women whose shadows flit through the pages and settle in the corners. It is within this
latter category that I place Dinah. Her story is practically obliterated by her association
with her brothers: the twelve tribes of Israel. There was a great deal of mention about
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and
Benjamin. Rarely (if ever) does Dinah's story make it to the pulpit. True, it may seem too
graphic and lurid to be spoken about in front of babies, toddlers, children, and adolescents,
but then so does the story of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his own son to a rather
uncaring God.
Perhaps in modern times this story of genocide within Genesis 34 puts the sons of
Israel in a bad light and prevents it from being told. Although the patriarchs Simeon and
Levi are chastised by their father Jacob and are gently denied their inheritance, they are
not physically or spiritually punished by God within the text. There is more to this
narrative than an indictment of a massacre. It is Dinah's story and we never hear Dinah's
voice: she is silent throughout. She does not speak but is spoken of. It is more important
to note that although she is acted upon she, in fact, is actor.

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Telling Dinah's story causes an examination of the why and wherefore of narrative
interpretation. What does this story uphold, textually, as biblically moral behavior? Is
Dinah a pawn of her brothers' in the story? An excuse for war mongering? An
anthropological look at Near Eastern societies suggests that this "eye for an eye" system
of reparation is akin to that of Bedouin tribal justice wherein the males of the family are

obliged to enact such brutal justice. To not do so would invite neighboring tribes to
obliterate them.
But what are we, as modern North American readers, to think of this story? Does
Dinah's untold story conjure rage/sympathy for Dinah as an individual? Do we look at it
as an example of a system of justice that is inaccessible to North American ideals? Or does
it provide room for a questioning of just what moral is being implied/applied here? What
moral is being upheld in this narrative? Is the possibility of one of their own (their sister
Dinah) marrying outside the kin network so reprehensible that hundreds must die? Is it the
fear and loathing of strangers--a kind of hatred for exogamy? Or is the moral, as in Jacob's
rebuke, an advisement to be more circumspect--to get along and above all do what one
needs to survive? Where does Dinah figure in this story as an individual? Who was she in
amongst all these men and their agendas?

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All of these aforementioned men had naming speeches attached to their birth. Birth
order and birthright as well as emotion play a role in their names. On the other hand,
Dinah, the only girl-child, apparently has not enough significance to explain her name. I
looked up the name Dinah in a baby name guide. Dinah in Hebrew according to Baby
Names A-Z means "judged one." There is such a great stock invested in the meaning and
application of names in the Old Testament that one wonders why Dinah is judged and
whether or not she is judged harshly.
Dinah goes out to visit. This is a direct statement of her actions. What happens
next, though, leaves out any mention of what Dinah's actions are after she visits the
daughters/sisters of the land. It is remarkable that Dinah (one of God's people) goes to
visit the pagan "other."
Whether or not Dinah' s fate means she is being punished for such indiscretion
depends on how the text is read. Edith Deen, purveyor of patriarchal values, states in one
paragraph that: "Dinah had every blessing, a father both devout and affluent, a spiritually
sensitive mother, and ten brothers. But because she was an only daughter, she may have
been pampered and spoiled, maybe a bit vain" (38).
Certainly there is nothing to suggest within the narrative that this is true. Dinah is
seldom mentioned, her name is not explained and we learn nothing of her eventual fate
save what we know anthropologically of Near Eastern tradition. If Dinah had married
Shechem, she would have had a position of respect within his family as mother of his
children. The text explicitly states that Shechem loved Dinah. In fact it states that his soul
"clave" unto her. The Oxford English dictionary defmes the word clave (past tense of
cleave) to mean: " Stick fast, adhere, or cling to, remain steadfast. "The only other

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instance in the Bible that a man and woman are described united in this way is in Genesis
2:24: ''Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife:
and they shall be one flesh." We can imagine Dinah had a pretty good life at Shechem's
estate. What we know of an unmarried young woman in the Ancient Near East of Israel
who is no longer a virgin is that she could never marry and thus never have children.
Dinah, within the value of her society, would be valueless. She would be doomed to be an
old spinster with no family or prestige. This is evidenced by the word used to describe the
actions of Shechem--he is described as having "defiled" her. Her "clean waters" have been
muddied by his actions. No one will drink from her well and be sustained ever again.
Whether or not Dinah was a willing participant in their intercourse would have
been a moot point at that time. As an unmarried virgin, having sex outside of a sanctioned
union, she was considered "defiled." Different interpretations of Shechem and Dinah's
intercourse are noted in varied texts discussing Dinah's story. Some interpret the
defilement as rape. Some interpret it as merely (tribally) unsanctioned sex. This latter view
can be seen as a kind of ancient Near Eastern Romeo and Juliet story. The Capulets and
Montagues are the tribe of Jacob and the tribe of Shechem. Dinah lives a sadder life than
Juliet did in her death.

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Dinah, in this story, is a male construct. Her position within the narrative (for the
Israelites) is to legitimatise the mass genocide of Shechem's people. What purpose does
she serve for Shechem within the narrative? She is the "other"-- exotic and dangerous. She
is portrayed as an object he wishes to possess and yet the text explicitly demands that it
not be read this way. Shechem wishes to marry Dinah. Under Hebrew law, he is
compelled to do so. Shechem' s father Hamor, goes to Jacob to negotiate a marriage,
offering Jacob carte blanche in exchange.
The anger of Jacob and his sons might have been negated by Hamor's offer of
wealth and security and Shechem's pledge of love. An uneasy balance might have been
struck. But the feud of warring tribes is not so easily remedied. God wants his people to
remain aloof. The sons of Jacob have their pride and this pride has been injured grievously.
There is never a mention of what Dinah might want. She was not free to intermarry
exogamously as were her brethren. They were secure that any wife they might marry
would then sever ties with her family and in effect become part of their family tribe. Dinah
would have become "other" to them if she had married Shechem. She would have
contributed children to a foreign tribe:
Dinah's mating with Shechem was a great threat to Jacob's family (and
endangered all of future Israel, the people who relate the story). Jacob's
sons were the first generation of Abraham's line to intermarry with the
local inhabitants, but they had to do so under controlled conditions in

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which they could remain a distinct unit. The free exercise of erotic love by
Shechem threatened that type of control and could have resulted (in the
eyes of the brothers) with a dissolution of the boundary between them and
the native peoples of Canaan. (Frymer-Kensky 194)
This commentary by Frymer-Kensky does not touch upon the kind of righteous
indignation and wrath that the story invoked in Dinah's brothers. The actions of her
brothers have more to do with punishment and retribution than concern for their sister.
This is not some methodical well-thought-out rationalization about racial purity, it is an
instinctive reaction brought about by fear and traditional patriarchal hierarchies.

The sons of Jacob practice deceit. It is never their intention to be of good faith.
They have their own agenda in which they are willing to go to great lengths in order to
achieve their ends. It is questionable from the onset of the offer of Dinah in exchange for
Shechem's city's foreskins whether Simeon's and Levi's intent is revenge or plunder. This
plunder includes the women of the city. In these verses the deceit of Jacob's sons--the
chosen people, is counterbalanced by the honor of Shechem -- a foreigner. The lengths
that Shechem is willing to go to marry Dinah are awe-inspiring. That he manages to

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convince an entire city full of men to be circumcised as adults is nothing short of
miraculous.
The elaborate cunning and subterfuge that Jacob's sons engage in is not textually
denigrated by God. They maintain (dubiously) their righteous position of tribal purity. The
sacred covenant of circumcision that Abraham made with God is treated as an elaborate
ruse to be used for their own ends. Property and possession are the keynotes of this
narrative, not righteousness or tribal purity.
Her [Dinah's] indignant brothers try another tack, alleging that they will
not 'give' their sister to one who is uncircumcised (regardless of the fact
that they are not the ones who have the power to bestow their sister).
Cheerfully, Hamor, Shechem, and all the men of the city submit to
circumcision, only to be slaughtered 'while in their pain' by Simeon and
Levi, Dinah's full brothers, the Hivite wives and property becoming the
possessions of the treacherous Israelites (Gen. 34:25-29). (Corrington
Streete 30)

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There exists the possibility, within this narrative, that Dinah was a willing partner
to Shechem's advances. The word used within this narrative to describe Shechem's
actions toward Dinah is "defilement." It is worth considering that the word "defile" is used
elsewhere in the Old Testament to refer to unlawful intercourse (Num. 5:12-14). This
interpretation of "defile" includes adultery and pre-marital sex. According to Jonathan
Kirsch, in The Harlot by the Side of the Road, the original Hebrew word is innah. Kirsch
states that 'The hebrew word innah, [is] translated in some English-language Bibles as
'humbled' [and] is rendered in other translations as 'abused' ... or 'dishonored,'
indicating a 'degrading and debasing' experience (78)." This word is translated in the King
James Version as "defile." The KJV translation (1611) of the Bible says much for both the
poetic genius of its translators and for the time in which it was written.
This ambivalence of wording as to what the word "defile" means along with the
definite commentary on the amazing proportions of Shechem's love may indicate
willingness on Dinah's part. She stayed with him after all. What Simeon and Levi then
enact upon the city of Shechem's women and children leaves no room for this
"willingness." There is no doubt that their acts are acts of terror and torture.
There is a marked duality of standards within this narrative. The distinct
antagonism of God's chosen people regarding intermarriage (of their women to outsider
men) is carried by the young men who commit the atrocities. But it is not the generation
gap of values (father vs. sons) that is most obvious. It is a female-male double standard
that is apparent in this story:

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On the one hand there is much protest that Isaac, then Jacob, not be
allowed to marry one of 'the women of the land.' The story of Dinah and
Shechem insists that intermarriage with the 'uncircumcised' cannot be
tolerated ... And yet, we are told . .. that, in their revenge against
Shechem's rape of their sister, the sons of Jacob think nothing of capturing
the women and children of Shechem as their booty. Are we to believe that
Jacob's sons treated these captives any differently than Shechem treated
Dinah? Are we to believe these women were never taken/used as mates?
(Nolan Fewell, "Imagination, Method and Murder," 138-9)
This narrative brings up a key issue to consider while reading Bible stories. That issue is
this: it all depends on where you stand and whose side you are on as to what is considered
legitimate conduct. From the patriarchal perspective this story is about the righteous
vengeance upon a foreign tribe because they have committed the atrocity of defiling a
virgin Hebrew woman. The ensuing murder of men and male children and rape and
kidnapping of women and girl children is thus condoned.
From the perspective of Shechem and his tribe this story is about love, a
willingness to go to any length to secure that love and then utter betrayal and the genocide
of a people who were bargaining in good faith. Thus the story is condemnatory and
reprehensible from their perspective.
From the perspective of Dinah it is the desolate and murderous story of a young
woman boldly seeking friendship with a foreign people and fmding love in an unlikely
place. Dinah had elected to stay with Shechem and his people, imagining a different life
where she has the respect of her husband. Mter all, he is willing to circumcise himself and

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his entire city all for her hand in marriage. One day she is planning her future and then the
next thing she knows is there are her jackal brothers grinning with the blood dripping from
them. All she has left is her memories of her beloved.

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CHAPTER EIGHT
The Temerity of Tamar
Genesis 38

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Tamar and the tale- ANDANTE
The marriage to the first-born arranged
in a vase with delicate frond of fern and lace that offset
the moodiness of that full of himself
always braking the handle of his anger
like to hit anyone.
Man.
God struck him dead.
He must have been a particularly wicked man,
or perhaps it was the enjoyment of his evil
capering at night that set off the sulfur.
Snuffed like an insolent match,
Tamar at the edges feeling the tongue of flame
either way it was hot.
Sleeping with the second-son
only in the night hours
his grudge and grunting
not even the gift of
a child
seeding the dust on the floor.
God struck him dead too.
No choice
in the clinking of the bracelets
of being told what to do.
Waiting for the third-son, a boy
playing in the dust and laughing with the goats,
to reach an age
and lay it all down once again with him.
Playing with the matches
Tamar noticed how few were left
lifted the sulfur to touch it with her tongue
the tang reminded her.
Dressed in veil and velvet, sitting by the holy road,
Rolling, rollicking, pretending, for once, at being a whore
A small price to pay for the circle of holiness
joy in the curled fmgers.
The celebration of: I will.

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The temerity of Tamar
During the levirate law
and being watched by the forefathers
scowling, over heavy eyebrows of disapproval,
she upheld her end of the bargainlike a see-saw.
Twice she tripped down that garden path
her willingness to burst forth into blossom
apparent in the dusting of henna and pollen
that surrounded her body.
The halo of her intent barely enough
The charm of the third
had no opportunity to take hold:
no stamen, no stamina, no stigmata.
Tamar was held at arms lengthsent back like a defective Canaanite appliance
like a tainted dish of figs by the now frightened Father.
Judah loved his god of retribution.
Tamar recumbent with time on her hands and not knees,
before Astarte she prayed- burnt offerings:
cedar smoke to the sky
acacia ashes to the earth.
She had her answer.
She took hold of the staff and seal,
paid her homage to her goddess.
Her body, a temple, she worshipped.

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The Temerity of Tamar
Genesis 38
Neither the name of this Tamar nor her story was familiar to me. I only came to this story
as I, in my quest for Old Testament women, forged my way through the latter part of
Genesis. This was a biblical woman that I knew nothing about. I expected her to be some
minor character of an unnoticeable story. What I found was a story rife with intrigue,
unlawful behavior, scandal, and female autonomy.
This story is yet another story about the line of Abraham. The first mention of the
woman named Tamar (in Genesis) occurs in connection with her father-in-law and
husband. We learn that the patriarch Judah (one of Dinah's brothers, from the previous
chapter) "takes" a wife for his firstborn son, Er. They marry -- Er dies. Tamar goes on.
She sleeps with his brother. God strikes Onan dead. Tamar goes on. Her father-in-law
sends her home to her family. Tamar goes on. In fact, Tamar goes on to place herself on
the side of the road of history. She may as well have been standing in the middle. Within
the Old Testament Tamar stands in plain sight. She is a tangible character acting on her
own behalf.
What happens after Tamar is cast aside is that Tamar not only takes over the story
but also runs the show. She creates for herself what she wants to have happen. She is not
content to sit by idly and be relegated to some dusty back room where she will linger in
the childless state to which her father-in-law has condemned her. He condemns her
because he is afraid of her; she is both woman and foreigner. Tamar, the Canaanite, takes
the matter of procreation into her own hands. Mieke Bal draws the conclusion that

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''Tamar corrects a more archaic fault against woman, which is even more destructive: the
fault of being afraid of her, and of institutionalizing that fear, that horror feminitatis " (86).
If we examine the etymologies of the name Tamar we learn that her name means
date palm, a plant which gives sustenance and is linked with fertility (Browder 194).
Naming is a predominant concern of Ancient Hebrew culture and reflected often in the
Old Testament. That the ancient Near East of the Hebrews was a patriarchal society
(reflected in the continual naming speeches about men) does not invalidate the significance
of the meaning of women's names. At the end of the story we know that Tamar ensures
life. Judah, on the other hand, is a life-taker: he attempts to condemn Tamar to a nonstatus life and then agrees to have Tamar burnt for the transgression of her adultery.

