Why Do We Believe What We Believe?

Who were the Apostles?

Why do we believe what we believe? That was the original subtitle for Prostitutes, Virgins and Mothers.  I was inspired to use that title while listening to a radio preacher. I don't do that very often but sometimes I torture myself. He asked, "Why do we believe that?"  And answered, "I don't know why we believe that, we just do. You don't have to know why we believe that,  just believe." I don't know what they were believing, I was busy screaming at the radio, "You don't know why you believe what you believe?" YIKES!!!

 The April 23, 2017 bulletin of St. Joseph Catholic Church brings to mind that radio preacher.  It states, "Today we listen to the teachings of three apostles - Luke, Peter, and John - who remind us that even though we have not seen Christ, we nonetheless are filled with joy as we place our belief in his saving death and resurrection." I believe the implication is that these three men were friends and contemporaries of Jesus.  If a parishioner took the bulletin at face value, they would be deceived.  

Luke is not recorded in any list of Apostles found in the Gospels. Some traditions say he was a doctor who traveled with Paul, others that he was a late second century Christian from Antioch. We know he was not an eyewitness to the life of Jesus because he tells his reader he is attempting to compile a narrative, "Just as those who were eyewitnesses." The approximative date for Luke's Gospel is between 80 - 130 C.E. That would mean the Gospel was written 50 -100 years after the crucifixion of Jesus.

Scholars believe that 1 Peter was written by a follower of Peter based on "language, content, style and theological development." An example of  this is the polished Greek in which the letter was composed and allusions to persecutions which date between 81- 96 C.E. Peter was an unlettered and probably illiterate Galilean fisherman martyred in Rome between 64 - 67 C.E. That would mean Peter was dead thirteen years before the persecutions started.  The date for 1 Peter is the same as the Gospel of Luke.

In the introduction to the Gospel of John, The New American Bible: St. Joseph Edition, a Catholic publication, states, "Other difficulties for any theory of eyewitness authorship of the Gospel in its present form are presented by its highly developed theology and by certain elements of its literary style." Scholars believe that this Gospel was written by a disciple of John between 90 - 120 C. E.

Scholars of the Roman Catholic Church know this.  The New American Bible for Catholics says of  
1 Peter, "Some Modern scholars however, on the basis of a number of features that they consider incompatible with Petrine authenticity, regard the letter as the work of a later Christian writer." The introduction to the Gospel of John says, "Critical analysis makes it difficult to accept the idea that the Gospel as it now stands was written by one person." And of Luke, "The prologue to the Gospel makes it clear that Luke is not part of the first generation of Christians disciples but is himself dependent upon the traditions he received from those who were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word." 

We did not see Christ and we are filled with joy.

Perhaps that is why the church bulletin reminds us of the joy of  believing without seeing. Whoever these ancient authors were, they did not know Jesus and are relying on the words of others for their writing. Does that disqualify them as Apostles? In the Greek Apostle means, "One who is sent." According to that definition these authors could be considered Apostles. Why does this matter? Because, we are being misled into believing that the authors of Luke, I Peter and John were eyewitnesses to the life and teaching of Jesus. Taught to believe something that is not true. Why do we believe what we believe? Because we read it on the front of the bulletin or hear a radio preacher tell us that is what we believe. 

In Matthew, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary are "sent" by an angel of the Lord to go quickly and tell the disciples. In Mark, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome are "sent" by a young man to go and tell the disciples and Peter. Luke says it is Mary Magdalene, Johanna and Mary the mother of James who are "sent" by two men in dazzling garments to the eleven and all the others.  Finally, in John's Gospel it is Jesus who "sent" Mary Magdalene to tell his brothers.  

What makes an Apostle an Apostle?

Is it gender? Is it being an eyewitness to the life and teaching of Jesus? Does being sent to proclaim the life and teaching of Jesus or the resurrection make one an apostle? Romans 16:7 refers to Junia as, "prominent among the apostles" and in I Cor. 15:8-9 Paul calls himself an apostle. 

So what is the answer? If the authors of Luke, John and I Peter, are apostles, if Paul is an apostle, if Junia is an apostle then Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, Mary the mother of James, Salome, and Johanna are all apostles. They were eyewitnesses to the life, teaching and resurrection of Jesus and they were sent! 

Why is this important? Because gender is so often used to deny women full participation in their faith communities and deny their importance in the development of the Christian Church.  Believing the authors of Luke, John, and 1Peter were contemporaries of Jesus is Biblical  illiteracy and a contributing factor to limits on the full participation of women. 

Tragedy in the United States

Life Changing Events

John F. Kennedy was killed when I was in fifth grade. That experience of national grief changed my childhood. Five years later Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered, followed shortly by Robert Kennedy.  The Kennedy brothers were practicing Roman Catholics. Dr King was an American Baptist minister.

On November 9, 2016 many Americans experienced another day of national grief. One of my friends stayed in bed and cried all day. Another moved forward with plans to relocate to Canada. Some lashed out in anger at white feminists who did not do enough to get out the vote and elect the candidate that would have protected women of color and women's rights in general. Others expressed fear that their right to marriage and family would be taken away from them.  The list of fears and anger could be much longer. Many of us are experiencing the grief that often accompanies the death of a loved one.

I am a progressive, liberal, left of center, feminist Christian. The national mourning for John, Martin, Robert and my Christian faith have shaped my concern for human rights and dignity. O am also a patriot who abhors the horrible division that grips our country. 

Commandments from the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy tell us to love God, love our neighbor and love ourselves. When Jesus was asked whom to consider a neighbor he chose as an example, a man from a despised group of people, a Samaritan. What made the Samaritans abhorrent? They worshipped God in a different place than the Hebrews. Leviticus also commands. "When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land..." That's a commandment no-one is fighting to put in the court house rotunda. It is easy, for me at least, to draw a comparison between undocumented people in the United States and the aliens we are commanded to love. It is easy, for me at least, to draw a comparison between the Samaritan neighbor and the Muslim neighbor. 

