Women in the Bible

Lynda Sexson came in today as a guest lecturer on women and the Bible... I wonder what her and Dr. Sexson's dinner conversations consist of...

Two ways to view women within the text
- "Woman" used as a metaphor of the feminine
-Eve: Mother of humanity, the temptress
-Mary: Mother of Salvation, the virgin
- "Woman" representing female, in the gender sense

Attitude towards women/the feminine in the Bible
- Chauvinistic
- Patriarchal: "Ruled by Fathers"
-Frye comments on this in The Great Code by questioning the patriarchal society. "We know only of a world in which every human and animal form is born from a female body; but the Bible insists, not only on the association of God with the male sex, but that at the beginning the roles of male and female were reversed in human life, the first woman having been made out of the body of the first man....Mother Earth, but Father Sky."
-In a patriarchy many men are gendered as women. Not room for all men to carry out male specific rolls
-Done to create gender symmetry (Masculine > Feminine > Masculine)
-Ambiguity towards women

The story of Lot and his daughters in the book of Genesisis 19
The story goes that Lot's city Sodom is facing devastation and he is warned to leave the city with his wife and daughters, never to look back. The family leaves but before reaching safety, Lot's wife turns to look back on Sodom and is turned to a pillar of salt. Lot and his daughters continue and reach a cave. The daughters believe that they are the only people to have survived the massacre and they must become impregnated by their father to begin repopulating the planet and carry out the family name. On two consecutive nights they get their father drunk and seduce him into "knowing" them.
The first son to be conceived is named Moab, who later goes on to become the patriarch of the nation known as Moab. The second son is named Ammon, who becomes the patriarch of the nation of Ammon.
David Plotz, author of Good Book, describes this section of Genesis as reminiscent of The Jerry Springer Show. He pokes fun at the fact that the Israelite authors are tracing the ancestry of enemy tribes to father-daughter incest.
Lynda alluded to the fact that Plotz should have read more carefully. In correspondence to the time period and the necessity to carry out a blood line, the daughters were being very selfless to allow their virginity to be taken by their father in the effort to ensure a future generation to continue Lot's name. It's a passage, much like the rest of the Bible, that must be read in context with the time period... though for me, it's definitely something i never thought I would find in the Bible.


In discussion, the class also looked at the relationship between Hosea and Gilmer to be a metaphoric representation of God's relationship with the people of Israel. Israel has been unfaithful to yahweh, turning to other Gods and idols. Gilmer, considered a harlot from a superficial standpoint, is also turning away from God and Hosea. Her female identity can be misinterrpreted, limiting her character to appear a "slut", whereas its just a literary representation of a much larger picture. Fascinating!

- A drawing to represent the framework of the aforementioned discussion... a.k.a. my class notes