Tamar's first husband, Er, was so wicked in the eyes of God that God slew him.
What happened? How did God slay him? It is evident that the author wished to leave this
part of the story up to the imagination. It is also left up to the reader to hypothesise
exactly what Er did that was so wicked. The possibilities boggle the mind. Did he frequent
brothels? Commit adultery? Co-mingle with the unsavoury elements of Canaan? Worship

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false gods? Disrespect his father? Perhaps he enjoyed the company of men more than the
company of his wife. We know that she did not conceive.
So, according to the Hebrew Levirate law, a law of succession, Tamar who was
childless, is supposed to sleep with Onan. She is supposed to sleep withEr's brother so
that she might conceive. The child born of this secondary coupling would not belong to
the biological father but was considered the child of the dead man (Deut. 25:5). In this
way property was handed down to the first-born son of the dead first-born son.
Onan, second-born, would have had succession to the property and tribal
leadership if his brother died without a son. Onan's biological son according to the
Levirate Law would have had succession before Onan. Because this notion is less than
attractive to Onan, he then practices the coitus interruptus that gives birth to a new
meaning of his name. Onanism, according to The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary,
means 1) masturbation and/or 2) coitus interruptus. Instead of obeying Hebrew law Onan
"spills his seed" upon the ground.
God is less than impressed and kills Onan too. The text is specific about this. What
is less specific, once again, is how he is killed and why? Traditional exegesis considers his
unwillingness to father his brother's child reason enough. What is important to note is that
God does not wreak vengeance upon Tamar: a foreigner and a woman. And yet Judah her
father-in-law suspects that she may be the cause of the deaths of his sons. Because of his
speculation and knowing he is bound by Levirate Law to make his youngest son procreate
with Tamar, he sends her away. He tells her: "I'll let you know when my youngest is old
enough to perform his duty." I cannot help but speculate that there must have been
considerable age difference between Tamar and Shelah, the youngest son. It is hard to say

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what the difference in age was but what we do know is that Tamar gets tired of waiting
and is afraid she will never bear children.

When Judah's wife, described as the daughter of her father, dies, Judah is
comforted. This passage is troubling. Is he comforted because time passes and he gets
over his loss or is Judah comforted by the fact she is dead? The passage can be read both
ways. It is the latter possibility that is most disturbing. Has his fear of the stranger (and his
wife is a stranger in the sense that she is not an Israelite) reached such biblical
proportions? Is he comforted by the fact that he, at last, has rid himself not only of his
Canaanite daughter-in-law but his Canaanite wife as well? He does not have to live with
any more dangerous Canaanite women.
Tamar is an unusual woman. She does not pray to the one and only monotheistic
God of her husband's family. There is no beseeching, wailing, resignation, or threats to
induce fertility. What Tamar does, she does for herself, by herself. She decides that she is
tired of waiting for someone else to decide when and if she will have a child. She dons a

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disguise and lies in wait at the side of the road. She pretends to be a prostitute and secures
a child from her father-in-law. She demands his staff, seal, and bracelets as proof of her
deeds. The magnitude of her actions colours iridescence between the lines. This story is
not silent on the matter of Tamar's character: she is "righteous" and we may infer by her
direct actions that she is bold, brave, and true. We do not receive any hint about her
humour, for humour was not an especially important aspect of Israeli virtue, but I can
imagine Tamar concocting her plan and laughing at the sheer audacity and effrontery of it.
Norma Rosen in her book, Biblical Women Unbound: Counter-Tales, states: 'The
contemporary reader will probably want, as I do, to emphasize the sheer breathtaking,
custom flouting effrontery of Tamar's behavior- deception, sexual seduction, harlotry, and
patriarchal insubordination" (115).
Tamar takes the "law" into her own hands. We know from the Deuteronomy law
of the Levirate marriage that Tamer is "owed" a child by her dead husband's brother.
Onan refused to do his procreational duty and Judah has disallowed Shelah to do his. The
Levirate law in Deuteronomy lists the consequences that occur if a man refuses to do his
duty. That this law has a back up plan of sorts indicates that it must not have be an
uncommon occurrence that a man might refuse to comply with this law. But the
consequences for the man is negligible in comparison to the consequences of what having
no children would mean for the woman. It is no wonder that Tamar would seek a different
form of retribution. She thus acknowledges that the Levirate law favours the male and she
circumvents this process by fmding her own way. The direct biblical statement as to what
actions are open to women when the men involved refuse to "perform" their duties are as
follows. Bear in mind that there is much linguistic speculation that the ancient Hebrew

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language used euphemistic metaphors of feet when discussing the male genitalia. This
being said, the possibilities for what the aforementioned passages really refer to become
more open ended.
Deuteronomy 25 :7-10 states:
And if the man like not to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife
go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband's brother refuseth to
raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of
my husband's brother.
Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he
stand to it, and say, I like not to take her;
Then shall his brother's wife come unto him in the presence of the elders,
and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer
and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his
brother's house.
And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe
loosed.
Certain translations from the original Hebrew speculate as to exactly what kind of harlot
Tamar disguises herself as. In the King James Version of Genesis 38 Tamar is named as
harlot throughout. But within the Hebrew text there is a differentiation between

zona

(whore) and qedef/1 (ritual or temple prostitute). 1 According to Bal ritual prostitution is:
1

See Kirsch's The Harlot at the Side of the Road (131), Bird' s Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities
(221), and Streete' s The Strange Woman (44-51).

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... a socially accepted one, and although sexuality is involved, it is not
commercial .... The difference between whore and ritual 'prostitute' is
crucial and sheds some light on the nature of the injustice done to Tamar. If
the whore is despised because she is overly sexual, the ritual 'prostitute' is
respected. Devoted to the fertility goddess, her role is to probably help men
overcome their fear of defloration. (101)
The question remains, are we to suppose that because Tamar was a Canaanite that acting
as a temple prostitute was somehow more acceptable in Canaanite culture than in the
Hebrew culture of her husband? In Canaanite society, which had a polytheistic system of
worship, it was not uncommon for women to act as temple prostitutes. The goddess
Astarte, a Canaanite goddess of fertility, included this form of worship that allowed
women to act as sexual agents for their goddess. This was an abomination according to
the monotheistic Hebrew culture. It doesn' t stop Judah from consorting with a prostitute
whatever his perception was of her role or function. Phyllis Bird, in a chapter titled ''The
Harlot as Heroine," notes that a prostitute or harlot has an ascribed position in the Hebrew
Bible:
Her social status is that of an outcast, though not an outlaw, a tolerated but
dishonored member of society ... . She is a woman of the night, who
appears on the streets when honorable women are secluded at home. She
approaches strangers and business men by the roadside and in the public
squares, and she lives in the shadow of the wall, on the outskirts of the city,
where the refuse is dumped. (199-200)

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The difficulty in analyzing what leeway the characters had in their perceptions of
prostitution is that the cultures co-mixed, and were influenced by each other. The
repeated admonishments within the Old Testament that God's "chosen people" never
intermarry are an attempt at cultural and religious preservation but it does not mean that
God's chosen people live in cultural isolation.
Tamar uses the mask of prostitution to get what she wants, namely a legitimate
heir. Judah uses the prostitute for sexual gratification. Judah knows that this is not a
righteous act. The traditional reader may see Tamar's trickery as laudable because it
allows for a continuance of Abraham's lineage. The contemporary reader may read
Tamar's trickery as following her own interests and not that of the "fathers." Her desire
for offspring mirroring the father's desire for lineage is incidental. She does not want a
child so that the Hebrew race will continue. She does not want a child because God has
ordained it. She does not feel beholden to produce an heir for Judah. Traditional exegesis
finds Tamar's bold sexual act acceptable because the holy line of King David descends
from this foreign woman but Tamar wants a child for herself, for her comfort, and for her
old age. This story has survived because it is important to a Hebrew agenda. At best the
reason this tale survived is due to that incidental mirroring of Tamar's needs and Hebrew
needs.

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Tamar's plan was well thought out. Not only did she gain motherhood after one
incident of intercourse but she asked for and kept the signs of Judah. Had she not had the
temerity to demand Judah's staff, seal, and ring she would have been burnt to death.
Because of her cleverness Tamar has her continuity and she has her respect. She has her
esteem because she is a mother of twin boys and because she is a "righteous woman." She
is the admitted heroine of the text. Of course, within traditional exegesis this righteousness
is lent extra sparkle because one of her two children, Perez, is the forefather to the lineage
of Jesus Christ.
What is gained, within the text, by the parting comment about the fact that Judah
never slept with Tamar again? Is this an attempt to salvage Judah's name and dignity? Or
is it a form of retributive punishment unto Tamar? One of the discussions about what this
narrative reveals is that it serves as yet another device regarding continuity of the tribe of
Israel. This argument considers a woman's sexuality as having the sole purpose of
producing male heirs.
From a more feminist slant the perspective is that the very mention of a woman's
sexuality, no matter the overt message, contains elements of the subversive. Tamar acts in
her own best interest. She gains a status conferred by motherhood for her act of sexual
effort. And yet there is a huge risk that Tamar takes. The Hebrew people and their God
are notoriously violent where acts of sexual promiscuity occur. It was not just status that

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Tamar sought but a fulfilment of the longing for a child. This story and the depiction of
Tamar as a righteous woman lends credence to both women's autonomy and sexuality.
She is the leading character who induces action. Through her actions the cycle of birth is
ensured. After killing Onan, God is conspicuously absent. When God does appear in the
earlier portion of the story he is destroyer not life-bringer. Beach states:
Yahweh's only explicit role in this chapter is as slayer; the 'happy ending'
is not credited to him. Tamar is the one who perceives the dead end of
Judah's decisions, and her actions in narrative and symbol mediate new life
and a new dynastic line. As the supposedly unproductive female-childless
widow, prostitute, or goddess- she does move the lifeflow forward by
unconventional means. The marginalized woman and the disguised, if not
repressed, goddess exercise more imaginative and effective life power than
men and male institutions. (301)
Tamar is a Canaanite. As a foreigner, childless widow, and woman, one might infer that,
within a patriarchal society, she is powerless. Nothing is farther from the truth. She is
autonomous and victorious; she triumphs against the odds. Is there a connection between
the fact that this is a seldom-told story and the fact that Tamar is such a stellar example of
women's autonomy in the Old Testament? The fact that textually the narrative states that
Tamar is "righteous" indicates that this was not so during the telling and writing down of
the tale. Re-reading causes a re-examination of these forgotten stories. These stories are
best off not forgotten for they still have an impact on us today. Tamar's tale is liberatory.

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CHAPTER NINE
Miriam, Centre Stage as she dances.
Exodus 1-16 & Numbers 12-26

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The Moses Conspiracy
For the love of
her boy, the little spigot
curled snail
three months old
smelled sweet like sugar cane.
Loved like the sun on a cold morning
bright and hallowed.
Nothing else to do but give yourself
up for the love
the lighter than dragonfly wings
and standing on her toes is his sister
all basalt eyes and clever footed.
For the love of Women;
this the recourse of the oppressed.
Feels as if she was born this way
to love, to give,
to look fetching.
Closer to the mild Jesus to come
than the flaming sword angels of now.
The delicate tiered task of building boats
is best left to women.
She smells the reeds.
She gathers the pitch.
She watches it melt like sunlight and gold.
She smiles at the smell:
at the connections,
believing in attention to detail.
The bigger picture resolves itself.
Under the skin and skirts
the sway of the body and creation.
Enough to let go.
Cleansed by the rapids:
the faster the river
the water the flowing
Nurse and let go again.

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Miriam's song
Sometimes in the tall afternoon when all is,
sleeping in tents and the camels stare blankly at the horizon,
she rises to the sound of her own voice
ringing, the echoes of memory pile up
and ply her with their sweet scents.
She shakes her head and clouds of dust surround her:
a halo of dirt to keep company with the memory of standing
watch over the Nile.
The waters slap slap against her feet even now.
Mud-pies, the water and dust commingle
as all should
and she fmds herself, now old,
longing for that continuum that other women are blessed with.
She has only brothers and has been blessed, of a sort,
into history.
She smiles at her memory, these great men engaged
in war and blood letting,
circumcision and coupling.
She sees them born and hears the cries they made.
The tender kicking feet and fists against their mother' s bare breast.
Their soft milky mouths now raised to God; strident.
In this last place of reckoning with time on her hands,
Kadesh and the lullabies fly thickly around her solitude.
Humming and singing for herself these times.
Prophetess of mysterious smiles and inward,
the tambourines shake shake.
Rake up the memory of singing and being followed
a certain hallowed communion.
Seldom mentioned.
Opposing her brother
The sound of God descending;
architecture from the clouds,
the tabernacle a swarm of holy voices
shouting, shouting "white as snow"
Seven days the shame of God spitting in her faceshe was reminded of her taint every month
save these last few years.
Living through those desert days, endless trekking.
She hears only the sure timber of her voice
cleaving to the timbrel.
It is enough.

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Miriam, Centre Stage as she dances.
Exodus 1-16 & Numbers 12-26
I recently went to see the new animated movie The King of Egypt with my family. The
Walt Disney version of Moses and his people was strange enough to see as a cartoon.
Stranger still to see it through the eyes and questions of my seven-year-old son who has
not received any indoctrination in these stories and so questions everything.
He asks: "Why would Pharaoh want to kill the babies?" A history lesson in
genocide to a seven-year-old idealist is a difficult task. And yet with the faith of an idealist
he assures himself and me "But his mommy saves him, right?" "Yes," I answered "his
mommy and his sister and the Egyptian princess." He nods seriously "good" and settles
down to watch what else will happen.
I read into and see an emphasis on the roles these women play. In this instance I
am no less biased than the centuries of men who have emphasised Moses' role and
forgotten the women's roles. Their roles and characters may seem understated within the
text, but if it wasn't for these three women putting the needs of another, a baby, above
their own, there would have been no story, no Exodus, no Moses. There would have been
no grandiose story where God gets to play judge, jury, and executioner. Whether this
story is considered literally or as an allegory, there is no denying the important role of
women in this narrative.
Somehow the fact that Exodus is turned into a cartoon emphasises that it is, after
all, a story. It is a story like other stories from other ancient cultures. Stories serve
functions within religions and societies. These functions change throughout time. Society

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I

•,

reads into the stories a reflection of its values. True, this is a story that millions of people
will still swear is gospel truth, but still it is a story. Hercules is a story. No one believes
this to be gospel truth. How one perceives the stories and mythos often depends on the
individual/audience and the context. It depends, as well, on the medium. As we become
less hierarchical, the faces and the characters within these familiar stories change and
become strange. The strangeness of Exodus in cartoon changes its reception. The women
appear large on the big screen. It is the women who save Moses, and their stories become
tellable in the present.

The women all knew what to do . One was just a child, old enough though, to
partake of the conspiracy. Clever Miriam: waiting, watching from the sidelines to see what
will become of the baby brother that cried in the night. This is the baby who gets all her

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mother's attention.
"He's only a baby" was what her mother said, explaining the rocking, the nursing,
the singing, and all that attention. Miriam does not remember those days when it was her
at the breast, but is assured in her knowledge of it nonetheless. Within her jealousy is a
fierce love, a need to protect. Sometimes she gets up early when he is crying and sings to
him too the lullabies of her mother. And now, because it is within her power, she offers
the services of her mother as wet-nurse.
The Egyptian princess knows whose child it is and she knows the Pharaoh's
decree. But as the child is here and crying before her. She can do no less than pick him up
and let him go again. She graces the child with her benevolence, calls him her son when he
is weaned, and she gives him his name. The importance of etymology within the Old
Testament necessitates a look at this naming procedure. Common knowledge understands
Moses to mean, "saved from the water." This meaning comes from the Hebrew language.
But as well, there is an Egyptian meaning of the name Moses. It means "child." Pharaoh's
daughter manages to straddle two worlds in her naming of Moses. Was the Princess
bilingual? Probably not, but it is important to consider how her naming like the naming of
Leah and Rachel places her in a position of import within the text. It positions her with an
authority usually reserved for the patriarchs.
In this instance women are not mere adjuncts to men. Here they are the major
characters. Without them, there would be no plot. These women are often accused of
being minor biblical characters. They are so much more. Mter all, it was men who wrote
and translated the Bible. It would be their (men's) stories that would concern them most.
If women find themselves large on the pages because they are saviours, how can this be

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negative? Is it essentialist to posit that the women act in the best interests of another-- a
baby? Miriam is a mere child. It is not her femininity that causes her actions, there is no
precursor to a motherly instinct. Rather, it is that the human animal (male and female
alike), like other animals at times, cannot help but assist the helpless?
Phyllis Bird makes certain essentialist statements about Old Testament women and
maternalism. I object to Bird's statement: " all [women] exhibit in these [biblical]
representations a common maternal feeling, a special and enduring bond with the fruit of
her womb that makes the loss of a child a woman' s greatest loss. In this bereavement all
women are alike, and all are equal" (35).
Not even the Old Testament with its Old World values can gloss over and
obliterate the individuality of the women in these stories. In bereavement not all women
are alike. Because they are individuals they grieve and face their losses in differing ways.
Faced with loss of custody of her son, Hannah sacrifices her need and allows him to go
and serve God (Samuel II: 1-2); Rizpah stands guard over the bodies of her sons and
grandchildren allowing neither beast nor bird to touch them, her mourning both public and
fierce (Samuel II: 21). The two harlots who fight over the surviving baby, in the infamous
wisdom of Solomon story, are another example of the complexity of mourning (Kings 1:
3).