As always, in times like this, I look to faith leaders and feminist friends, who are ofter one-in-the same, for their words of wisdom, peace and healing. A pastoral letter from the United Church of Christ states, "We were built to heal bodies broken and divide. This is our calling. Our core values of love, hospitality, and justice for all must be fully embraced in the days to come. It could be that we were called into being for just such a time and this."

And finally the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, "Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Oh, Divine Master, grant that I may never seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is dying that we are born again to eternal life." 

I must confess I feel the need to be consoled and we are better together.

More Thoughts on Mother's Day

Single Mother on Mother's Day

Poet, Donna Fitzgerald, shared her memories of a Mother's Day past.  She said, "This Mother's Day I was reminded of going to church when Jen was little and how all the women earned praise except for the single mothers."

Mother's Day Poem by Donna Fitzgerald

The minister delivered his sermon 

to the overflowing congregation.

He mentions several biblical mothers:

Mary, the most honored.

Naomi, Rachel, Sarah.

He touts just how magnificent the

great pain and suffering needed 

to bring life into the world

and how

women so joyfully, 

bear the punishment for eating

that deadly apple.

He then asks the men 

to stand and bestow 

their praise on their wives of

whom they proudly boast

"The mother of my children"

as if they owned them,

their wives their private vessel.

These puffed-up men

who stand and honor their wives

on this one day of the year,

dressed in their very best,

waiting for the service to end 

and brunch to begin.

In the very last pew

sits a single woman and her child.

No praise is heaped 

upon her.

The service finished she returns home 

waiting for hypocrisy to end.

Why Do We Believe What We Believe About Biblical Women?

 So often the stories of biblical women are reduced to the lowest common denominator.  It wasn't a, "deadly apple." It was the fruit from The Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Eve wanted to be more like God knowing good from evil. She couldn't have known it was wrong because she didn't know the difference between good and evil.  

Mary must have been the most incredible person! The Gospel of Luke calls her the favored one. She raised a young man on whose teaching a world religion is based and we have been taught to focus on her virginity.  What did Jesus learn from his mother?

Sarah, a mother well after menopause, was the only women through home the promise could be fulfilled. It was her only son Abraham considered sacrificing.

Bitter and cunning Naomi, who was saved by the love of her daughter-in-law.

Rachel, who took the family idols and hid them from her angry father by pretending she was having her period.

All mothers, yes, and so much more. Donna, like so many women, have been hurt by simplistic interpretations of biblical women.  I am thankful for Donna's creativity and how she has used her pain to share her talent with the rest of us.  

Faith of Our Mothers Revisited

Conversations with my cousin.

Last week I posted a memory about Mother's Day in the church I grew up attending.  My cousin, June Davis Fish, regularly messages me about my posts.  Last week she did not, so I got worried. I messaged her to make sure she is okay and our conversation went something like this.  

June:  "Yes, I  am OK. Thanks for checking. I did see the blog about your mother.  I remember now why I didn't comment.  Lately,  I have been having an inner struggle with any post or comment about the Father God even though they are talking about 'his' love and grace as opposed to the 'fundamental God' of law and punishment."

Me:    "I better go back and read my blog.  I rarely refer to God as Father unless it is in the context of somebody else's speech."

June:  "I don't think you did say Father God.  Some have said Papa and Daddy as if that makes 'him' less patriarchal and more loving. I just want to scream at them, Papa, Daddy, Father, ... where the hell is Mother God?  Anyway, that is the foundation for why I didn't comment on your Mother's Day Blog.  I guess I was pissed that only on one day of the year the women/Mothers get any recognition and are allowed to preform certain duties and even then they had to clean up.  Understand me, it was not your blog but how 'gracious' for the men of the church to condescend to 'honor' the women on their one day of the year, Mother's Day.  Without women how would men become fathers?  Without a Sacred Feminine Mother could Father God be a father? I didn't want to comment because it would only have sounded like I was ranting against you and your blog, which certainly wasn't what I felt."

Me:  "I think you got the point.  One day of the year the women serve communion.  An honor the men of the church usually reserved for themselves and the women still prepared and cleaned up.  As a child I was indignant.  P!@#$% off did't happen until I was older and saw how systemic this marginalization is.  Before my book was published a man was asked to write an endorsement.  He said he could not because he detected, 'An echo of frustration.' I thought, 'Wow, I am a pretty good writer if all he detected was and echo of frustration because I am, 'F@#$%^& P!@#$% Off.'" 

June:  "I am getting new perspectives on a lot of old fundamental teachings. It has been difficult to throw off old religious programming, but once I get going on it, it has been freeing and peaceful."

Me:    "One of the things I am hoping the book will accomplish is to get people to question all of these old fundamental teachings.  That is why the subtitle is, Questioning Teachings About Biblical Women.   

Gratitude to my cousin!

When I first started writing last weeks blog I purposefully took my anger out of my writing.  I edited myself as so many women do.  I wanted the post to be more about my wonderful mother than about my anger.  Thanks to June, what I feel about that experience came to the surface. My nephew once asked me, "If women cook every day, why are the best chefs men?" This was when Julia Child was the only woman chef on television.  My answer, "What men do is considered more valuable than what women do. 

On those Mother's Days, it was an honor for the deaconesses to do the deacons job of serving communion.  The deacons would not condescend to doing the job of the deaconesses.  

Women's Work

I think about the value ascribed to "women's work" by patriarchy and I am disheartened. The healing of Peter's mother-in-law is recorded in the canonical Gospels.  She is said to get up and serve after being healed.  The word, diakonei translated as serve, in reference to Peter's nameless mother-in-law is translated as minister in reference to the angels serving Jesus in the wilderness.  Same word, different value and the subject of another blog. 

I ask the same question as June. "Where is Mother God?" Imagine a faith in which female is valued in the same way as male.  