Depending on personal, societal, and cultural constructs women and men perceive
and have divergent belief systems. An Egyptian princess might have different reactions to
grief or loss than an Egyptian high priestess, or that of a Canaanite priestess, or that of a
slave woman. A grandmother would have a different reaction to loss than a child of seven
or eight. Abraham might feel differently than would Jephthah about the death of his child.

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Miriam is an amazing character in this scene. She is as large and as lovely a figure
as that of King David when he dances in the streets for the beauty and glory of the Lord.
She is prophetess, poet, singer, and dancer. Her utter joy erupts as song and dance.
Miriam is not known as wife or mother to some central male figure but stands on her own.
She has talents that enhance the beauty of the Israelites' harsh existence. Bird elucidates
how the scope of women's roles and activities in ancient Israel spanned more than "strictly
female activities" (44) .
. . . some professional specialization was possible for a few women along
with their primary occupation of wife and mother. Most of these involved
the exercise or employment of special kinds of knowledge: practical
wisdom (the "wise women" of Tekoa and Abel); ability in deciding legal
disputes (Deborah as judge); power to receive divine communications
(Deborah as prophetess, Miriam, Huldah and possibly Noadiah); and ability
to call up spirits of the dead (the medium of Endor). (Bird 44)

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The exquisite voice of Miriam is not heard again until the book of Numbers.
According to Pardes, in her book, Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach,
Miriam's story in Numbers 12 is "not recounted in children's Bibles, nor has it been a
topic for literary or artistic interpretations (7)." She, like I, wonders why more interest is
not shown in this particular episode.
For me, this part of the story seems as if it is a biblical "slap down." Miriam, as a
woman, has risen high in biblical estimation, and some patriarchal redactor felt it necessary
to put Miriam in her place. Within this part of the text, according to traditional exegesis,

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Miriam's voicing of opinion becomes "shrewish." The same is not said of Aaron's voicing
of opinion.
Miriam's character in the different stories splits apart. In rescuing Moses she is
cunning and resourceful. In her role as prophetess and poet she is beautiful and strange. In
daring to question Moses she is bitter and haughty and so God mutilates her beauty and
joy. Even her name, Miriam, the oldest form of the name Mary, means bitter or rebellious.
But there are several other connotations. The name, Miriam, originates from the Hebrew.
"Marah, is of myrrh, the precious and bitter ointment; it is the name of the place where the
Israelites rested after their passage through the Red Sea" (Wells 117). What can be noted
of these myriad aspects of Miriam is that she may well have been all of these as no real
human is altogether perfect nor altogether flawed.
The complaint that Miriam makes about Moses' Cushite (Ethiopian) wife is
certainly a well-founded motif of stranger anxiety and the 'threat' of an exogamous
marriage within the Old Testament. There is no surprise there. But when issued from the
lips of a woman it is made to sound as if she, Miriam, is somehow jealous of Moses'
wife' s position. As to the second complaint against Miriam, that of protesting Moses'
privileged status, she is the only one who is punished, although her brother Aaron is
equally culpable. And it is a punishment of biblical proportions. Miriam is stricken with
divine leprosy for her insubordination.
Miriam began as saviour and ends up as condemned. Aaron attempts an
intervention in this punishment. His words, his poetic simile is all the more disturbing, for
now, just as she assisted in saving Moses' life, now her life is in danger" Let her not be as
one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother's womb"

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(Numbers 12: 12). Pardes comments on this reversal of maternal simile directing the
reader's attention to how Miriam's "mothering" of both Moses and the Israelite nation
becomes skewed:
The mother figure of a nation becomes as a child, even a dead child, or
aborted fetus, whose flesh is eaten away .... The analogy God draws is
quite astounding. Miriam's demand for greater expression seems to be
synonymous with lewdness, and leprosy turns out to be the punitive
spitting of the Father.(lO)
We learn that the encampment of Israelites does not move on through the wilderness of
the desert until Miriam's time of ostracization is over. She dies in the wilderness of
Kadesh without raising her voice again. But if we listen closely we can hear her voice and
feel her dancing in the way the wind lifts the onionskin pages of biblical history.

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CHAPTER TEN
Jephthah' s daughter: In Memoriam
Judges 11

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The spirit of the LORD vs. Asherah
The way they tell it, he won
easy,
like stripping the bark off a willow or cedar
like she was girdled by the silly posture of the "GREAT I AM."
And yet, She keeps company
with trees and wind
plays the roundabout,
the calliope sound of the
merry-go-round of life and death.
Still, in the earth as the birds drop seeds
and the palm drops dates
she continues.
Planted by the eternal circle.
There is no end to sky
the blue will inform
the white will dazzle
imbricate
strand upon strand
web upon web.
She continues
two months of rains
and the trees break free into blossom
the plants combust into a blaze of yellow and orange-madder.
It is a better trick than the burning bush-that sustained nothing but misplaced faith.
Her flowers, her fruits carry life
Sometimes the denial only reinforces.
The constant avowal of the MAN, himself,
the diligent shouting
day in day out gets tedious, tiresome.
On the first day she rested, took time and twisted it into millenniums
changed her mind and changed it back.
She is the said and the unsaid:
brought up and put down again and again.
Spring in her steps.

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The Open Wound

JUDGES 11
Against the wall of Ammonites
hard pressed
still between the pages
paper-thin like the almond flower,
I wait for my father.
Breath held, I am the bait
for the fishhooks that hang
between him and the Lord.
The constant battle for righteousness.
It is a difficult embrace I long for
between the resentment and
the willing to please.
To see the smile of approval:
I would trip out the gateway
out of the door-- the flapping of tents,
like the wind and the buffeting,
I fly into my father's arms,
see his chagrin and wonder "what now?"
I too make vows,
I am sanctified by my love of this difficult life.
I walk large in my lamentations
everywhere I go
sorrow cloaks me.
In Gilead,
in the two months that grace the parched earth with rain,
my sisters mourn for my virginity.
It is all I have left.
I will not kiss another's mouth,
I will not feel the bitter-sweet pull of a baby's mouth at my breast:
and yet
I am sustained, on the pages,
but not in my heart by the constant renewal of life.
Those times so long ago
the dance-the sacrifice,
Persephone and I melt into history.
It was the rainy season and we fell in the circular dance.

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Jephthah' s daughter: In Memoriam
Judges 11
The story of Jephthah's daughter was not a story that was told at church or at Sunday
school. This story is another "unmentionable" Bible story involving violence against
women. I have read the story of Lot's daughters, the story of Dinah, the story of Tamar
(Samuel II) , the story of Jezebel and the story of Jephthah' s daughter as some of the
"untold" stories that involve depictions of violence against women. I have explored these
problematic stories and what they might have meant to both listeners in the ancient Near
East and readers today. Whether this story is taken as a re-telling of an actual series of
events or whether this story is taken as an allegory, I am concerned with opening the story
up and exploring possibilities.
Remnants from the past colour this particular story. There are elements of pagan
rituals within Jephthah's daughter's seclusion in the hills and in the two months of
symbolic mourning of the daughters of Israel. What does a feminist analysis of this story
discuss? What is a traditional Christian doctrinal analysis? The lack of details about
Jephthah's daughter opens up room for speculation and a reading into the text. What is
not said about her as an individual may be due to her allegorical nature as a sacrifice. What
kind of a person was this nameless daughter? There are many possibilities.

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It is not difficult to imagine Jephthah. He is a man with a chip on his shoulder. He
is the scorned son of a whore-- a bastard even. His half brothers cast him out of their
house so that he does not inherit. He attempts to fmd justice, but there is no justice for the
son of a prostitute. He lives in the desert and the hills collecting a motley mob of likeminded individuals. They, too, are not the cream of society. They, too, rail against the
unfairness of their lot. They become mercenaries, hired guns, and they are good at what
they do. In the beginning Jephthah strikes the reader as a kind of ancient Jesse James.
Every one loves an outlaw story. It is easy to romanticise living at the edge of society and
taking the law into one's own hands. The lawmakers sometimes envy the lawbreaker but
understand that his is the road that will lead to tragedy. Jephthah's flaw is his hubris.
It is harder to romanticise what happens to his only, and apparently, beloved

daughter. In order to secure a victory Jephthah swears an oath. It is a blood oath and the
consequences are deadly. Is the God of Israel a god who requires human sacrifice? Is the
God of the forefathers the same God as today? It is indisputable that whatever was the
case in ancient Israel that this bloodthirstiness is not appropriate for today. What may have
been appropriate within the laws of Ancient Israel are not appropriate within the laws of
modern North America. So too, then, are the mandates of the Old Testament

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inappropriate in regards to the oppression of the "other." This "other" may be women or
the stranger. Religion must change as society changes. The story of Jephthah's daughter,
in its lack of detail, invites differing speculations as to what the nature of the story intends.

The blood oath of Jephthah' s is part of an older structure of worship or of a
worship tainted by contact by pagan "others." Jephthah blames everyone but himself for
his vow. First it is his daughter's fault and then it is God's fault that Jephthah has made
this vow. Jephthah attempts to shift the blame onto his daughter's head by saying "Alas,
my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me:
for I have opened my mouth unto the LORD, and I cannot go back" (Judges 11:35).
This child sacrifice is akin to that of Abraham's near sacrifice oflsaac. If this is
some kind of divine test (like the test of Abraham) why isn't God shown to intercede?
God is strangely silent and there is no evidence of any punitive measure ·against Jephthah.
Child sacrifice is an abomination for Hebrews but sacrifice of animals is not uncommon in

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the Old Testament: "And thou shalt offer thy burnt offerings, the flesh and the blood, upon
the altar of the LORD thy God: and the blood of thy sacrifices shall be poured out upon
the altar of the LORD thy God, and thou shalt eat the flesh"(Duet.12:27).
In the Old Testament child sacrifice is not unheard of. The stories of Jephthah and
Abraham contain child sacrifices. Yet, the Old Testament directly denigrates the use of
child sacrifice. It is considered an abomination. Neighbouring tribes such as the Canaanites
are condemned for such practices: "Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for
every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for
even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods" (Duet.12:
31).

Just exactly what is going on in this story? The spirit of the LORD has descended
upon Jephthah in battle and he makes a blood oath to sacrifice whatever/whoever appears
first upon his homecoming. Words have an inordinate amount of power in the Old
Testament. We know that naming is a rite that bespeaks of some intrinsic nature of a child,
character or place. Words, names, and oaths contain power. "Naming ... is the labelling
of the character that completes its formation" (Bal129). Jephthah's nameless daughter
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then has no formation of character. Her role is one that must be interpreted from between

!
I

the lines.
According to Kirsch a vow or oath such as Jephthah made is sacred to the ancient
Israelites. The spoken word has power. The dictates of this respect for the word and God
are written in stone: no idol or graven image may be made of the One God nor may his
name be pronounced in vain. There is no going back on one's word, especially words one
has spoken before God. "Thus, for example, the Israelites regarded the four Hebrew
letters that spell the proper name of God- conventionally rendered in English as YHWHto be so powerful (and therefore so dangerous) that no one but the high priest was
permitted to speak 'this glorious and awful name' (Deut. 25:26) -- and even he was
permitted to do so only on the holiest day of the year . . ." (Kirsch 208).
The question then arises is the power of an oath stronger than the Hebrew law
forbidding human sacrifice? There is speculation that Jephthah's sacrifice of his daughter is
only an allegory: Jephthah is the Israelite people harkening unto the one true God. The
daughter then is the foreign idolatrous worshipper of a female deity. According to this
interpretation, the sacrifice becomes a symbolic sacrifice of one religion for another. The
dancing and the song of victory that his daughter sang for him is reminiscent of a more
earth-based deity.
This story is myth-like: Jephthah's nameless daughter is born of an equally
nameless mother. Moreover, there is no mention of her mother within the text. It is as if
Jephthah's daughter's only biological parent is her father. This may be another attempt to
establish the authority of paternity over maternity. This is certainly another attempt at
suppressing the goddess and privileging the One God.

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A number of scholarly exegetes propose that Jephthah's daughter and her
companions in their "bewailing her virginity" in the mountains and the subsequent annual
1

mourning four day period are evidence of a goddess cult (Judges 11:38). These scholars
differ on whom the cult is reminiscent of: whether it is Artemis, Persephone or Asherah.
Northrup Frye, in The Great Code, considers Jephthah's daughter: "the center of a local
female cult ... . like Artemis" (185).
Kirsch states that the mistranslation of the Hebrew word betulum has caused a
misapprehension of the story. In the King James Version betulum has been translated as
meaning virginity. Kirsch contends that the actual definition is: the state of womanhood in
which one is able to bear children. Thus the original text would have intended the
mourning in the story to be about a lack of lineage continuation and the lack of an adult
life. In many cultures women are not defined as adults until they have a child. The young
women then are mourning the loss of Jephthah's daughter as a mother (Kirsch 214) and as
an adult. The violence in this story acted out upon yet another a person who has no
recourse is difficult to analyse from an ernie perspective.
John J. Pilch in an article on family violence in cross-cultural perspective
comments on outsider and insider perspectives. He notes that the story of Jephthah's
daughter is a "native or 'ernie' report." Having said this, Pilch goes on to consider the
problems encountered when feminists consider this kind of story eticly. He encourages
'feminists' to:
.. . recognise the cross-cultural challenges of interpreting ancient texts
from the Mediterranean world and to adopt concepts, approaches, methods
1

See Kirsch's "A Goddess of Israel, " The Harlot by the Side of the Road & Bird' s Missing Persons and

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and models from the social sciences, notably cultural anthropology and
related disciplines such as Mediterranean anthropology. Such tools would
ensure a more accurate understanding of the 'native' point of view; and
contribute to the building of reliable bridges toward honest and respectful
feminist interpretation that would be neither anachronistic nor ethnocentric.

(308)
The difficulty I have with what appears to be a commendation for a postmodernistic
multiple view is that Pilch's wording is tainted by his own biases. The implication is that
feminist scholars cannot help but have only etic considerations and that this is less than
"honest and respectful." Like any other umbrella term "feminism" includes many points of
view. Some of these views utilise many fields of inquiry and some of these do not.
What we, in any field of inquiry, need to recognise and admit is our own personal
biases towards hierarchy and violence. One of the difficulties I face in biblical
interpretation is my belief that the Old Testament has often been used to support

contemporary violence against that which is considered "other." This "other" includes, in
a patriarchal society, women, children, the foreigner and even the environment and its
animals. I examine but do not make a sweeping judgement on Jephthah and his society
that condoned the sacrifice of his daughter. But I do believe that this kind of ancient
biblical story cannot be used today to condone using children, women or animals as
property.
Jephthah is never punished. This could be read as God condoning such an act as
child sacrifice and yet it is important to notice two things. One, the contemporary reader
Mistaken Identities (91).