The Sacrifice of the Virgin Daughter of Jephthah

Where to find the story of Jephthah's Nameless Daughter

Jephthah's daughter is found in Judges 11:1-11 and 29-40.  Her father makes a vow to God that if he is successful in battle the first person to greet him, on his return, will be sacrificed   

Jephthah's Daughter Tells Her Story

I could see him coming from a long way off. I put on my dancing skirt and picked up my tambourine. I am his only daughter, his only child and I wanted to be the first to welcome him home in victory.  

"Why have you done this to me?" he yelled.  He started tearing his clothes and throwing dirt on his head. "You have caused me great trouble!  You have brought me very low."   

All I could do was stand there and listen to him rave about what I had done to him. He blamed me for his vow, for the violence he was about to do to me.  Who did he think would come out to greet him?  My mother and I were the two most obvious choices. He had vowed to sacrifice the first person to greet him and it was me.  He must have know it would be me or my mother.  

I hated him in that moment!  I knew that he would not relent.  I was doomed and I had to get away from him.  I left for two months. I told him I was going to bewail my virginity. That was something he could understand. My life was of no consequence to him.  He had decided how I would die but I decided when.  

The women of Israel will remember me. They will lament the sacrifice of a virgin daughter to a God who does not demand human sacrifice. 

Observations on the story of Jephthah's Daughter

Abraham vows to sacrifice Isaac but God intervenes at the last moment and Isaac is saved.  No such luck for the nameless daughter of Jephthah.  Ironically, Jephthah has just defeated the Ammonites who worship the god Molech.  The Ammonites practiced the sacrifice of their children to Molech.

Leviticus 18: 21 warns the Israelites not to sacrifice their children because the act profanes the name of God.  Leviticus 20: 2-5 prescribes the punishment of stoning to death for anyone who does sacrifice a child.  Where is the justice for Jephthah's daughter?  Not only is her father not stoned he is made the head of the elders and commander of the army.

One can only wonder at the motivation of a father and husband who vows to sacrifice the first person to greet him on his return home. He seems to have his, "Look what you have done to me" blaming the victim speech, all made up.  The story of Jephthah's daughter is tragic and the male biblical writer seems to believe that the fact that she is a virgin is even more tragic.  He sends her off to bewail her virginity, not her life.  But the women know and Judges 11:39b-40 says, "So there arose an Israelite custom that for four days every year the daughters of Israel would go out to lament the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite." NRSV      

       

Virgins Sacrificed to God in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Are there any passages in the Hebrew Scriptures that record virgins sacrificed as burnt offerings?   

Check next week to hear the story of the virgin daughter of Jephthah.

God is Good

Wonderful News

Yesterday I learned that Illumination Book Award, awarded my book a Gold Medal in the Bible study category.  I am so happy! I had a long walk with God this morning and thanked her for this award as conformation and assurance that I am following the path I am called to follow.  (FYI, I don't think God is gendered but I like to call her she, just to mix things up.) A link to the award is below.

http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1904

Judith, The Warrior

Where To Find Judith's Story

The book of Judith is found in the Catholic and Greek Orthodox Scriptures but not in the Protestant Bible. The book of Judith is also in the Septuagint, a translation of the Jewish Scriptures into Greek done between 300-200 BCE. Her story is one of only four biblical books named for a woman.

Judith Tells Her Story

I was disgusted by the people and by Uzziah's capitulation.  Surrender, that is all they can think of to save us, surrender   So they are thirsty.  I have fasted every day for the three years since my husband died,  What kind of faith does Uzziah show?  "Hold out for five days and if God doesn't show us mercy we will surrender."  

I had a plan.  I sent my slave woman to bring Uzziah and the elders to me.  I said to them, "This is not right. Who are you to put God to the test.  You cannot penetrate the depths of the human heart or understand the workings of the human mind how do you expect to know the mind of God? If we fall all Judea will fall and our temple will be desecrated and plundered.  We will be slaves and bring dishonor on our God.  We are being put to the test just as Abraham, Sarah, Jacob and Leah were tested. We must set an example."

Uzziah spoke condescendingly, "No one can deny your word or your wisdom but the people are thirsty so pray for rain."

"Listen and do not ask me what I am about to do.  Be at the town gate tonight to let me and my slave out.  With  the help of our God, the Assyrians will be delivered into the hands of a woman before the day you have sworn to the people you will surrender."

I prayed, but not for rain.  I prayed for a sword vengeance.  I called for the Lord's help. "Here are the Assyrians," I said.  "They pride themselves in their horses and foot soldiers.  They trust in their spears and shields.  They do not know you.  They plan to defile and pollute the sanctuary   Give me, a widow, the strength to crush their arrogance.  You are the God of the lowly, oppressed, weak forsaken and hopeless.  Use my deceitful words to remind the nation of your power and might." 

I am a very beautiful woman but I have hidden my beauty since the death of my husband, under sack cloth and ashes.  Not today, today I bathed and dressed in my finest clothes.  I put sweet smelling ointment on my body and wore my most precious jewels.  I packed food for myself and gave it to my slave to carry.  Then we went to the gate of the city.  Uzziah and the elders were there.  They were astounded by my transformation.  They made some speech about the God of our ancestors granting me favor to fulfill my plans so the Jerusalem would be exalted.

"Open the gate." I said. "So I can accomplish what you merely talk about."  As I hoped we were captured by the Assyrian guard.  I told them I had come to see their commander, to tell him of a way to capture the towns of the hill country.  They did not question me.  "Oh, we will take you to him.  Have no fear.  When he sees you he will, well..."  They were ridiculous, first they had to choose a hundred men to escort me.  Then there was excitement in the camp as notice of my arrival passed from tent to tent.  Eventually they were all standing outside the commanders tent looking at me.  Finally I was taken to the commander.

Do not be afraid, he told me.  If you chose to serve Nebuchadnezzar  the king of all the earth no one will harm you."