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cannot but help align themselves with the daughter. Our culture has changed since biblical
time and exegesis should reflect this. And two, Jephthah's daughter lives on as story and
affects how we think. The possibility of using this story to condone any kind of violence
against women or children is dangerous.
There are many possible readings about the role or character of Jephthah's
daughter. Recognising these myriad possibilities only serves to enrich our understanding of
how women's stories in the Bible influence us still today. Perhaps, even for today, as
Kirsch states of the ancient Israelites, Jephthah' s daughter serves as "someone who
recognizes, responds to, and satisfies a deep and undeniable longing among the people of
ancient Israel that is left unfulfilled by a male deity" (215).
The more I, as a woman who has experienced a patriarchal depiction of woman as
"good' or "bad," read about the possibility of an earlier more inclusive-- less hierarchical
form of worship that included a feminine identity, the more I am charmed by such a lateral
notion. As evidenced in Genesis, Judges, II Kings, and elsewhere in the bible there are
remnants of a polytheistic religion in the mentioning of the Asherah, asherah pole, and the
groves, gardens, and mountains of a feminine goddess. Jephthah's daughter and the
village maidens go to mourn with a feminine Goddess. Is this is yet another indication that
the ancient Hebrews were initially reconciled with the feminine face of God?

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'
'

CHAPTER ELEVEN
Concubine of Bethlehemjudah:
The resurrection and the life
Judges 19, 20, and 21

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Like a bone for the dogs
Tender with just a little meat left on
so that one could sense the marrow so sweet
even from behind the closed cupboard door.
Wild dogs linger about the city streets
looking mean and prone to twitching
their muzzles into smiles that say "your turn."
Slinking sinking beneath the horizon
To pop up unexpectedly
Now you see them. Now you don't.
Don't turn your back on those desert dogs
They'll steal your skewered goat
right off the snapping fire.
They came sniffing that day as night fell
Skirting their way around the good women sleeping,
tails between their legs.
Bouncing on the balls of their hind feet.
Scratching, barking their hungers out:
Give us food. Give us food.
Send out the man that kicked us as we lay sleeping.
We'll give him what for
Oh, we'll lick his ass.
Goaded on by their pack instinct
and their hunger
biting, tearing at whatever scrap was flung their way.
Their teeth settled nicely into the soft flesh thrown
quick out the door, the scapegoat diversion,
Oh, the tender morsel- the sweet metal tang.
So clean off the bones
the scavenger came with the morning
Winging his way out into sunrise.
Up up he commanded
Feeding time's over.

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Because he played music
That ran through my veins like a drug
And told me, in confidence, how I was his favourite flute.
It rattled me,
that old song and dance so new.
Him: a servant in the courtyard.
If he knew I was watching
He'd do somersaults and handstands
Just to make me smile.
The strong beat of his rhythm
the percussion of his heart
while mine, like castanets, would clatter.
Nothing else mattered.
I was tired of being second string
Weary of the Levite and his pompous paunch
His eternal:
"When I will"
"Where I will"
"How I will"
I got tired of the jump-rope rattling
Tired of waiting for my turn on the drums.
That man found out about the illicit music we played
The servant was discharged.
Me: they locked in chambers
I was only sixteen
I grabbed my sistrum and away I run.
My father's house heard no music:
the soughing of the wind through the olive tree
and my sighs are all I heard.
My father refused to speak to me.
When the Levite priest carne after me,
First calling me sweet names and then cajoling
Calling me pomegranate, and watermelon,
Cinnamon and saffron
Almond and pistachio
Saying he'd buy me a harp-hinted that a baby would make me happy,
Well, I went
or was sent away.

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Pitted and spat out,
Stuffed and smeared
Cracked and shucked
Like lavender moonlight I fell to the
Fruit farmers
Spice-merchants
Nut gatherers
that
Manipulated, manoeuvred, murdered me inside.
I thought there was nothing left.
That it would be easy to abandon the rinds, the husk, the seeds,
(just to lay me down to sleep).
But to see my remains scrapped and dismembered
(I pray thee Lord my soul to keep)
bagged tagged and sent out like meat from a butchers
(for if I die before I wake)
those Levite hands so good at the sacrificial corpse
(I pray thee LORD my soul to take).
this way to flay down to bone so white.

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:

Oasis or sand-drowning
I believe I must remember.
Keep going back to
when the desert crept into my dreams,
drifted up into dunes of leftover realms
of memories.
The silt sifted on my tongue.
The silica settled between my toes.
The sediment in my hair.
The smell of dust deposits between my breasts
lingers longer than the myrrh.
Parchment old I know the dry dregs of wind
swallowed past tongue till it lodges in your throat
so that singing becomes impossible:
screaming a constant need.
A mirage of safety in strong arms,
strong shoulders that lock,
strong hands that tether goats.
I push past the residual reverie so that it's all I can do
to stop dwelling in tents and reading the desert daily.
Words are Braille beneath my callused fingertips.
Poring over the remnants of that life so long gone and unfulfilled.
Thirsty, I am always thirsty.
I make my way and lodging now beside rivers,
streams, and ponds.
Quenching clenching days
when all I had was dust and drifting.

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Concubine of Bethlehemjudah: The resurrection and the life
Judges 19, 20, and 21
There once was a Levite man who had a mistress. The mistress was unhappy in their
relationship. She slept with another man and then ran home to her parents. The Levite
came after her meaning to use pretty words to impress her. After a few days they left
together. On the way home they find shelter in a small town. During the night the
townsmen, fellow Israelites, demand that the Levite be sent out so that they could have
their "way" with him. The Levite throws his mistress out in the street like a bone for the
dogs. She is raped and beaten all night long. In the morning the Levite departs, putting
the body of his concubine on his donkey. He takes her home and butchers her up. He
sends her mangled body parts out to the twelve tribes of Israel in order to incense his
people to make war against the Benjaminites. He succeeds. War ensues. Thousands of
men, women, and children die. Hundreds of women and children are stolen. Hundreds of
women are raped.
This story is a horrific story. Because it is so horrific it is easier to think of it as
an allegory rather than a series of events that may have actually taken place. What I want
or need to be able to do is to read this story as the story of a real woman: the story of an
individual. I want to know what the treatment of the women in this story signifies to
readers. If it is only read as a warning about what might happen to a kingless and godlost
people (as in traditional exegesis), then it becomes too easy to ignore the actual
monstrous violence that this story depicts. Women in Judges are depicted in

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problematical fashioning, first in this particular story of violence toward one nameless
woman and then in the depiction of violence toward many nameless women.
I tried to imagine this story as if it were taking place today. I imagined reading it
as a newspaper account of current events. Perhaps it would be an atrocity of war story set
in a country lost to civil war. It would be shocking to read about a man offering his wife
as a scapegoat to an angry mob bent on sodomizing and humiliating him. It seems
possible: frightening, but not unbelievable. It is, unfortunately, believable. The genocide
that follows is all too real. We have only to turn on the television to be accosted by such
ethnic "cleansing" as in Bosnia. What I carmot imagine is the man (the husband) then
carrying her stiffening corpse home and butchering it into pieces and sending the pieces
off to incur further war mongering. This act of butchery creates an uncertainty within the
story. It is not even certain, within the text, whether the woman was dead when he found
her on the doorstep.
One of the elements that I find the most disturbing about this story is that the
concubine ofBeth-lehem-judah is yet another woman within the Book of Judges wherein
women are abducted, raped, bartered, and sacrificed. The aspect of such biblically
condoned misogyny lingers today. In Judges women are generally glossed over "tools" to
be used for male survival and ethnic cleansing. This effect lingers because there are
traditionalists who believe that what was apparently condoned by God back then still
holds true for today.
Is there evidence within this story that such acts of atrocity were condoned in
ancient Israel? The main victims are women. The main antagonists/protagonists are men.
There is no overt biblical indictment of the actions of the male characters. With the

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exception of the Benjamites and the men of Jabesh-gilead no men are punished. Yet even
the Benjamites are granted a reprieve. The concubine, the women of Jabesh-gilead, and
the women of Shiloh are granted no reprieve. They are murdered, raped, and stolen. We
must understand these stories as expressions of a culture that is no longer our culture in
the Western World. They are Old World stories from the ancient Near East. Carole
Fontaine, in her essay, ''The Abusive Bible: On the Use of Feminist Method in Pastoral
Contexts," delves into the issues of recurrent violence against women, children,
foreigners, and "other." Fontaine cites the following examples: Abraham and Jephthah' s
willingness to sacrifice their children and the rapes of Tamar by her half-brother and the
rape/sacrifice of the concubine of Bethlehemjudah. Fontaine judges these examples to be
particularly responsible for certain long held notions on the "guilt" of victims. These
particular stories are read within traditional Christians and Jewish exegesis as particular
examples of how God "condones" violence against women and children. Fontaine then
goes on to cite real examples of Christian and Jewish women professing that the violence
enacted upon their persons must have been the will of God. Fontaine suggests "that
something may be terribly wrong with the uses made of the Bible by its communities of
faith, if not also with the Bible itself' (86). ''They [the abusers and abusees] have read
their Bibles and in doing so inhaled the toxic fumes of the patriarchal ethos of the biblical

tradition (italics my own)" (88).
It is imperative that we consider these narratives as stories, whether they were

written as allegory or history. These tales were used to support ancient patriarchal edicts
for conduct. We need to find new interpretations and express for ourselves what our
experience of the divine is. For me this is both what I read (are-visitation to the Old

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Testament stories) and how I re-vision these stories. Another feminist exegete, Bal,
states:
Since it is obvious that ancient Hebrew society, as well as most of its
contemporary societies, was thoroughly misogynist .... and since, on the
other hand, today's Western society claims to have evolved toward respect
for equal rights and emancipation, we could expect an evolution from a
sexist text to more 'equal' readings ... The fact that the opposite is the
case ... provides insight into the dynamic nature of myth, into the current
state of sexual ideology, and into the necessity of reversal as a political
move (Derrida 1972: 56-57). (as quoted in Balll0-111)

The opening sentence in many of the chapters of Judges mentions how there is no
king in Israel. This, apparently, explains the lawless behaviour of the Israelites or at least
the extenuating circumstances of their deplorable behaviour. Judges ends this particular
story by insisting that the blame falls upon their kingless state because: "In those days
there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes" (Judges
21:25). As well, one of the other 'main' topics of the book of Judges is infighting
between tribes and the consequent disunity of the Israelite nation. Apparently anything
might happen in such a state of disarray.

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In this lawless confusion the story of the concubine of Bethlehemjudah begins.
She is nameless. The perpetrators of her violence are nameless. All we know are their
tribal alliances. The concubine is from Bethlehemjudah. The main male character is a
Levite, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. He is a non-landowner and descended from the
priesthood, as are all Levites. The man who gives them shelter is from the same
'hometown' as the Levite. The men who rape the concubine are Benjaminites. The
Benjaminites are another one of the twelve tribes of Israel. In the normal course of
biblical events, war occurs against the "enemies of God." In this story we have tribe
against tribe. Same fighting against same gleans a particular indictment in the awful
consequences that follow.
Where in all this bloodshed and violence is there room for considering the
personhood of this nameless concubine? Consider what purpose this story has had for
patriarchy. As well, what does this story mean to women? I will consider the 'moral' of
this story within the context of the book of Judges. The concubine's story serves a
political purpose. Whose?
Phyllis A Bird in her book Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities: women and

Gender in Ancient Israel, takes a cultural anthropological look at women's roles and
autonomy. She suggests that certain aspects of the Old Testament suggest that women
had some options concerning marriage roles. She uses this particular example of the
concubine in Judges to indicate this possibility. She states that a woman could take the
initiative: "she could refuse an 'offer' (Gen. 24:5, 57-58) and make demands of her own
(Judg. 1: 15). Though a woman could not divorce her husband, the mistreated wife might
simply return to her father's house (Judg. 19:2)" (39).

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I

The earlier passage (Judges 19:2) illustrates autonomy to Bird, but a later part of
the passage indicates a misogynist view of women. As always there are many readings of
the text. Bird sees initial autonomy but fails to place this autonomy within the wider
context of the story. It is not a simple matter. After all, the Levite went to her father's
home to bring her back. There is no mention of whether she wants to go back or not. I
imagine there was some reason that she left in the first place. The King James Version
states that the concubine "plays the whore against him and went away from him" (Judges
19:2, emphasis added). The text reflects the actions of the concubine as only pertaining to
her husband. What she does apparently only has meaning in how it affects the man.
Bird elucidates that concubines might be treated much as wives but that they did
not have the same rights as "free persons" (25). Kirsch states that the role of concubine
was not like being a mistress or harlot but more like being a "wife" of second rank (252).
Second best is still second best and while it may have been a "perfectly honorable
position in a household" (Kirsch 253) according to the eyes of the forefathers, the
concubines will have felt their secondary status. Her children would belong to their father
and king's concubines could be inherited by his successor (Bird 25). A concubine is a
woman, either bought or stolen in war, who a man uses sexually. This is considered
appropriate within the Old Testament. If the concubine ceases to be enjoyed by her
master, he must set her free (Duet 21:10-14). The term concubine seems to be interchangeable with the terms of maidservant and slave-woman if they are used sexually by
their master. According to Exodus 21:4-11: A maidservant or female slave belonged to
the master who had purchased her, although he must treat her in a prescribed manner, by
not selling her to foreigners, by treating her as a daughter if given to his son, and by not

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diminishing her rations if he takes another wife. The notion of a concubine as property is
perpetuated by many scholars. A concubine may be bought, sold or stolen. Gordon and
Rendsburg in their book, The Bible and the Ancient Near East, state about this particular
concubine's story, that it is: " ... the story of an atrocious crime in Gibeah of Benjamin,
where a concubine belonging to a Hebrew was abused and killed" (182). She is not only
considered property but also she is othered. The atrocities committed against her are
made light of or not even mentioned. So within this story the reader must consider not
only how concubines were regarded within their culture, but also how they, or those of
secondary rank, are read now.

The repetition of the immanent departure day after day serves to emphasise either
the vagaries of fate: how one day or hour may make all the difference or it may serve to
enunciate God's omnipotence: a kind of malevolent deus ex machina. There is no
mention in these passages as to whether the nameless concubine wishes to tarry, depart,
or stay permanently. She is not consulted. The servant is allowed voice, but she is not.

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This delay in departure further enhances the possibility that the reader senses what
fate awaits the concubine. The servant suggests that 'as the hour is late that they should
lodge in Jehus. The Levite has other plans. He is not one to rely upon the kindness of
strangers. He relies upon the hospitality of fellow Israelites: they are family after all.

This entire story is a system of checks and balances that have gone out of
alignment as per ancient Israelite customs. The beginning of this story serves to
emphasise how these checks and balances ought to work. This story proclaims in its
beginnings that a people need a leader. This story elucidates that a concubine leaving her
husband and returning to her family is out of balance. The Levite goes to her home and
collects her: thus equilibrium returns. Like calls to like or same to same: thus Jehus is
rejected in favour of Gibeah. The "other" (Jebusites) are not the chosen people. The
balance, as the Israelites understood it, is maintained in this manner. The travellers go
onto Gibeah are offered shelter by a sojourner within the city. The Benjaminites ought to
have been hospitable but were not. Thus they were out of alignment. This is directly
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indicted within the text: "and there is no man that receiveth me to house" (Judges19:18).
Is the balance uneasily achieved once again by the fact that at least there is one man who
understands the edicts of Israelite hospitality? Fewell in the essay "Imagination, Method,
and Murder: Un/Framing the Face of Post-Exilic Israel," discusses the violence ofkin
against kin in Judges 19-21:
The men of Benjaminite Gibeah treat the Levite and his wife as if they
were Foreigners. The Benjaminite men behave like the Foreign
Sodomites .... the killing of the Benjaminites is somehow connected to
the killing of the inhabitants of the land, or that murder and
dismemberment of the woman is somehow cormected to the carving up of
the land and the murder of the inhabitants. The movement from killing
'Others' to killing each other appears to be symptomatic of the same
trauma of identity. Israel cannot rewrite the face of the Other without

rewriting its own face. (146)

Apparently all is well once again. The balance has been achieved. The concubine
is back with her husband. Presumably this is where she belongs and the travellers have
found welcome with one of their own. All is not well, though. What has built up within

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the system of balances and checks is an uneasy tension. With all the push and pull of
equilibrium there must come a time where it will all fall apart.
The notion of sodomy and male rape is one that I considered within the narrative
of Lot's daughters in chapter 4. From a male perspective the idea of rape and sodomy is
abhorrent but it is important to note that the male characters are not sacrificed in either
story. The threat is there but it does not come to fruition. In this story the concubine takes
the place of the husband. She is replaceable. The violence that is too unspeakable to
depict against the male central character does not have as much power (for the traditional
male reader and ancient Near Eastern male listener) as the sacrifice of one runaway
concubine. It has been suggested within traditional exegesis that the concubine deserved
her fate for daring to runaway. J. Cheryl Exum, in her book Fragmented Women,
explores the story of the concubine of Bethlehemjudah. She believes the underlying
message of this story is deeply misogynistic. She comments on the notion that
"homosexual rape forces the male victim into a passive role, into the woman's
position"(182). I draw the further conclusion that this passivity is unspeakable in ancient
patriarchal Hebrew society. Thus a female victim replaces the male victim. Exum also
comments on the issue of traditional blame and finger pointing where the concubine is
concerned. She straightforwardly states: "By leaving her husband the woman makes a
gesture of sexual autonomy so threatening to patriarchal ideology that it requires her to be
punished sexually in the most extreme form. The symbolic significance of dismembering
the woman's body lies in its intent to de-sexualize her" (Fragmented Women, 181).
Just as in the story of Lot, the central male character that offers up the women as
scapegoats is neither punished nor castigated. The Levite is not punished nor are the

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tribes of Israel, who are responsible for the rape of the women of Jabesh-Gilead and the
women of Shiloh.
One of the foremost reasons I had for choosing the King James Version of the
Bible is the poetic language used. My understanding and love of language and poetry can
be traced back to the King James Bible. That such horror could be written in such a
poetic fashion makes it linger all the more. The passage that reads: "and abused her all
the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go" resonates
in chilling fashion (Judges 21:25). The words carry and emphasise both a meaning and a
duality. The darkness of night and evil deeds blend with one another without a direct
connecting statement. The light of day brings with it a release of action: the verb "spring"
creates a release in itself; she is let go.

There are many troubling aspects of this story, but none as much as the
commandeering voice and actions of the Levite unto his concubine. Her hands are spread
in supplication on the threshold. There is no solace for her. She is not resting; there is no
peace. Is she dead? These ambiguities within the text open it up for diverse
interpretations. Note that the concubine as object is emphasised. The Levite is about to go
on his way with no regard for what had taken place in the night. He is not looking for the

concubine. But there she is: "behold, the woman his concubine was fallen down at the
door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold" (Judges 19:27; emphasis
added). So he instructs the concubine "Up, and let us be going" (Judges 19:28). She does
not answer. The Levite then slings her body onto the donkey and takes her home. What
does he think of on the way home? Is his anger building against the atrocity that is
committed against him? Within biblical law rape is a crime against the patriarchy. It is a
crime against the father and/or the husband: it is even a crime against the brothers.
There are many questions to be asked. There is a hesitation, an obvious silence, in
the text. But just because we do not hear from the concubine does not mean she is
necessarily absent or even dead. We seldom hear from women within the Old Testament.
Are we to believe, as readers, that the concubine was dead and that was why she did not
answer the Levite's command? The possibility certainly exists that she may have been
unconscious. Trible elucidates: "Is she dead or alive? ... Oppressed and tortured, she
opens not her mouth . .. Her silence, be it exhaustion or death, deters the master not at all.
What he set out to do in the light of morning, he does" (Texts of Terror 79).
Are we meant to consider (as does Danna Nolan Fewell in "Imagination, Method,
Murder" 147) that the twelve dismembered body pieces are being sent to the twelve tribes
of Israel? Are we meant to consider that, surely, the Levite didn't send the Benjaminites a
piece? Who, then, was the twelfth dismembered body piece for? More chilling is the fact
that the Levite is a man of the priesthood accustomed to sacrificial slaughter of animals.
For him, as a seasoned killer, what is one more sacrifice?

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Once again the illumination of light symbolizes a dawning horror. The concubine
is violated and raped and either left for dead or is actually dead: "and abused her all the
night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go"(Judges
19:25). So too, is the slaughter of the Benjaminites portrayed in like terms of poetry and
illumination: "and trode them down with ease over against Gibeah toward the sunrising"
(Judges 20:43).
The slaughter of the Benjaminites leaves only six hundred men alive. All women,
children and livestock are killed. Possessions are destroyed. The outrage of the Israelites
over the rape of one concubine descends into the deaths and rapes of hundreds of women.
These women are expendable to the Israelites just as the concubine was expendable to her
master.

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When the bloodlust has fmally settled, the reality of near genocide means that the
remaining tribes must either acknowledge their responsibility or make amends. Their idea
of amends means more bloodshed and violence. This bloodshed and violence becomes
gynocide. Women are easily sacrificed for the good of the tribe.
By reading this particular story with a "hermeneutic of suspicion" (Elisabeth
Schussler Fiorenza' s term) feminist exegesis will read against the patriarchal monopoly
of interpretation and the inherent androcentric bias (Schottroff, Schroer, and Wacker 45).
What feminists can read into and out of this violent narrative is an indictment of the
patriarchal system. Such hierarchies lead only to escalating violence. War is the ultimate
act of a patriarchal society. In "Rereading the Body Politic," Bach states that: 'The arena
of war (whether it be holy or civil war) provides men with the perfect psychological
backdrop to give vent to their contempt for women. Whether narrative rape or actual
gynocidal violence, rape in war is a familiar act with a familiar excuse" (394).
It is unfortunately familiar that women might be considered part of the spoils of
war. Stories from Vietnam, Rwanda, and Bosnia make it clear that this is not just an Old

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World atrocity. Gail Corrington Streete discusses the underlying assumptions one finds in
"captive women" stories in the ancient world. She states:
In the ancient world in general, the victorious army kills the males and
rapes the females of the conquered, thus accomplishing both the
humiliation of the conquered through the inability of its men to protect its
women and the erasure of the identity of the conquered because their
women will bear children for the victors. (41)
It is also difficult to understand why what is reprehensible when done unto Israel may be
done ten-fold unto the "other." This escalating violence occurs in Dinah's story, and
Tamar's story (II Samuel). I contend that it is the women who not only suffer rape and
pillaging but as well suffer the pain and ignominy of captivity. Trible illuminates:
Entrusted to Israelite men, the story of the concubine justifies the
expansion of violence against women. What these men claim to abhor,
they have reenacted with vengeance. They have captured, betrayed, raped,
and scattered four hundred virgins of Jabesh-gilead and two hundred
daughters of Shiloh. Furthermore, they have tortured and murdered all the
women of Benjamin and all the married women of Jabesh-gilead. (Trible
83-84)

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All the tribes of Israel hearken unto the call to arms against their fellow tribe the
Benjaminites. All except the camp of Jabesh-gilead and they pay dearly. All the men and
all the non-virgin women are put to death so that their virgin daughters may be stolen and
given to the few remaining Benjaminites to ensure the continuation of their lineage. But it
is not enough, that is, there are not enough virgin women left of the camp of Jabeshgilead to go around. So off the Israelites go to Shiloh to steal some more virgin women
for the remnants of the Benjaminites.
The abduction and rape of the women in Shiloh is treated obliquely within the
text. There is no up front acknowledgement about what is taking place. We do not hear
the voices of the women from Shiloh rising up in terror. We do not even hear the men's
voices (their fathers, brothers, and uncle' s voices) rising up in outrage. Bach considers
the ramification of such oblique narrative rape:
While an event of rape is not acknowledged openly in Judges 21 [the
Shiloh abduction], it is encoded within the ambiguity, the indirections of
the text. The result is to naturalise the rape. By reading against the grain of
the writer's intention which narrate the carrying off of women as wives for
the men of Benjamin as necessary and natural, one sees how the biblical

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authors, men who possessed benevolence and reason, could inscribe a
rationale for oppression, violation, and exploitation within the very
discourse of the biblical text. ("Rereading the Body Politic" 390)
What does this silence about rape lead us as readers to understand about the text? This
violence is condoned violence. Perhaps we are to believe that it is even a necessary
injustice. The outrage becomes almost rational until one reads deeper. "Unless the reader
listens for the woman's story muffled in the gaps and silences of the male narrative, the
reader becomes a voyeur, complicit with the orderly retelling of the story" (Bach
"Rereading the Body Politic" 392). There are no scales of justice operating fairly here.
God like Justice is blind. "God's" people do as they see fit, all in the name of keeping the
holy line of Israel alive.
This unmentionable story about one nameless concubine is also the
unmentionable story of many nameless women, men, and children. As readers, we bear
witness to these events in this story and it is only by questioning our responses to this
story that we determine a new future. Genocide, rape, and power over systems continue.
If we admit to culpability in our history, we may become determined not to repeat the
mistakes of our 'fathers' and 'forefathers.'

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CHAPTER TWELVE
Ruth: Love's sojourn
The Book of Ruth

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There is a way
Through the jest of what is
and so tangible it knocks you down again and again,
as well as, through the effervescence of the wind
that blows clean through and leaves
a woman dry and wanting.
The frowning face of the thundercloud god
takes one's breathe away,
knocks the wind right out of you,
far away from the comfort of home.
Far away from the comfort of familiarity
when to wander is to be godless
and breathless and thirsty.
There are other things:
Other things besides
the milky mouthed satisfaction of babies
the utter audacity of children
the strong-arm closeness of men.
Shoulders and biceps like olive branches.
These she will always linger-long for,
She is looking for the willow,
Sister,
the pliant limbs,
the open mouthed smiles,
the sidelong glance of understanding.
There is a way
Through a common way of seeing gardens
And knowing how to till the soil,
A way of looking at the drooping leaves and knowing when to water.
The endless balancing act of women,
Knowing the zephyr from the sirocco
And the power of both becomes knowledge.
Between the kicking up the dust for fun, and the silent feet
Of shaking that dust off again.
It is by knowing how to enter the dustdevil
And come out shaking but resolute
And leaning on the one that is next to you.
Same but different.
There is always a way to the centre.

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Like Watermelons too
Dipping deep in the cistern
Knowing all about the artesian
Trying to spin then into now:
When all I can think about are the verdant gardens of my mother
The greenhouses of grapevines and the old peach tree branches low and yielding
Every spring I work with the same women I've known since childhood.
Ingrid my friend since I was one year old,
The homeopathy of her memories of me.
Louise the minister's wife
The echoing Dutch nursery rhymes that my mother and she sing.
Kathy whose son I used to drive crazy 15 years ago
As now she riles mine.
Annette with her laughter and hands that move so fast,
Clever with transplanting and seeding,
Weaving the past to the present.
My mother running for the phoneAlways running when everyone else walks.
Talking to the children and old people
Making coffee and tea.
We are selling the seedlings and baskets
To the people who come for beauty
The names of plants echo in Latin and in a common language we only know,
Feverfew for headaches and sage for sore throats
Lemonbalm for sad spirits and camomile for one week.
Yarrow for indecision.
Lavender for fertility
and every women has a story about their mother or aunt or grandmother
who gave them garden medicine.
The children slip through clenching dandelions and snails,
Trailing their way in the transparent houses
The sun beating rhythm and the rain kissing glass
there are many answers
to a green which heals.

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Saving Grace

Us, by thousands of thousands
Not for you that dance, that twist, that pony
To be ridden till it falls down breathing
So heavy and tortured
Windstraked/windbroken.
An essential argument of gender
There is no other way of loving the frail body like this:
I swear I have bled for them
Have sweated and puked
Shat and wept.
Walked through a daze of nights and mornings
Purged my rearview mirror demons for and
resurrected my jesus faith in people.
If not for them;
I would have no notion of the symmetry
Of the beginning.
Primordial soup in which we swim:
I see them in the man on the corner of Main and Kalum
They have his eyes
He has their inability to quite meet my eyes
When asking for so little.
I touch the smooth brow of understanding
Bathe in quiet waters of guilt
Smile sadly at the glassy-eyed boys in the alley behind Danny's Pool hall
Felt their mouths at my breast
Heard their cries in the night
Cried in frustration myself.
Felt their hunger for the light and just one more drink
Felt the drugged hormones of the junkies
After they were born; swore I'd never get back on that horse again
Decked myself out in the lavender savour
Of my hayfield love
Knee deep and leaping over the eternal
Crushed clover and alfalfa knocked senses
All the mornings yellow with pollen.

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I

Ruth: Love's sojourn
The Book of Ruth
I remember Ruth, from my childhood, as a meek woman. I remember her as the woman
who followed Naomi, her mother-in-law, into a strange land. Ifl pause long enough to
think about why a young woman would have left her homeland, her family, even her
gods to follow her mother-in-law to a strange land, I am brought to consider what reasons
she could possibly have had. What reasons could there be to do such a thing? Ruth had
the choice of whether to stay in her homeland or travel into uncertainty in a strange land.
Naomi had followed her husband into this strange land. They had travelled to
Ruth's land to escape a famine in her own land. Now, Naomi had good reason to return to
her homeland, with her sons and husband dead, she could find family and protection.
I believe that there must have been great love and affection between the women. I
believe that Ruth went with Naomi, not out of obligation, but out of love. There was no
assured future for Ruth in following Naomi. Her mother-in-law was a widow with no
home and no male protection in a strange land: Naomi had no recourse but to return to
her home. There is no possibility of a levirite marriage for Ruth. Naomi makes this clear.
Both of her sons are dead. No levirate marriage means no children, and no husband. This
fact in the ancient Near East means no societal respect--no position meaningful for Ruth
within the Old Testament. And yet, this story of two women's friendship has survived
countless centuries. The survival of this story may be due to the all-encompassing love
these two women have for each other or because these women are instrumental in the

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I

continuance of the divine lineage. From this Moabite woman, Ruth, comes the royal line
of King David that leads to the birth of Jesus Christ.
We can read many differing elements into and out of this story. This story may
have survived because of its importance in the royal lineage but, as well, and more
importantly for me, it survives as a testimonial to the solidarity of two women-- women
of differing ages, societies, and at least initially, of differing gods. My suggestion here is
that it is because of the love and respect Ruth has for Naomi that she follows her God.
Not so much because the monotheistic God of Israel is frightening or powerful but out of
loyalty to a secular human friendship. This is not what traditional exegesis would have
readers believe. This story can, and has, been read as supporting the patriarchal status
quo. In Esther Fuchs's view Ruth is considered admirable, not because of her autonomy
or pioneering ways but is upheld as admirable for another reason. Ruth is deemed
important because "her success in finding and marrying a direct relative of Elimelech, her
father-in-law, and giving birth to children who would carry on the patrilineage of her
deceased husband" (Feminist Perspectives 130).
Why is it that Ruth's loyalty and her concerns for procreation are what is revered
within this story in a traditional exegesis? Why is the love of these two women not
traditionally celebrated? In Samuel, King David's love for his friend Jonathan is oft
commented on. The love between these two friends is celebrated. And yet, in Ruth and
Naomi's remarkable story, the fealty and love between these two women is not overtly
celebrated. Surely Ruth's allegiance speech is as remarkable and lovely as that of David's
for his friend. The biblical commentary on the love between the two men is poetic: "And
Jonathan caused David to swear again, because he loved him: for he loved him as he

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loved his own soul"(lSam 20:17). Jonathan and David's love is considered so unusual
and remarked upon, that some believe them to have been lovers. The Bible passage,
concerning the love between the two men, states that their love exceeds the love between
a man and a woman: "I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast
thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women" (2 Sam
1:26).
The patriarchal view does not often concern itself with "women's affairs" (food
preparation and childrearing, for example) unless these affairs could be used to support
the patriarchal status quo. The particulars of Ruth and Naomi's travels or how they
managed to survive their journey are not mentioned in the biblical narrative. Ruth's
gleaning in the fields is mentioned because it is key in her meeting Boaz, whom she will
eventually marry. In between depictions of patriarchal importance we read the story of
Ruth and Naomi's love for one another. I examine this exceptional love between two
women. I also comment upon the intrepid nature of Ruth. Her actions speak of her
bravery. This bravery and autonomy is not overtly acknowledged within biblical text or
traditional exegesis but it is indisputably there in the story. Ruth is brave in going to a
strange land and in gleaning grain unprotected in a strange field. By placing herself in a
seductive position in order to secure Boaz she exercises her agency.