I laid it on thick. "I am your servant.  I tell you the truth, God will do great things through you.  I have heard you are the wisest and the most skilled in the whole kingdom.  I know Anchior told you that we could not be defeated because out God will defend us as long as we keep the commandments.  Well, the people are about to sin.  They are going to eat the first fruits and the tithes of wine and oil which are consecrated to God.  God has sent me to you to tell you when the people have sinned.  Then I can lead you through Judea to Jerusalem where you will set up your thrown." My words pleased him so I asked that I be allowed to go outside the camp every night to pray.  I told him God would tell me when the people had sinned and it was time to attack.

"You are beautiful and wise," he said.  "In fact no other woman in all the world looks so beautiful and speaks so wisely.  God has done well to send you to me."

I stayed in camp for three days.  Every night at midnight my slave and I went outside the camp to bathe and pray.  Finally on the fourth night he sent to me.  He was having a banquet and he told the eunuchs he sent to fetch me, "It would be a disgrace of we let such a woman go without having intercourse with her.  If we do  not seduce her, she will laugh at us." (NRSV) "Let the pretty girl come to me and drink wine with me and become like one of the Assyrian women who serve in the palace." 

I went but I did not drink his wine or eat his food.  He got so drunk he passed out.  All the servants and banquets guests left and closed up the tent.  I told my slave to wait outside.  We would go to pray a usual.  When everyone was gone. I grabbed him by the hair, said a prayer for strength and cut off his head.  It took me two blows but I did it.  I took the head out to my slave who put it in the food bag and we walked out of camp as if we were going to pray.  We kept walking until we got to the city gates.  At the gates we roused the sentry to open the gate.  All the towns people came out to see me because they had given me up for dead.  I pulled the head of the Assyrian commander out of my bag and said, "Praise God who has delivered Israel by the hand of a woman."  

Observations on Judith's Story

Finding a woman at the heart of the Christmas story is easy.  It is harder to find a woman in the Hanukkah story.  The book of Judith is dated during the Hasmonean dynasty which was established by the Maccabees.  First and Second Maccabees record the stories of the cleansing of the temple.  

If biblical women are described in the Bible  they are usually said to be beautiful.  Judith is no exception.  Judith 8:7 says. "She was beautifully formed and lovely to behold." 

In the endorsement Reza Aslan wrote for my book he says, "The women warriors, prophets and disciples of the Bible have been miscast for centuries as demons, harlots and jezebels - and intentionally so.  For if the truth about who these women were and what they represented were more widely known, it would challenge most of the assumptions we have about Judaism and Christianity." Judith was one of those women. 

The Ordeal of A Suspected Adultress

Where to Find the Law Concerning A Suspected Adulteress

I usually write about specific women in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.  Many of the interpretations I have been taught or the way women are treated in scripture I find disrespectful at the least and in some cases abusive. Although I have read most of the Bible, I continue to discover women or verses about women that I do not remember reading before.  This little jewel is from Numbers 5:11-31. I suggest reading the biblical text before the story below.  

The Woman Suspected of Adultery Tells Her Story

I had to suffer the ordeal, the humiliation.  There was no evidence against me. There was no proof, no witnesses to any infidelity.  There was no infidelity.  My husband  had a vague feeling of jealousy, a spirit of jealously and because of our laws I am the one who had to suffer humiliation.  He forced me to go to the temple with an offering of barley meal. I had to stand there, holding the jealousy offering, with my hair uncovered.  "Tell the truth" the priest shouted at me.  "Have you had sex with another man? You are under the authority of your husband. What did you do to make him jealous?" They concocted a drink made of water, dirt from the floor and their words of accusation. "If your drink this water your belly will swell and your thighs will rot. You will become a curse among the people. If you are not guilty God will grant you children." I will never let that man near me again.  

I drank their water with the dirt from the floor and their words of the accusation.  My belly did not swell! My thighs did not rot.  "What is his punishment for false accusations? " I cried. "I did nothing but for me there is suspicion and humiliation."  The priest laughed,  "For him there is nothing.  He is guilty of nothing.  He followed the law concerning his vague feeling of jealously. Be grateful you are not cursed." 

Observations on the Law Concerning the Suspected Adulteress    

This is one of those commandments you are not going to see on a monument outside a courthouse.  The stupidity and injustice of this law is almost comical.  It is an appalling commandment said to be given by God to Moses.  Verse 14b -15a even says, "If a spirit of jealousy comes on him, and he is jealous of his wife, though she has not defiled herself; then the man shall bring his wife to the priest." The injustice of this law illustrates how patriarchy has tried to control women and women's sexuality across centuries and cultures.  Sadly, there are women who suffer this kind of injustice and humiliation.   

The Rape of Susanna

Where to find Susanna's Story

In the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Susanna's story is found in the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books.  It is a stand alone story about a beautiful, pious, Jewish woman.  In the Catholic, The New American Bible: St. Joseph's Edition Susanna's story is chapter 13 of the book of Daniel.  In many Protestant Bibles, Susanna's story does not appear at all.

Susanna Tells Her Story

"I am completely trapped.  For if I do this, it will mean death for me; if I do not, I cannot escape your hands." Susanna says to the would be rapists, in Susanna 1:22     

They slunk into the garden while I was bathing.  How long had those voyeurs been hiding and watching me?  Where had they been hiding? How did they know I was alone?  How did they know I had sent my maids to get olive oil and ointment? 
They came rushing at me, "The garden doors are closed" they yelled.  "No one can see us.  You will have sex with us or we will testify against you. We will ruin you.  We will say we caught you having sex with a young man."  I was not going to give into those foul, old men so I cried out for help.   
They began shouting that they had found me with a man who was not my husband.  An accusation that was punishable by death. All my household came to see what the commotion was.  No one defended me.  The next day those odious, old men came to my home filled with their foul, wicked plan to have me put to death.  My husband, parents, children, relatives and servants were all there.  They all knew the kind of woman I am but still no one, not one defended me.  They listened to the lies.  The old frauds told how they were walking in the garden and saw me dismiss my maids.  They said a young man was hiding there and they saw us having sex.  Oh, they were eloquent in describing how they had tried to get the man, but he was to strong for them.  But they had captured me.  
When they pulled off my veil I knew it was just to get a better look at me.  They were going to have me killed but they couldn't hide their perversion from me or their desire to humiliate me.  
There was a man named Daniel in the group that was leading me to my execution. He told the group that he wanted no part in the shedding of my blood.  At that moment I was sure God had heard my prayers. He called them fools for not giving me a fair trial.  He demanded that we return to court.  He questioned my accusers separately and discovered their stories did not match.   
They were put to death for their false witness.  All my family rejoiced because I was innocent. But, if it hadn't been for Daniel they would have allowed me to be put to death without one word in my defense.  My relationship with them was irreparably damaged.

Observations on Susanna's Story

From the time I watched the movie Psycho, I knew to always lock the door and close the window when I took a bath or shower.  Bathing is a dangerous thing for women.  Then I watched The X Files and I learned that even if Scully locked her doors and windows when she took a bath, the alien was going to get her.  
Of course, Susanna is said to be a beautiful woman.  With the exception of Leah in Genesis, I can not think of a single woman in the Bible who is not describe as beautiful, if she is described at all.  Susanna is trapped.  If she gives into the elders and has sex with them she has committed adultery.  An act punishable by death.  If she does not have sex with them, they will accuse her of having sex with someone else.  An act punishable by death.  
Susanna courageously makes the choice to stay true to her convictions.  In a situation where she is not allowed a voice to defend herself she finds her voice to pray aloud to God, exclaiming her innocence. 
In the end, it is not Susanna who is proclaimed the s/hero of her own story.  Her fidelity to the law, her husband and her faith in God are not celebrated.  Rather it is the reputation of Daniel that is acclaimed.    

   

Job's Wife

Where to Find The Story of Job's Wife

The nameless wife of Job speaks two sentences in the book of Job.  They are recorded in Job 2:9.  She is also mentioned in 19:17 when Job declares that his breath is repulsive to her and in 31:10 where he defends his sexual integrity by offering his wife to other men if he has not been truthful.  "Let my wife grind for another, and let other men kneel over her."  

Job's Wife Tells Her Story

"Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die." said Job's wife to Job.  Job 2:9

Gone!  Everything is gone!  My children, oh my children!  All our servants, the oxen, donkeys and camels are gone.  I think my husband has lost his mind.  He tore is clothes, shaved his head and is sitting in a pile of ashes.  If it could get any worse he has broken out in sores all over his body.  He will not let me help him.  He just sits in the ashes and scrapes the sores with a pot shard.  I tried to talk to him but he dismissed me, calling me a foolish woman.  After he called me foolish, he didn't speak for seven days.  Now his fool friends have shown up to comfort him.  Where is my comfort? My children, oh my children!

Observations on the Story of Job's Wife's 

She has lost everything.  The only difference between what happened to her and her husband is that there is no report of her being afflicted with sores.  In the wager between Satan and God, Job's wife, her children, their servants and the families of all the servants who were killed, are the innocent victims.  Job demonstrates no concern for anyone but himself.  He was a wealthy powerful man who bemoans the lack of respect he now experiences from people he considers beneath him.  

Job's wife tells him to curse God and die.  He calls her a foolish woman and then goes on to curse the day of his conception and birth.  He longs for death, the fate of a stillborn child.  Throughout the book he is self-righteous and selfish.  He regards his wife and her body as his property.  "Job's words are in keeping with the patriarchal perspective that saw a woman's sexuality as the property of her husband rather than the woman herself." (Woman's Bible Commentary, Newsom, p. 135)

At the end of the book Job's property has been restored and he has ten more children.  My question is, who had the pleasure of giving birth to ten more children?       

Queen Esther

Where to Find Queen Esther's Story

Esther is one of only two books named for a woman in the Protestant Bible and one of only three books named for a woman in the Catholic Bible.  Her story starts in chapter two after Queen Vashti has been deposed.  

Esther Tells Her Story

"You know that I hate the glory of the pagans, and abhor the bed of the uncircumcised or of any foreigner." Esther C:26

  News of what Vashti had done spread like wild fire.  The Queen had said, "No" to the king in the presence of all his officials and they were furious.  The women thought this might bring a change in our lives but the officials made laws that controlled our lives even more.  

None of us expected what happened next.  The king appointed officers in all the provinces.  They were to search for all the beautiful virgins in the empire and take them to the king's harem in Susa.  We were torn away from our families and any life that we had hoped to have for ourselves.  We were put under the guard of a eunuch whose title was "custodian of the women."  We were given oil of myrrh, perfumes, cosmetics and beatifying treatments.  

Every night one of us was taken to the king's bed.  We were allowed to take on thing with us. In the morning we were sent to another harem, guarded by another eunuch.  Now we were concubines.  If the king liked us he might call for us again.  Otherwise???

In the tenth month of my captivity I was taken to the king.  I pleased him and he made me his queen!?   No one was more surprised than I.  I had not yet told him that I was a Jew.    

My foster father, Mordecai hung around the palace gate.  He wanted to get information about me and find out what was going to happen to me.  While there he overheard a plot, between two guards who were planning to harm the king.  He got word to me and I told the king what Mordecai heard.  The guards were killed and Mordecai was rewarded.  

There was a very evil man named Haman in the court of the king.  He wanted everyone to bow down to him.  Everyone did, except Mordecai.  We are Jews.  We do not give the honor reserved for G*d to a mortal man.  So this evil man decided that every Jew in the nation, man, woman and child should be put to death and all their possessions seized.  He convinced the king to issue a decree that on 12/13 every Jew should be slaughtered by the citizens of the empire.  It was a horrible thing for my people to face.  