This story, within one of the two books of the King James Bible to have feminine
titles, begins with the men. The entire body of the story revolves around two women, but

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the beginning and the ending bring the story into the patriarchal perspective of who is
important according to their patriarchal writers. Two presumably "defenceless" women
are left without men to look after them. They manage perfectly capably and
autonomously to survive during the body of the work. In the latter part of the story we are
introduced to how these lone women will get on. They use tools not normally utilised
within biblical storying. They do what needs to be done for survival. In taking matters
into their own hands and by directing the plot of their lives they have remained as strong
autonomous women figures in the Old Testament.

Ruth's heart clave unto Naomi. This seldom-used biblical expression of devotion
is emblematic of a deep connection. "And they lifted up their voice, and wept again: and
Orpah kissed her mother in law; but Ruth clave unto her" (Ruth 1:14).

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Ruth is willing to go from her homeland, family, friends, gods and the possibility
of security to follow her widowed mother-in-law to a strange land. Such devotion is
telling of deep emotions.
Naomi entreats her daughter-in-laws not to follow her. She knows that they have
little or no chance of fmding a husband. She, Naomi, is without any more sons for her
daughter-in-laws to marry. Any sons she may have would be children and they, Orpah
and Ruth, would be old women. It is not surprising that this story would be overtly
concerned with the continuance of patrilineal lineage. The opportunity and ability to bear
children, in the Old Testament, is emphasised again and again as being within the
constituency of God. As well, within ancient Hebraic society, women needed children to
give them security.

Ruth, under the direction of her mother-in-law, works to provide for the two
women. She also works to place herself in such a way as to garner the attentions of a near
male relative. In this manner, their security is ensured. As well, Ruth's position as
outsider (Moabite) is negated and she becomes included as insider. Ruth's position as
outsider is mentioned again and again within this text. She is called "the Moabitess" five
times. She is also called "Moabitish," and the "woman of Moab." Such repeated stress on
her position as outsider emphasises her tenuous status. It is important to consider her
actions of autonomy as having the purpose of inclusion.

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These fields in which Ruth gleans corn, are dangerous grounds for unattached,
unescorted women. It is not until Boaz speaks to the young men of the field that Ruth is
assured safe passage. This says something about the society in which a woman was
unprotected without close male relatives. More importantly, it says something about the
character of Ruth. In my readings of Ruth commentaries, I have come upon the
uneasiness of many feminist writers. There is a prevalent view that because Ruth is
emblamatic of the righteous, meek, and dutiful she is problematic. What are considered
admirable traits from the patriarchal point of view are often stifling and difficult to accept
for a feminist reader. In my reading, Ruth is not some meek and obedient non-thinker.
She is an active participant, loyal and intrepid. Loyalty to her mother-in-law does not
necessarily mean subservience.
Ruth chose to accompany Naomi. She chose to go gleaning, even as she knew the
dangers that could befall an "unprotected" woman. She sees how the favour of Boaz
could give her protection and she is not about to jeopardise an assurance of safety. Her
life and Naomi's life depend on it in this society. Today Ruth may have gone back to

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school, worked in a store, dug ditches, got remarried, or started a farm on the land she
inherited with Naomi. Within Hebrew society, Ruth boldly pushes past the limits of what
is acceptable behaviour for women.

In this story there is scant mention of the Lord God's direct hand. No deus ex
machina has saved the two women from hardship; there is no burning bush or parting of
the Red Sea to lead them on. Ruth feeds herself and Naomi with the gleanings from the
harvests. It is hot, hard work and the sun beating down on the back of her neck scorches
her skin so that it smells like salted meat. Ruth has seen the women looking at her from
the corners of their eyes and she has seen the men staring bold-faced at her till her skin

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crawls like locusts. Finding favour in the eyes of this kind man, a kinsman, is a godsend,
and Naomi acknowledges this. Naomi no longer sounds bitter and uncaring. She has new
hope for prosperity and continuance. The words of Boaz state that she has found favour
in the eyes of the LORD and consequently himself has a fairytale flavour. This story is
like the story of the youngest son who goes out into the world with no inheritance and
only his kind nature to guide him. In the fairytale the young man saves an ant, a mouse,
and a grasshopper, all of which turn out to be a magical being who recognizes and
rewards him for his kindness. Ruth, too, is rewarded for her kindness by Boaz/God. But
the actions of Ruth and Naomi conclude the story.

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Ruth goes to where she knows Boaz is sleeping and seduces him. The King James
Version suggests that this is what happens, but does not go into any details. In the
original Hebrew text, certain language and words meant more than the reader might
assume from the King James text. The euphemisms and metaphors within the original
Hebrew texts have a deeper and far less oblique meaning than the King James Version.
The setting and wording of the threshing floor seduction takes on new emphasis.
According to Gail Corrington Streete, "threshing" is quite often a metaphor for sexual
intercourse in agricultural societies and the "feet" of Boaz which Ruth uncovers is a
"Hebrew euphemism for the male genitals" (69). The cloak which Boaz covers Ruth
with, upon her urging, is "another euphemism for genitals" (69).
Ruth acts in a manner that is normally considered outside of propriety. Yet, she is
not condemned, within the text, for doing so. The connections between this story and the
story of Tamar (Chapt. 8) are unmistakable. Both are foreign women. Both are widows.
Both are childless. Both take action to ensure that they will gain what they want and what
they want is a child. They do so to ensure their security in a foreign household. Readers
with modern values should not condemn these strategies. Survival and love are of utmost
importance to every human. The agendas of Ruth and Tamar are specific to the cultures
in which they reside. Tikva Frymer-Kensky considers how this story is depicted within a
patriarchal view. She considers how the notion of sexual aggression by women is
considered praiseworthy because it maintains the patrilineal line. Frymer-Kensky infers
that this type of "sexually aggressive" behaviour is only acceptable if it ensures the
patrilineage:

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Ruth, who was a young widow living with her widowed mother-in-law,
came in the night to a kinsman to sleep at his feet and thus induce him to
marry her. Tamar and Ruth did not act as proper young women were
expected to. And yet, far from being condemned, they were treated as
heroines, who acted to have children and maintain the patrilineal line of
their marital family. In this, it is doubly significant that they are not
originally Israelite women ... Ruth was a Moabite whom Naomi's son
married during their sojourn in Moab. It is not that foreign women were
more likely to be sexually aggressive, but that they are all the more
praiseworthy in being so anxious to maintain the family they married into,
even though they were not raised in the system. (124)

It is difficult to balance the notions of Ruth, sojourner in a strange land, loyal and

intrepid seductress with the latter part of the story wherein she is described as being
purchased and inherited like the land of her deceased father-in-law. Remember, though,
Ruth and Naomi have set up this "business" deal: she, according to Hebrew society must

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have a male protector and she has chosen Boaz. The wording of the transformation of
Ruth as widow into married woman is described in terms of "property" which is how she
would have been viewed at least by the patriarchal writer(s) of the story. These biases
need not be our own if we read as readers from an acknowledgely different time. The
Bible, after all, reflects the society of the time in which it was written and the time in
which it was translated:
Another consequence of patrilineal family organization is that women do
not normally inherit land. Exceptions treat daughters as placeholders in the
absence of sons (Num 27:1-11), bridging the gap between the generations
until their sons can resume the paternal line and legacy (insured, according
to Num 36:6-9, by requiring the daughter to marry within her father's
tribe). Similar concern for the preservation of the patrimony appears to
underlie the institution of levirate marriage, which obligated a man to
marry the wife of a deceased brother . . . or close kinsman (Ruth 2:20; 4:56) in order to continue the brother's 'name.' (Bird 56)

As the story begins with the men, who are missing from the body of Ruth's story
as active participants, so does it end with men in the genealogical listing: " the very last

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lines of the book of Ruth refer exclusively to the newborn son, Obed, and his part in the
genealogy of David. No mention is made of Ruth; she is not even called the mother of the
baby: Naomi the Bethlehemite woman is. Ruth has disappeared" (Van Wolde 434).
Ruth the foreign Moabite woman transforms the lives of those with whom she
comes in contact. Naomi is so bitter about her fate that she changes her name to Mara:
meaning bitter. Naomi becomes a woman renewed with a grandson and a place within
ancient Hebrew society and biblical history. Boaz, an older man, is changed by his
perception of Ruth as kind and righteous, gains a wife, land, and a child. Surely their
lives are enriched by their relationships with Ruth. And Ruth is enriched by her
relationships with them. What could have been empty and bitter is full imd comfortable.
Ruth as transformer and bringer of life appears like the goddesses that surround ancient
Hebrew culture. Ruth neither begs nor pleads with God to intervene or save her or
Naomi.

It is the writer who brings up God's role as omnipotent deemer of fertility "So
Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife: and when he went in unto her, the LORD gave her
conception, and she bare a son" (Ruth 4: 13). But as a reader, I know who brought all this
about and it is Ruth who creates life from all that possible death and emptiness. I would
define my own vision of Ruth and read her counter-traditionally-- not as meek but as
intrepid. She is strategist and transformer.

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Tamar's telling
2 Samuel: 13

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Tamar's telling- PRESTO
Inside the castle gates midst the brocade of
carnelian and ivory dipped in languid waters.
Tamar dipped and bowed ever graceful:
The beauty of water
-prized hothouse lilyforbidden in her terra-cotta pot.
So easily shattered by the kickball of lust.
The roughhousing of boys that requires
but never includes,
Torment of the endless position of
Above and beyond
Above and beyond.
Hierarchical, I understand
The way the father tells the son
And the brother tells the sister:
What to do?
Father, Uncle, Cousin, King.
In here where it all began.
Premeditated violation in the bedsheets of
Azure and somnambulant silk
Meant for laying upon and not for war.
She was so beautiful it made him sick,
Coughing up his mornings and his nights:
phlegm in the bedroom.
She was positioned between and identified again
By whose daughter, whose sister, whose cousin?
Before Amnon' s eyes she floated
Beguiling even while
Baking the bread of sustenance,
A sweet bread,
he cannot choke on but ought to.

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Now I lay me down
It was not the sudden shock that got to her
The violence she'd been expecting since she was born
Born that way believing that this is what happens:
from camouflage stillness to the smothering silence;
Of the heavy sheet that coiled and reared
I'd say snake like to bite:
but that silence has no form,
just the lingering effect of the constant echo of nothingness.
It was the selfhatred that almost killed
Poisonous: the cloistering of self-It was from the careful steps she never strayed
Colouring between the lines
The path of careful treads
Footfalls of invisibility
It was her intention never to be heard from again.
There is a kind of safety in the net of retreat.
A sort of kindness in invisibility
A fading of dark into grey -Night becomes twilight to be lingered over.

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Tamar's telling
2 Samuel: 13
This particular story of Tamar the Israelite is very different than the previous story of
Tamar the Canaanite. This story is about Tamar the Israelite who is badly abused by her
half brother. She is acted upon and has little or no regress. In chapter eight, Tamar the
Canaanite was the principle actor in her story. She claimed her redress. These two very
different stories have two things in common. One, both stories are about the wrong that
Israelite people have enacted upon these two women. Tamar, the Israelite, is raped by her
half-brother and Tamar, the Canaanite, has been denied her right to have a child by her
father-in-law. Two, the stories of these two women tend to be swept under the rug: they
are seldom read from the pulpit. These two different women's stories are "untold" stories
because they reflect the Israelite people in a bad light.
I remember quite vividly the adulatory stories in Samuel of good King David and
his exploits. These exploits commence with his famous battle with Goliath and end with
his poetic bemoaning for his son Absalom. "0 my son Absalom, my son, my son
Absalom! would God I had died for thee, 0 Absalom, my son, my son! (2 Sam 18:33.).
Absalom is killed after the disastrous sequence of events that begins with the rape of
Tamar-- his sister. Absalom kills Amnon, his half-brother, in vengeance. King David
mourns Amnon although Amnon has raped his half-sister, Tamar. King David
also mourns Absalom although Absalom has killed his half-brother. Tamar is King
David's daughter and yet, he does not bemoan or mourn her fate. Pamela Cooper-White
states, in her book The Cry of Tamar: Violence against Women and the Church's
Response: " In the end, the father to all three of the principal characters in this drama, as

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well as the father' s servants, are seen to mourn and weep bitterly day after day-not for
the victim-but for the perpetrator and the victim's brother" (1).
It may appear that I am dwelling on David's role in this story but this is what was
emphasised from the pulpit in my childhood. Accordingly, Kirsch states in his chapter
'The Rape of Tamar", that:" The name of David is mentioned more than a thousand
times in the Bible, and figures so prominently in the history and destiny of Israel that one
scholar has proposed the term "Davidism" to describe the worshipful attitude of certain
biblical authors toward the celebrated king" (Kirsch 282-283). My re-reading of 2
Samuel has lent a new significance both to the character of King David and to the
importance of the neglected Tamar. The most prominent narrative becomes that of
Tamar, David's daughter. How is it possible that the story of Tamar could be ignored
when her character, story, and voice are so prominent and emphatic in their emotional
emphasis? The blinders of selective highlighting work both ways. Patriarchal readers may
choose to ignore Tamar's narrative and feminist readers may choose to accent this
woman's story.

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Jonadab works for Amnon within this story much as Iago did for Othello in
Shakespeare's play. Jonadab emphasises Amnon's power and his right as a man and a
future ruler to do what he wants:" ... and Jonadab was a very subtil man. And he said
unto him, Why art thou, being the king's son, lean from day to day? (II Samuel13: 3-4)"
(emphasis added)
The laws of Leviticus 18:9 state that a sexual union between half-siblings is
taboo: ''The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother,
whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not
uncover." What then, are we to make of both Amnon' s rape of his half-sister and her
attempt to persuade Amnon that their father would give her, Tamar, to him in marriage?
Within the surrounding cultures, of Canaanite, Babylonian, and Egyptian cosmologies,
brother-sister sexual unions were not uncommon for their gods and their royalty. Are
readers to believe that Amnon and Tamar are socially exempt from the edict of Leviticus
18:9?