Mordecai totally fell to pieces.  He tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes and walked through the city, up to the palace gates wailing and crying.  No one is allowed to enter the gates in sackcloth, so I sent a eunuch to him with fresh clothes.  When the eunuch returned he gave me a message from Mordecai.  I was to beg the king for the lives of my people.

I had not been summoned to the king in 30 days.  Appearing before the king when one is not summoned is an offense punishable by death.  I wept and prayed along with my servants.  If I did not go before the king, all the Jews would be killed.  If I did go before the king, I would be killed first and then all the Jews.  It was clear to me that if my people were to be saved I was the one who had to do it.       

I bathed and dressed in my finest, royal attire.  I was terrified and leaned on my maid for support.  When I reached the king he looked up at me with such anger that I fainted.  When I awoke he was holding me and talking gently to me.  I had a plan to invite the king and Haman to a dinner which I would prepared.  I wanted to stay in the king's good graces and I wanted Haman to let down his guard.  I hosted two such dinners.  While the king was drinking wine at the second dinner I begged the king for my life and the life of my people.  I emphasized that the death of all the Jews would be a great financial loss to the empire.  As I hoped the king became angry and asked who had planned such a disaster.  Haman was petrified.  The king stormed out into the garden.  Haman began to beg for his life.  His final mistake was throwing himself on me.  When the king returned he thought Haman was violating me.  Haman's fate was sealed.

The Jews were saved.  The community celebrated the days that were meant for our destruction with feasting and rejoicing.  We called the celebration Purim and I commanded that Purim should be celebrated  every year.

Observation on the Story of Queen Esther

Not all commentators have been impressed with Esther.  As Sidnie Ann White points out in The Women's Bible Commentary, "The tendency among scholars was to exalt Mordecai as the true hero of the tale and to downplay or even vilify the role of Esther.  As late as 1971 Carey More stated, 'Between Mordecai and Esther the greater hero in the Hebrew is Mordecai, who supplied the brains while Esther simply follows his directions' (Moore, p.lii)" In the text Mordecai asks Esther to plead for her people, he uses shame to convince her of what he believes to be her duty, but he does not offer a plan. 

Other commentators, ignoring the fact that refusing the king's harem would have meant her death have  criticized her for becoming a member of the harem.  The implication being that she was there to gain power and wealth.  
  
Esther enters her story as the powerless, sex slave of a powerful king.  At the close of her story she is a powerful queen who has manipulated her circumstances and saved not only her own life but the life of all the Jewish people.  Like many women before and after her she has made a way for herself where there was no way.     



         

Book Trailer

June 1 is the official publication for my book.  Please take a look at my book trailer.

My Book Cove

Her Hands

The only aspect of the cover I have not explained are her hands.  I was once informed that red nail polish is a sign of the devil.  Only her pinkie finger shows but in the original image all her nails are painted red.  I wear red nail polish most of the time and my hands are not a sign of the devil.    

Her Image

Following is a response to my blog.  "Hi Paula, I just read your blog post and I really understand all of what you are saying and I think that your book cover does represent all women." Following that post I got a correspondence from Christians For Biblical Equality.  They are soliciting funds for a partner organization in Africa.  They write, "EFOGE is struggling to bring change to a deeply patriarchal society that uses the Bible to fan fires of domestic and gender based violence and many social vices."  Before I had confronted my personal feelings about the bloody halo, I would have said it represented the horror of the Bible being used to fan flames of violence and the damage done to women by patriarchal interpretations of the Bible. 

   

 Marg, in her questions wrote, "I really like the book, but the cover just doesn't seem to serve it.  I see your target as Christian women (and some men perhaps) curious to read a more balanced presentation of women in the Bible.  Or feminist women looking to gain a new appreciation for biblical portrayals of women.  The cover seems like it targets young adult males looking for something dangerous and sexual."  Women's bodies, if not for public consumption, are dangerous.  God forbid a woman breast feed in public or make her own reproductive choices.   Women's bodies are sexual.  Barnes and Nobel sees a naked woman on my cover, not fit for their religion department.  

She is not for consumption!  She is looking directly into the eyes of whom ever is holding the book, not submissive or apologetic but some what sorrowful.        

 I recently filmed a Youtube video for the book.  The interviewer asked me to explain the cover.  For the first time I had to talk about being molested.  I told my husband and sisters before I posted the first blog about the cover, but I had never talked openly about those experiences.  I thought I was going to have a heart attack.  It must have affected me more that I realized because the next day my annoying arrhythmia, which has not bothered me for years, flared up.  My heart started flopping around like a fish out of water.  It has been good to face the pain I see in her blue eyes.

Healing

When I look at her I see me living in a woman's body.  She is me praying and bleeding and longing for things to be different.  She is me and I love her praying, bleeding, sorrowful, straightforward self.    

My Book Cover

Her Body

Marg asks, "Why use a female image that has been so obviously photoshopped when this book is about how accurate portrayals of women in the Bible have been obscured by patriarchal and cultural expectations?"  In the original image, the body of the woman on the cover is visible from halo to hipbones.  I did not want her to be sexualized and requested the book designer tear the image to obscure most of her body.  From the feedback I have received, it seems there is no way to present a woman's body that is not seen as sexual.  Barnes and Noble will not carry the book in the religion department of their store because, the buyer for the religion section is reluctant to put a naked woman in her religion section.  I walked through Barnes and Noble and took pictures of book covers that displayed much more of a woman's body than my book cover.  Granted, not in the religion section.  

Living In A Woman's Body 

The photoshop question never accrued to me.  I see in her the image of my younger blond haired, blue eyed self.  She is the image of me living in a woman's body that is, "obscured by patriarchal and cultural expectations."  A body that is never thin enough, or never has big enough breasts and is always in danger of being exploited.  That is just my experience.  A Unitarian Universalist minister shared her experience of growing up with big breasts and the, "patriarchal and cultural expectations"  that resulted from having breasts that were too big.    