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Is it possible to posit what an ancient reader or listener's response would have been to
this particular Old Testament story? The shame and dishonour that a raped woman was
made to bear is evidenced by her inability to marry any other than her attacker. The very
deception and violence of Amnon's attack makes the current feminist reader cringe.
Would an ancient female audience have differed?
According to Schottroff, Schroer, and Wacker:
Israelite women consistently faced the threat of sexual assault. In addition
to all her misery, a sexually assaulted woman must demonstrate her
innocence and reckon with society's disdain or be given as a wife to the
man who assaulted her. If we read the explicit legal instructions of
Leviticus 19 as an indication of a contrary reality, incest seems not to have
been a rare occurrence. (155)
There are, of course, many issues at hand: there are the issues that are contained within
this narrative and there are the issues of how this narrative is received or considered by
readers today. Many theologians and academics insist that it is only the text that is
important, that it is somehow bad scholarship to read any emotive content into a centuries
old text. 1

1

As cited in Carol Smith's "Challenged by the Text: Interpreting Two Stories oflncest in the Hebrew
Bible": Daphne Hampson indicts Phyllis Trible's work in Theology and Feminism ( 32-41) & Claus
Westermann' s Genesis 12-36: A Commentary, which includes an admonition not to treat the story of Lot's
daughter in an emotional manner (314).

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There are ways to enter a text and posit what would have been a normative reaction by
ancient Hebrews. The text may open itself up through research of neighbouring
documents found from the same time frame. In this manner it might be discovered that
the local mores and traditions might support sister-brother marriage, if not the violence
depicted in this story. Neighbouring societies such as Egypt and Babylon allowed royalty
to inter-marry. The mythologies of these neighbouring cultures include brother/sister god
unions. If the reader takes Abraham's claim that Sarah is his sister as well as his wife at
face value (Gen. 12:11) then it is possible to suppose that brother/sister marriage, while
biblically condemned, is not societally unheard of. The text itself indicates, through
giving Tamar voice, that this rape was shameful to a woman and 'foolhardy' for a man:
"And I, whither shall I cause my shame to go? and as for thee, thou shalt be as one of the
fools in Israel" (II Samuel13:13).
Emotive response from readers today may or may not differ than the response of
listeners or readers during the time frame of the narrative. Are we not meant to have an
emotional response to this story? The strong, descriptive, and poetic language used
supports an emotive reading from the onset of the story when we learn, descriptively,
how Amnon feels. Amnon's sickness creates a like queasiness in the reader:" And it
came to pass after this, that Absalom the son of David had a fair sister, whose name was
Tamar; and Amnon the son of David loved her. And Amnon was so vexed, that he fell
sick for his sister Tamar; for she was a virgin; and Amnon thought it hard for him to do
any thing to her" (II Samuel13:1-2).
In turn, we learn of Tamar's initial reaction to Amnon's overtures and our
uneasiness becomes tinged with both dread of what will happen and admiration for

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Tamar's attempt to dissuade him with logic and emotional persuasion: "Nay, my brother,
do not force me; for no such thing ought to be done in Israel: do not thou this folly. And
I, whither shall I cause my shame to go? and as for thee, thou shalt be as one of the fools
in Israel. Now therefore, I pray thee, speak unto the king; for he will not withhold me
from thee" (II Samuel 13: 12-13).
Carol Smith, in her essay, "Challenged by the Text: Interpreting Two Stories of
Incest in the Hebrew Bible," insists that an emotional response and reading of this
particular story is demanded by the text itself:
Narratives like the stories of Lot's daughters and Amnon and Tamar
arouse an emotional response in the reader. I believe that it is intended that
they should do so. They are dealing with emotive topics. However, it is
often the case that commenting upon that emotional response has brought
criticism upon the commentators . . . . It is my belief that an emotional
response to the biblical text is not necessarily a bad response, nor does it
preclude a comprehensive scholarly approach. It represents an appropriate
response if the text demands it. ( 114-115)
In a book that concerns itself time and time again with the exploits of King David, this
story illuminates an alternative picture of the great king as a less than admirable family
man. The narrative of Tamar can be looked at as part of the history of the house of David.
And surprisingly this particular narrative shows David in a less than sterling light. Alice
Ogden Bellis considers how Tamar's story reflects upon King David:
David's daughter Tamar is raped by his son and David doesn't seem all
that concerned about her. David is depicted as the great and glorious king

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of Israel and no doubt he accomplished much politically. His personal life
and relationships with women, however, leave his image very tarnished.
(232)
One might consider how an audience would have received this story at the time. Amnon
gets his own in return. The Bible does not condemn Absalom for killing his brother
Amnon but then neither does it condemn her father David for doing nothing to help
Tamar.
Certainly there is no doubt that most modern readers sympathise with Tamar as
she says "Nay, my brother, do not force me; for no such thing ought to be done in Israel:
do not thou this folly" (II Samuell3: 12). Tamar is in a difficult position: she must do
whatever she can do alleviate the danger she is in and yet she is almost completely
stripped of her power and dignity. She attempts the impossible: she tries to plead with
Amnon.
It is difficult, if not impossible to untwine patriarchy from hierarchy. Inevitably,
those in a position of power will abuse their subordinates. The connection between sexual
violence and power is inextricable. Rape is not about sex; it is about power. Amnon
exercises his power over his half-sister by means of sexual violence. Amnon's father, the
great King David, exercised his power over his subordinates by claiming one woman as
his own (Bathsheba) (II Samuel11:4) and discarding another (Michal). Thus David
caused Bathsheba's husband to be killed (II Samuel11:24) and caused Michal to remain
childless forever (II Samuel6:23). Karen L. Bloomquist, in her paper, "Sexual Violence:
Patriarchy's Offense and Defense" states unequivocally:

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Sexual violence is viciously intertwined with patriarchy. Violence against
women can be seen as the outgrowth of patriarchal social constructs that
define the relationship between women and men as one of subordination
and domination. Patriarchy is the complex of ideologies and structures that
sustains and perpetuates male control over females. This historically
created gender hierarchy of males over females functions as if it were
natural. Patriarchy becomes a moral system in which power or control
over another is the central value not only in male-female relationships but
throughout the social and natural order. It is this mandate within
patriarchal society that makes it prone to violence. If one's identity is
rooted in exercising control over another, one is tempted to go to any
lengths to assure or reassert that control. (62)

Tamar continues to attempt to interfere with the horrible events that are enacted
upon her, even after she has been raped. Amnon having satisfied his lust for power seeks

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to displace Tamar completely. According to both Jonathan Kirsch and Phyllis Trible, the
original Hebrew indicates that Amnon's speech objectifies Tamar completely. The King
James Version softens Amnon's speech so that it says: "Then he called his servant that
ministered unto him, and said, Put now this woman out from me, and bolt the door after
her" (II Samuel13: 17). Whereas the original Hebrew states, not "Put this woman out
from me" but: "Put this thing out from me" (Kirsch 287 & Trible 48). Trible elucidates:
"For Amnon, Tamar is a thing, a "this" he wants thrown out. She is trash. The one he
desired before his eyes, his hatred wants outside, with the door bolted after her" (48).
According to Trible and Kirsch, Amnon considers Tamar a "thing." This
objectifying of Tamar creates a repugnance toward the tale. Tamar's story is a living
testament to the abuse of power. We are meant to revile Amnon and sympathise with
Tamar. Scottroff, Schroer, and Wacker discuss what role Tamar's narrative serves both
for the women of today and the women of yesterday. They state that Tamar continues to
have an impact on readers and relevance today. Thus, this narrative is:
... an anguishing testimony to the violence to which women are exposed
in a patriarchal society. That is why a woman will read this text with other
feelings and thoughts than a man .. .. a woman reading this text will note
that the narrators of the story are on Tamar's side. They declare her to be
free from guilt, stress her wisdom and thoughtfulness, and feel sympathy
for her. And this is how the story of a sexual assault at the royal court is at
least snatched from the jaws of the final injustice, that of being silenced.
(155-156)

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The story of Tamar ends with her remaining desolate in her brother's house and
yet the entire story does not end here. We learn that two years later Absalom enacts his
vengeance upon his brother and has him killed. But the continuance of vengeance, plot,
and subplot degenerates into more power mongering. With Amnon out of the way,
Absalom may claim the throne of David for himself. David runs for his life. Absalom
ends up dead.
For me, the book of II Samuel cannot be read without the story of Tamar being
central. For other biblical scholars this is not the case. In Alicia Soskin Ostriker' s book,
The Nakedness of the Fathers, Tamar is only mentioned in the explanation of why King
David cries over Absalom's eventual demise (200). Joel Rosenberg's chapter, "I and II
Samuel" spans some 13 pages considering I Samuel and II Samuel. Tamar is mentioned
once, and then only because of her significance to Absalom's story. Tamar is identified
in these examples by her male connections. These male connections do not even cause a
reflective pause or explanation by these particular exegetes. Rosenberg minimises:
"Absalom's public career begins with an act of vengeance against his half brother Amnon

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for the latter's rape of Absalom' s full sister Tamar" (The Literary Guide to the Bible
135). No further commentary on Tamar ensues.
Cyrus H. Gordon and Gary A Rends burg in, The Bible and the Ancient Near

East, mention Tamar's story and rewrite it. They twist the story from its emphasis of rape
into a story of seduction:
Amnon conceived a passion for his half sister Tamar and instead of asking
for her hand in marriage, which would have been permissible as the
biblical text informs us, he seduced her. Her full brother, Absalom, who
was third of the royal sons, slew Amnon to revenge the dishonor. (199;
emphasis added)
The story of Tamar is the story of power abused. It is the story of a woman who is raped
and then left to mourn her "dishonour" in her brother' s house. She will have no children
or husband because of this dishonour. But the story of Tamar is also the story of a nation
that detests such actions. The Hebrew nation preserved this story because it considered it
worth preserving.
Readers today will have differing reactions to this story: they may gloss over it in
favour of highlighting different stories, they may ignore it altogether, or they may focus
on Tamar's story as one of abuse. It is also a story that disapproves of such action. It
gives voice to the victim' s cries and to her wisdom in her attempts to dissuade her
attacker. It is a story which lives on today as evidence of humankind's ability to abuse
one another. It is a story of sexual violence towards women. It is a story wherein bloody
vengeance is wreaked: brother upon brother. It is a sad story where Tamar lives unheard

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of again remaining in her brother's house. How we respond to this story says more about
who we are than who the storywriters were.

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Epistle to Jezebel
I Kings and II Kings

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Litany of Passion
You, with that current of long black hair,
You with those crimson lips,
You, dancing naked in the magnetic grove.
Unheard of,
You should have been silently rocking the cradle,
silently ladling the goat stew,
resting in back chambers, unseen.
Unsightly,
You with the ember eyes.
Sparking and crackling,
all that spitfire electricity.
Unfeeling,
You with your face like the sky
The rainy season of the priestess
lighting up the night.
You and your god-damn decisiveness.
Playing your hand full of gods.
Ace, king, queen so smooth and undulating.
We all had you pegged
Bagged- dead to rightsRight in our scopes
Targeted.
Charged.
Because you planted trees in fields of
potential polarity.
Signed documents.
Sealed your own fate.
Kissed the feet of a different god.
Just for the affinity of ionisation.
The positron alignment of earth to earth.

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Four and Twenty Blackbirds
Looking for a king' s daughter?
A king's wife?
A king's mother?
Will you find the queen?
In godly array
With celestial orbs spinning lovely
Round about her head.
Dazzling the white glare off her halo or horns,
depends on where you're sitting.
From way over here it is hard to tell,
all gets lost in the sheer effrontery of her glow.
Far below the dignity of the heads of state,
more southerly as I recall,
or recant depending on the day.
Is she in the parlour eating bread and honey?
Is she in the counting room counting out the money?
Is she in the garden hanging out the clothes?
Is she in the stateroom planning on the feast?
Perhaps she's with the captain killing off the priests.
There were the invisible others:
Elijah and his dance of death and
Good King David disposed of
the people in his way.
Small retributions:
God slapped his baby and he died.
David lived to tell.
Jezebel gets sent to hell
tumbled out the castle window.
Not much left to her sanguine glow
except the phosphorescent blood that flashes crimson, vermilion, and cherry, even now,
trickling down the walls,
spattering the horses.
Bloody roses blooming on their flanks and withers.
There is more than
the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands,
these remain,
here in the story.

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Epistle to Jezebel
I Kings and II Kings
Jezebel's name in Christian tradition is synonymous with wickedness. Even today women
with purportedly wicked ways are called a "Jezebel." Ask a non-Christian in the Western
world and odds are that they, too, will recognise Jezebel as an evil character. The Oxford
English Dictionary defines a Jezebel to be: "A wicked or shameless woman. Also a
woman who wears heavy make-up." Exactly what did Jezebel do that was so wrong that
this negative depiction has lasted for so long?
Edith Deen relates in her book, All of the Women in the Bible, that Jezebel is
responsible for bringing her "degrading and idolatrous cult of Baal" and that "she was
neither a good wife and mother nor a just ruler" (125-126). She calls her customs "not
only fearfully cruel but sensual and revolting" (126).
Jezebel was a ruthless ruler and she brought her religion with her but there is no
direct support that she was a bad mother or wife. In fact, Jezebel supported her husband's
wishes in obtaining for him the vineyard he so desired. The "sensual and revolting"
aspect of Jezebel' s religion is open to debate as well. The link between Canaanite
cosmology and sex and fertility rites is considered inherently evil in traditional Christian
doctrine. Deen's comments on the "sensual and revolting" aspect say more about Deen's
belief system than about Jezebel's belief system.
Indisputably, Jezebel directed, instructed, and pushed her agenda. She used her
position of power to its fullest extent. In short, she acted in a fashion that would normally
have been reserved for male monarchs in ancient Israel. She conspired to get her husband

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what he wanted through means of treachery. She instructed soldiers to kill the vineyard
owner who wouldn't sell his land. Other Old Testament characters do similarly
reprehensible things but without the severe repercussions. King David disposes of the
man who stands in his way in order to procure Bathsheba. He kills off Bathsheba's
husband. There is no enduring commentary on David's wickedness. In fact, David is
frequently admired and lauded as a great ruler.
Jezebel attempts to kill off all the priests of Israel's God. She has 150 priests of
Israel slaughtered. Elijah, priest of the Israelite God, has all 450 priests of Baal murdered.
He certainly isn't considered wicked. His deeds are righteous because he does them for
the God of Israel. Jezebel' s deeds are wicked because she does them in the name of the
Phoenician! Canaanite God Baal .
Primarily Jezebel is deemed hideously wicked for three reasons: she is a woman
(an easily disposed of scapegoat), she is a foreigner (Phoenician princess), and she is an
idolatrous worshipper of Baal. Part of the lands of Canaan became known as Phoenicia
during the second millennium BC (Tubb 22). Thus Jezebel as a Phoenician worshipped
Canaanite gods.

In I Kings and II Kings the Israelite monarchy with little exception all "did evil in the
sight of the LORD" (I Kings 15:26). These words "evil in the sight of the Lord" are
repeated twenty-seven times in these two books. In this period of great evil done by the

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monarchy the only truly memorable evil character is Jezebel. What makes her depiction
in these books more evil than the other (male) idolaters, fornicators, and general evildoers? Do the names Nadab, Baasha, Jeroboam, Jehoram or Asa strike the reader as evil
or even familiar? They too do "evil in the sight of the Lord." And yet, Jezebel has the
memorable distinction of being purportedly more evil than any of these aforementioned
men.