Women's Bodies

Patriarchy is not comfortable with woman's bodies, not on display for public consumption.  A good example is the ruccus over breast feeding mothers.  Patriarchy is not comfortable with women's bodies that do not conform to current standards of beauty.  A woman's body my be praised for the curve of her breast but not the curve of her belly.  Bellys should be flat.  Patriarchy is not comfortable with women's bodies that are not controlled by someone other than the woman herself.  I Googled, "Number of laws regulating women's bodies."  The first statistic I got is that in the first quarter of 2013 Republicans pushed 700 new laws to regulate women's bodies.     littlegreenfootballs.com/.../298529_Republicans_P...

I see my younger self in this cover, praying and bleeding and longing for things to be different.  

My Book Cover

 Her Face and Hair

Marg asked, "Why use a white woman model, blond hair and blue eyes?  This is a book about middle eastern women."  

It was with surprise that I realized, when I look at her I see my younger self.  I see her messy blond hair and remember all the people who told me, "Your hair is so flyaway, it's like corn silk can't you do anything with it?"  Or the teacher in junior high who met me at the door every day with a rubber band.  I was not allowed in class until my hair was pulled tight in a ponytail.  

I look into her blue eyes and I see the sorrow I have so often seen in my own blue eyes.  When I was about four-years-old my mother sent me to a Bible study class.  The teacher asked if there was anyone who was not a sinner.  I raised my hand because my momma always told me I was a good little girl.  The teacher's reaction was swift and brutal.  Probably the reason I remember it 56 years later. 

On the face of the model, I see the pain from decades of sitting in church hearing again and again that I am a sinner and responsible for all the evil in the world, because of Eve.  I see in her face the pain of hearing that Bathsheba was a temptress, Mary Magdalene was a prostitute and Jezebel, Delilah and so many other women were all sinner and destroyers of holy men.  

Depictions of "Holy" Women

When I began looking at images for my cover, I found very traditional images.  Women with their hair covered and their eyes down cast.  Women with their hair covered and their arms out stretched, looking up.  Old women, nursing women, half naked women talking to fully clothed men, crying women, blissful women, submissive women, women with golden halos, nuns, icons and saints.

Yes, biblical women are middle eastern women and do not look like the woman on the cover.  The book is about biblical women and it is for me. It is for all women and men who are questioning what they have been taught about biblical women.  

Healing

I dyed my hair red.  It is just as out-of-control as it was when I was a child and I like it that way.  It is fluffy.

I still see sorrow in my blue eyes sometimes but now, like the woman on the book, my gaze is direct,  no apology, no submission.  To quote Pete Townshend, "I don't need to be forgiven."  I no longer feel the pain of male interpretations of biblical women but anger at how those interpretations are used to control and limit women.  The biblical character Eve is not the reason for all the evil in the world and neither am I.  Mary Magdalene was not a prostitute.  Bathsheba was not a temptress.  David was a voyeur and a rapist.  Jezebel was a woman following her own religious tradition.  Delilah was involved with a mean, egotistical man.  I can and do interpret biblical women for myself and the sorrowful, blond haired, blue eyed woman on the cover represents the decades it has taken to get me here.  

In my next blog post I will address Marg's questions about the woman's body.

 

Another Woman Raped

Tamar, the Daughter of King David

Where to find Tamar's story

Tamar was the beautiful daughter of King David and Maacah one of David's many wives.  She was raped by her half-brother Amnon.  Her brother Absalom killed Amnon.  The Bible says the reason for the killing was revenge for the rape.  Her story is told to validate Absalom's killing of Amnon, but with Amnon out of the way Absalom was next in line to be king.  Her story is told in 2 Samuel 13:1-37 

Tamar Tells Her Story

"No, my brother, do not force me; for such a thing is not done in Israel; do not do anything so vile!"  Tamar said to Amnon in, 2 Samuel 13:12.

I could not stand to be around him.  He was always leering at me, making suggestive remarks, touching me when no one was looking.  I tried to stay away from him but our father sent me to take care of him when he got sick.  I knew he was faking.  I did not think I was in any real danger.  I was after all, a virgin and the daughter of the king.  

He watched me as I made the cakes he requested.  When they were ready he sent everyone away and asked me to come to his bedroom and feed him the cakes.  I thought he was just being creepy.  "Let me eat them from you hand" he whined.  When I entered the room he grabbed me and said he wanted to have sex with me.  I begged him not to do anything so vile.  I begged him not to shame me.  I begged him to ask our father if he could marry me.  I knew our father would say no and once he saw  the kind of man Amnon was it would be easier for me to stay away from him.  

It was no use.  He was stronger than me and I could not fight him off.  He raped me.  His rape was not about love but loathing and the desire to have power over me.  He had ruined me. I beg him to marry me as our law requires.  I said, "No, my brother; for this wrong in sending me away is greater than the other that you did to me."  He would not listen.  He had his servant throw me out and called me, "this woman."  He didn't even use my name.  I tore the robe I was wearing.  It was the mark of the virgin daughter of the king.  I put ashes on my head as a symbol of mourning and ran to my brothers house, crying all the way.  There was nothing left for me now.  I was not a virgin.  I would never marry and have a home of my own.  I would live in the home of my brother and serve him.  My brother tried to comfort me but I was desolate.

  

When our father found out about my rape he was angry but he did not punish Amnon.  I was of less value to him than his firstborn son. 

 

Two years later my brother killed Amnon.  He was very cleaver in biding his time.  He waited until the celebration of the sheep shearing and when Amnon was drunk he ordered his servant to kill him.  Absalom went into hiding for three years.