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Jezebel has one hundred and fifty prophets of the Israelite God killed in order to
promote her beliefs (I Kings 18: 13). Elijah, prophet of God, invites a contest between the
Israelite God and Baal. Whoever wins gets to be THE God. God wins and Elijah incites
the people to kill the four hundred and fifty Baal priests.
Jezebel is considered a "bad" woman because she kills. Elijah is not considered a
"bad" man because he kills: instead, he is considered righteous because he is on the right
(winning) side.
I and II Kings concerns itself with a constant commentary on the evils of
neighbouring religions. The Canaanite God Baal is mentioned forty one times in I Kings
and II Kings. Baal is openly denigrated as rapacious and evil. The Canaanite Goddess,
Asherah, is not directly named but her groves are mentioned sixteen times: ''Now
therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal
four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel's
table (1Kgs 18:19). Elijah instigates the mass murder of Baal's prophets but there is no
mention of the murder of Asherah' s prophets. There may be an explanation for this.
Asherah may have been connected to an earlier form of Hebrew worship.
Tikva Frymer-Kensky considers the connections between the ancient Israelites
and Asherah. She suggests that a more inclusive vision of the natural world and the
monotheistic God existed for early ancient Israelites. Asherah's connection to the natural
world in her groves and tree-trunk images were included in earlier worship. FrymerKensky posits:
What we do know is that the Asherah was real, she existed, and she was
tolerated officially until the eighth century. She is not portrayed as doing

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anything: she simply is. The biblical texts do not speak of Asherah as a
consort. The connection of Asherah to trees and groves and her location at
altars hint that she represented, in some way, the natural world and its
powers of regeneration. The height and majesty of a tree may also be a
metaphor for earth-as-it-reaches-towards-heaven. Early Israelite religion
could understand Asherah as part of God's divine system. Later, as
biblical thinking began to concentrate on human responsibility for natural
regeneration, asherah no longer fit. The official cult attacked and
destroyed asherah and the altars. (158)

Jezebel is no shrinking violet. When she hears about the mass murder of her
priests she vows vengeance. She says in essence: "may the gods do the same to me and
more as you have done if I do not do the same to you." This vow, in effect, comes true.
Jezebel does not slay Elijah; instead, she is slain and her body is dismembered by dogs.
Jezebel' s vow to her gods comes to fruition. The emphasis in this narrative is that this
was preordained by the Israelite God but it may as easily be attributed to Jezebel' s gods.

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Jezebel is no mere narrative adjunct to a man. She stands tall and on her own. Her
actions are her own and God's punishment is reserved solely for her. Not only did
Jezebel have a tendency to take matters into her own hands but she was also an intelligent
educated woman. Cullen Murphy notes that Jezebel must have been literate in order to
write the letters that sealed Naboth's fate (92). "So she wrote letters in Ahab's name, and
sealed them with his seal" (8). It is difficult to know how literate a nation was Israel:
more difficult still to draw any conclusion about women's literacy from the literacy of a
foreign queen. But there is evidence of the literacy and agency of Jezebel.
Jezebel contravenes Israelite law by abusing her power. According to Cyrus H.
Gordon and Gary A Rends burg, Canaanite custom allows for abuse of power; it is one of
the perks of being a Canaanite monarch. Jezebel follows Canaanite custom. In Canaanite
society Jezebel' s actions would have been commendable:

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Israelites realized that from one's thoughts follow one's actions. Thus they
outlawed not only the acts themselves (murder, adultery, stealing, etc.) but
also the thought (coveting) that precedes these actions. In Canaanite
society, if one had the power, one exercised it, first by coveting and then
by putting these thoughts into action ... we shall see that the Canaanite
princess Jezebel acts in exactly this manner when she engineers her
husband Ahab's seizing the vineyard ofNaboth. (160)
Luise Schottroff, Silvia Schroer, and Marie-Theres Wacker consider many of the aspects
of women's positions in ancient Israel. When they consider 'Woman at Court and in the
Affluent Strata of Society" they use Jezebel as an example of how women held power
within ancient Hebrew court-life. They note other affluent women that have agency,
citing the wife of Shunem (II Kings 4) and Abigail (I Samuel25) as further examples
(119-120). Schottroff, Schroer, and Wacker label the depiction of Jezebel as a:
"Dueteronomist's caricature" and note how this caricature: "shows only that women who
exercised power were more and more demonized in Israel" (119).
Phyllis Trible, in her essay "The Odd Couple: Elijah and Jezebel," notes further
possibilities when she considers the Canadian scholar Stanley B. Frost's interpretation of
the story of Jezebel. According to Trible, Frost believes the condemnation of Jezebel to
be unfounded and due merely to her allegiance to foreign gods (169). Furthermore, in
considering the work of the Israeli scholar Alexander Rofe, Trible considers the
possibility of revision within the narrative of Jezebel. The story we know about Jezebel
and her responsibility for Naboth's death may be a revision of an older story in which
King Ahab is responsible for Naboth's death (169).

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Like the story in Genesis where Eve is held responsible for the transgressions of
Adam, Jezebel is also held responsible for the transgressions of Ahab. Ahab repents but
Jezebel is either non-repentant or is not allowed to be within the narrative. For her
transgressions Jezebel is cursed. Even in death is she allowed no dignity or peace.
According to Hebrew cosmology to have one's remains devoured by dogs is supreme
sacrilege. Dogs in the Near East were not the friendly pampered pets of the Western
World. They are considered in the Old Testament as we consider rats or vermin in the
Western World. There is much biblical mention of the less than sterling characteristics of
dogs: "As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly" (Prov 26:11). Deut
23:18 states: "Thou shalt not bring the hire of a whore, or the price of a dog, into the
house of the LORD thy God for any vow: for even both these are abomination unto the
LORD thy God." In the Bible, there is oft mention of dog's devouring corpses especially
the corpses of"bad" people (1Kgs 14:11 and lKgs 16:4). Gordon and Rendsburg go
farther afield in considering the concept of burial of the dead is in the Ancient World.

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They cite the "Homeric shame of one's corpse being devoured by dogs (11. 22:75-76) or
vultures (Od. 22:30)" (103).

Sex and witchcraft are the supposedly age-old iniquities of women, ascribed by
men. As confirmed by the dictionary definition that I began this chapter with, a "Jezebel"
is synonymous with sexuality and 'shamelessness.' The 1938 movie Jezebel, starring
Bette Davis, portrays just such a woman. And yet the very sensuality that a "Jezebel" is
condemned to have has no direct biblical support. The "whoredom" of verse II Kings
9:22 is metaphoric in the sense that "Jezebel," according to Israelite custom, is 'whoring'
after strange and false gods. Alice Ogden Bellis states:
Jezebel is popularly thought of as a whore, but nothing in the story
suggests that this was her sin. In 2 Kings 9:22, King Jehu asks, 'What
peace can there be, so long as the whoredoms and sorceries of your mother
Jezebel continue?' He is speaking metaphorically rather than literally,
however. Nevertheless, this question, combined with the makeup Jezebel
puts on before her death, has won for her a symbolism that continues to
this day to wield a powerful negative influence on women. (167)

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Powerful enough, indeed, that the name Jezebel was not even listed in the three modern
baby name books in which I looked. Murphy states that the name Jezebel in Hebrew
means: "Where is the prince?" (92) and notes that this refers to Baal.
One of the reasons that Jezebel is understood to be a 'whore' may have to do with
her religious convictions. Jezebel was polytheistic and obviously prepared to go to great
lengths to secure her religion. The worship of Baal and Asherah are associated with
fertility. Because this god and goddess are fertility centred they are connected with sex.
Jezebel is considered lascivious because the ancient Hebrews see her religion as
lascivious. John D. Currid writes:
The religion of Canaan revolved around an elaborate system of ritual.
Primarily, the Canaanite cults centered upon forms of worship that
promoted sex and fertility. Such an emphasis sprang logically from the
Canaanite's belief that sustaining the cycle of life and death was
absolutely vital for the fertility of their flocks, fields, and wives. (41)

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Several women in the Old Testament are depicted by a window. Two female
characters whose roles interact symbolically are Jezebel and Michal, daughter of Saul.
The depiction of women by windows is a common enough motif in the ancient Near East.

J. Cheryl Exum states that ''The house is frequently in literature a metonymical symbol of
woman" (47). Thus, according to Exum, when Michal saves David by letting him out her
window she is giving symbolic birth to him (I Samuel19) (47). lfExum's argument is
worth consideration, and it is, then the converse must be true for Jezebel. She is forced
out of her window and ends up dead and bloody. This forced eviction out the window
means that the eunuchs have seized and perverted a symbolic birth and turned what
should be a life-giving symbol into a life-taking travesty.
The biblical propensity to categorise women as 'good' or 'bad' requires us, as
feminists, to look for alternate readings. Jezebel is not evil: she is an atypical woman in
the Old Testament. Women who boldly go against the patriarchal status quo must be
condemned in the Old Testament. It is important to keep this in mind when reading
women's narratives in the Old Testament. Alice Ogden Bellis in Helpmates, Harlots, and
Heroes: Women 's Stories in the Hebrew Bible, states:
We can learn from the tendency to make women look worse than they are,
a tendency operative both within the text and in the work of many
commentators. Jezebel is vilified by the biblical narrators. Although we
cannot be sure, it seems likely that her negative portrayal goes beyond
what the historical facts would merit. (234)

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Conclusion

~~~~~~

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~ I

Conclusion
I have learnt many things from my research andre-visitation to these women's stories in
the Old Testament. I had initially expected to group the stories of these women under
certain categories such as 'revered,' 'reviled,' and 'unmentionable' stories. I am now
familiar enough with these stories to know that these stories defy singular categorisation.
The stories which I consider 'unmentionable' such as the narratives of Tamar in Genesis,
Tamar in 2 Samuel, the Concubine ofBethlehemjudah, Jephthah's daughter, Lot's
daughters and Dinah are only unmentionable according to traditional Christian exegesis.
Because these stories have traditionally been silenced they are now being regarded with a
great deal of interese.
The women in the Old Testament that I had grown up believing were "bad" such
as Eve, Lot's wife, and Jezebel, in fact, upon re-reading were rounded out and
imperfectly human. Their indictments came from a patriarchally biased manner of
reading. In a patriarchy the women are considered of less import than the men, because of
this, it is easier to blame the "less important" female members of the society.
Through a feminist reading I discovered, as well, that the stories of such revered
figures as the matriarchs Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel were not the "good" uni-faceted
characters they were interpreted by traditional Christian patriarchy to be. They had
agendas that they acted upon that involved trickery, subversions, lies, and sometimes a
lack of respect for those in positions of power beneath them.
As for such divergent stories as Hagar and Miriam, Hagar is, in traditional
exegesis, mentioned usually in the context of the right of the powerful in a hierarchical

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system. If we examine her plight more closely we see that this foreign slavewoman
sought autonomy and safety for her child and herself. This denigrates any notion of
women's meek subservience to the "master" plan of patriarchal dominance. The story of
Miriam is difficult to understand because it begins and continues with her overt
autonomy but it ends with God punishing her with leprosy. It seems that the God of the
ancient Israelites supported the patriarchal status quo.
I talked to a man at a music festival last summer about the story of Miriam. I
stated my opinion that Miriam was used as a scapegoat for the supposed transgressions of
both herself and her brother Aaron. I pointed out that the story was an Old World story
set in the ancient Near East so it was not surprising that only Miriam was punished. The
man suggested that, surely, she was the only one punished because, like Eve, Miriam had
started it. To this day many readers of the Bible do not challenge the assumptions of
traditional doctrine. Many churches forbid any "undo curiosity2" into the strange
workings of the Lord and his holy writings.
These Old Testament stories are the stories of a people who lived in a patriarchal
society. In these narratives they have attempted to support their societal way of life. This
ensured a continuance of lineage and faith. Endogamous procreation meant survival.
Under these circumstances women's fertility needed to be ensured for their people. Men
might marry exogamously because the foreign women would assume the tribal identity of
the husband. Women are frequently depicted as producers and maintainers of children.
But something else becomes clear as well, women play key roles in the survival of the

See Kirsch's The Harlot at the Side of the Road: Forbidden tales of the Bible, Exum's Fragmented
Women, Alice Bach' s Women in the Hebrew Bible, and Cooper-White' s The Cry of Tamar.
1

2

The Christian Reformed Church holds the belief, as stated in Article 13 of The Belgic Confession, that
"We do not wish to inquire with undue curiosity into what He does that surpasses human understanding".

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Hebrew people. Sarah, Rachel and Rebekah decide the inheritance of their children.
Tamar (Genesis) takes matters into her own hands to become pregnant. Miriam saves
Moses. Ruth saves Naomi. Women in the Old Testament are seldom written as key
players but it is obvious that without them there would be no stories.
These Old Testament stories sought to explain a shaky existence in a marginal
environment. Part of that need to survive included maintaining their religion. In order to
maintain their religion the Hebrew people wrote narratives supporting the omnipotent
position of a monotheistic God in a culture surrounded by polytheistic worship. This
omnipotent position needed to be constantly emphasised. If God controlled who won or
lost and who died or gave birth then only by following his laws might his people survive.
Thus the rules for behaviour, the edicts, and laws are quite specific.
The narrative edicts in these stories, which were an important part of ancient
Hebrew society, faith, and laws, ought to be reconsidered today. Our Western society
continues certain laws such as the incest taboo, but it does not continue to believe in the
relevance of other laws: such as the law of levirate marriage, polygamy, concubinage,
slavery and blood sacrifices. Similarly, the patriarchal values that place women as
second-class citizens whose voices should not be heard, or the values that place women
in strictly maternal roles need to be re-evaluated and questioned. We need to consider
whose agendas certain of these laws and "norms" support. We need to question why
these laws come about and their relevance today, not just accept them because they are
part of our history and that is the way it has always been.
In this thesis I search and question the agendas and the interpretations of women's
stories in the Old Testament. The hands of men wrote the Bible. It was men who wrote

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these stories both in their original Hebrew and in the version of the King James
Translation. These stories have been written and re-written by many hands. With this
said, it is important to recognise the multi-layered and multifaceted characters of women
in the Old Testament. Patriarchal society cannot erase the reality of women's lives. At
times the picture that arises from these stories are ones of male dominion but as well,
there can be no denying the stories of women's agency. There is a certain beauty in the
malleability of these stories: written and re-written, read and re-read.
The strength of a feminist inquiry into women's stories in the Old Testament lies
in its embracing of many stories and not in it's clinging to a monolithic identity. What
went before will always affect what is yet to come. For these reasons I look at the Old
Testament stories of women.
The Bible as the word of God that ought not to be questioned is a prevalent
traditional Christian view. Obviously I do not share this view. The Bible is a collection
of stories that expresses man's view of God. These stories may sometimes be allegorical
or they may be semi-factual history. Either way, they survive and continue to impact how
many people in Western societies live their lives. Patriarchy and hierarchy still exist.
There are still great strides to be made in terms of equal rights for both genders. The
right of the environment and animals to exist free from exploitation has yet to be
recognised. These inequalities are remnants of Old Testament philosophies. Western
societies continue to reap the consequences of the biblical value of the right to dominion.
"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish
the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of

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the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth" (Gen 1:28) (emphasis
added).
Traditional power systems that are the foundations of the Western World will not
be fixed by replacing them with new power systems. We need to recognise that the

differing alliances within philosophies are necessary for a more lateral society. I do not
argue for homogeneity. My re-visionings of these stories are just some of the
possibilities. I argue for respect and the inclusion of the divergent. If we, as feminists,
look for and analyse the intersections within theories, we need not embrace all positions,
but we should recognise that strategic situatings can erase what appear to be hopeless
differences. Through analyses of this religious document that continues to affect Western
societies we create a necessary space for alliances of the particular, the provisional, and
the situational.
Within the frameworks of alliances and problematics that exists between
traditional Christianity and feminism is the fact that what we, as humans and nonhumans, are existing in is this particular state of history; with its hierarchies, class
distinctions, gender distinctions, and nature/culture split. It is within this framework that
we must seek answers and solutions. A utopian ideal of integrated, lateral positioning for
all beings is what we must hope for and work towards. But what is now within our reach,
is the analysis and critiques of the existing structures and where they intersect.

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