Observations on Tamar's Story

The cover of the winter/spring 2014 issue of MS. magazine declares, "1 in 5 Women Students on College Campuses Will Experience Sexual Assault"  One of the more blood chilling statistics reported is, 63 percent of men who admitted committing rape or attempted rape had raped an average of 6 women.  Another chilling statistic is that 1.5 million women are raped or assaulted by an intimate partner every year in the U.S.  

Tamar's rape is a vehicle, a literary device presented to further the stories of the male biblical heroes.  We are not told about her life before the rape.  We are told that she was beautiful as if that is all that matters.  After the rape we know that she was a desolate woman living in her brother's home.  We are also told in 2 Samuel 14:27 that a daughter named Tamar was born to Absalom.  Miriam Therese Winter asks the question, "Was she Tamar's daughter?" 

I was never taught about the rape of Tamar in Sunday School or the laws which require a rape victim to marry her rapist.  Would the statistics of rape and assault be different if the church confronted these biblical stories of rape and assault?  If the church condemned the actions of the attacker would it make a difference?  Would there be less blaming of the victim if there were serious consequences for the rapist?  What difference would it make if this story were told, not as an incident in the life of a biblical hero but as the sad and ruined life of a biblical woman? 

Heaven is for Real

Whose Heaven?

 "Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall live because she hid the messengers we sent. Then they devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys.  Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, 'Go into the prostitute's house, and bring the woman out of it and all who belong to her, as you swore to her.'  So the young men who had been spies went in and brought Rahab out, along with her father, her mother, her brothers, and all who belonged to her—they brought all her kindred out—and set them outside the camp of Israel.  They burned down the city, and everything in it; only the silver and gold, and the vessels of bronze and iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord."
  Joshua 6:17b, 21-24 NRSV

Creating Heaven in Our Image.

In the prologue of the book  Heaven is for Real the four-year-old protagonist informs his parents that Jesus asked the angles to sing to him.  One of the songs the angles sang was Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho.  That song is based on the verses above chronicling the total destruction of the people and town of Jericho, with the exception of a prostitute and her family.

I read the entire book.  It is a sweet but unconvincing story of a child's near death experience.  In the book Prostitutes, Virgins and Mothers I repeatedly ask the question, "Does it make sense?"  My question here is, does it make sense that the angles are singing about the massacre of human beings?  Does it make sense that heaven is exactly like the child has been taught in Sunday School.  The father in the book even says, the Sunday School teachers must be doing a really good job.  The book works very hard to convince the reader that the child, raised in the home of a Christian minister, attending Sunday School every Sunday could not have gotten his vision from anyplace but a trip to heaven.  It is a very physical place.  Jesus has very pretty eyes, a rainbow horse and wears purple and white.  God even sits on a throne like one pictured in the child's story book. 

Who Gets to go to Heaven?

The child in the book is very adamant that there is no admittance into heaven without knowing Jesus. At the funeral of a strangers he exclaims,  "He can't get into heaven if he didn't have Jesus in his heart."  Using that criteria Mahatma Gandhi, The Dalai Lama, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum and Ruth Messinger among a host of others are not going to be there.  

What or if there is an afterlife I don't know. I am a Christian and it does not make since to me that an afterlife is a physical place with rainbow horses and angels singing about the destruction of any part of creation.  

Fight Church

"Sometimes the world is just too ridiculous to believe!"

That is the way I remember a line from the movie Little Big Man.  Today I watched a story about the film Fight Church on Good Morning America.  One of the cage fighting pastors says, "Mainstream Christianity has feminized men."  My first question is, "Who does he think has been running the church, women?"  My second question is, "Are they reading the same Gospels I am?"  

Using God as Justification

As a Christian Feminist I have to question the objectification of the young woman in a bikini who carries a sign into the ring.  As a retired kindergarten teacher my heart breaks for the scared little boy who is told, "God said, 'don't be afraid, don't be discouraged'" as his pastor dresses him to go into the ring.       

Why do we believe what we believe?

I wrote the book, Prostitutes,Virgins and Mothers: Questioning Teachings About Biblical Women in part, because my religion has been hijacked by people who call themselves Christians yet live a lifestyle of violence.  

Christian Right is Wrong

Fundamentalist Christians

March 17th is my birthday.  As is my habit I decided to go to the cemetery to visit the graves of my parents.  I try not to go during the week after the time I was sitting at their graves and the sprinklers came on.  To get to the cemetery I had to drive past the church I went to all my growing up years.  I was feeling very nostalgic so I decided to stop for services.  

The male generic language was not a surprise just disappointing.  Especially, "Greet each other with a brotherly kiss."  My first shock was how few people were at church. I remember it as a large congregation.  My second shock was when the minister announced, "Bring a friend to church Sunday" and then asked the congregation to raise their hand if they had friends who were going to hell.  I tried to keep the shook from showing on my face as everyone raised their hands.  "Well," he said, "bring them to church and get them saved."  

My final shock came during the sermon.  The minister said, "God instituted capital punishment because murder is an assault against God's image."  I wrote his statement on the back of the bulletin  because I couldn't believe what I had just heard.  I wanted to ask about the sixth commandment, "you shall not kill."  Or, Jesus admonition to love your neighbor as yourself.  Or, what about the image of God in the person being executed?  

Unfundamentalist Christians

There are many unfundamentalist  Christian groups.  One on Facebook calls themselves Unfundamentalist Christians.  There is also, the Christian Left, Christians For Biblical Equality and The Evangelical, Ecumenical Women's Caucus-Christian Feminist Today to name a few.  They proclaim respect, inclusion, non-judgement, forgiveness and so much more that reflects and represents my faith.  I wrote the book, Prostitutes, Virgins and Mothers: Questioning Teachings About Biblical Women because I felt like my religion had been hijacked by fundamentalist.  

I will not go back to that church. I choose to believe in a God who would be just as disappointed with the male generic language, just as shocked by the judgement on the lives of other people and just as shocked to hear that the loving creator had instituted capital punishment.