Final Blog: An Overview of Religion 375

Walking into Religion 375 on the first day, I thought I knew what to expect.  I was both right and wrong.

I was right in the sense that I knew we were going to discuss women of the Bible, but I had no idea that we were going to focus in such detail on some of them.

I was wrong in the sense that I knew what women we were going to discuss.  Several of the women were new to me, and I did not know that some of them were even in the common Bible, such as Jael, and I had no clue about the apocryphal texts, where the stories of Susanna and Judith are found.

What amazed me is how little information there is in the Bible on some of the female characters.  Jephthah's daughter, for example, doesn't even have a name and there is so much we do not know about her.  On the other hand, some women, such as Ruth, have a whole book dedicated to them.

Being raised in a Christian church, I have noticed that a lot of these women get overlooked, and many that are held in high regard have flaws that get overlooked.  For example, Ruth is known for her modesty, but what does going into where Boaz was sleeping and uncovering his "feet" say about her modesty?  We never discussed that in Sunday School.

Jael was never discussed in Sunday School either.  She is only in a few verses in Judges, and there is no mention of her background, but she is responsible for saving the Israelites.  We were taught about Deborah and how she was a judge and a great woman, but I think Jael takes the cake in that story.

Overall, this class was a great class and really opened my mind to the possibilities of the Bible.  I learned that the Bible cannot be taken word-for-word, it will be always subject to interpretation, and that there is so much that gets overlooked.  I do not regret taking this class at all, and am very glad it got offered as a general education course.  If I had to do it all over again, I would still would take it, and perhaps post longer blogs and be better about posting them on time. :)

The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown is a book that must be approached with an open mind.  One must not believe that everything that is in the book is true, especially since it can be found in the fiction section of any bookstore that carries it.

Brown really makes the reader think with the many historical legends, facts, etc., that he places in the book, as well as the many plot twists and turns throughout the novel. The reader also has to keep up with several different story lines within the book in the beginning, which can be discouraging and confusing to readers like myself.

The importance of the female sex is also present in this book. There are many references to goddesses and their importance in paganism. There is also the fact that one of the main characters, Sophie, is female, and shares the spotlight with Robert. In fact, he really could not have figured much of anything out without her help, at least in the beginning of the novel.

I thought that The Da Vinci Code was interesting, but I personally do not find it to be one of my favorites. It was a little challenging to follow, but for someone who likes different story lines within a novel, I would recommend it highly.

Why, Why, Why, Delilah?

In the article we read, J. Cheryl Exum discusses the way Delilah is portrayed in art and movies while incorporating the Biblical story of Samson and Delilah, also.

I found her discussion of this painting by Gustave Moreau particularly interesting:

In the article, Exum discusses the fact that she is in white, defying the idea of purity or virginity behind the color, but there are small slivers of red, revealing her "true" identity as a harlot or temptress.

Samson and Delilah

Director Cecil B. DeMille puts a spin on the classic Bible story of Samson and Delilah in his 1949 film, Samson and Delilah.

DeMille puts an interesting spin on the story, adding characters not mentioned in Judges 16, where the story is in the Bible.  Samson's mother is in the story for a short time, but she actually has speaking parts in the movie.  The movie also includes a love interest from his hometown, Miriam, who loves him but he does not love her back.  In the movie one gets a feel for daily life in Dan, where Samson is from, and his interactions with others.

What is really interesting is how DeMille portrays Delilah.  In the book of Judges she is portrayed as a temptress, also in the movie, but the movie almost justifies why she would betray Samson to her people, the Philistines. One of the first reasons for Delilah's behavior is the fact that the woman Samson was to marry in the story is Delilah's sister in the movie, and she is jealous of her because she is in love with Samson, as well.

Another reason behind Delilah's behavior is that Samson burned down the place where they lived after the woman he was to marry was given to another man when he solved the riddle that Samson had given him and his soldiers.  This angered Delilah, but she still loved him so. However, she made a deal with the Philistine soldiers that she would find the secret to his strength and they could capture him.

Even though she did find the secret of Samson's strength and had him captured and made to be a slave, she redeemed herself at the end.  She realized that what she did was terrible and that she still loved him, so she led him to the pillars where the statue of the false god of the Philistines was located.  Samson tore down the pillars and the entire arena was destroyed, and the lives of many Philistines were taken.

DeMille portrays Delilah as a temptress, but gives her reason behind it, filling in gaps from the Bible story.  He almost justifies her actions, but has her redeemed in the end, making things right and doing the work that was necessary to do.

More about Jael

As I said in my last post, my group is doing our poster presentation project on Jael.  In my search for articles that could be helpful for this project, I found one on JSTOR that was rather interesting.  It is called The Blessing of Jael by Edward L. Curtis.

The article starts out with the part in Jael's story where Deborah blesses her (Judges 5:24-27).  It goes on to basically give reason behind the murder of Sisera.  The article also discusses whether or not the murder was divinely sanctioned.

In the article the author states that "a special divine impulse was given Jael; that in good faith she received Sisera and pledged him protection; but afterwards, while she saw him sleeping, God moved her to break her word and slay him...This supposition acquits Jael of wrong."

Another possibility he came to was that Jael may have been a true believer of God, and that she felt herself obliged to kill Sisera for the good of the Israelites.  He says that Jael's loyalty to God was her justification for killing Sisera.

Jael lived in a time when there was not a king in Israel and everyone did as they saw fit.  From a historical standpoint, the murder of Sisera was commendable in Deborah's eyes, and that is why she blessed Jael.

After reading this article, I believe that Jael was in the right, as well.  Based on the time, when there was no king, and if indeed God told her to do it, I think she was right about what she did and deserved to be blessed by Deborah.

Jael Portrayed in Art

My group is doing a project about how Jael is portrayed in art, and there seems to be a common theme among depictions of her, especially in these first four pictures. In all four, Jael has a tent peg in one hand and a hammer in the other, and Sisera is lying down as if asleep.



What struck me about this first one was how realistic it looks compared to the others. I am not completely sure if it is a photograph or a painting. I also noticed that this tent peg is longer than the one in the other paintings and that the clothing looks more like the time period in which this story took place, whereas the others were based on the time period in which the artist was painting.

       

This third depiction also looks photographed, like the first, but the color scheme gives it a dark undertone, highlighting the seriousness of the murder of Sisera.

In this fourth depiction I noticed that Jael is driving the peg through his left temple as opposed to his right, which is a difference from the others. I have no clue as to whether the temple side is significant or not, or if the artist had seen other depictions and just decided to be different.

In this last one, the artist chose to depict all three people involved in the story: Jael, Deborah, and Barak.  The artist appears to have established a level of importance. We can see most of Jael and she is in the very front with her hammer and tent peg, revealing that the artist considered her to be the most important figure of the story, whereas Deborah and Barak are somewhat hidden. The artist perhaps wanted to include the fact that they played a role, but not as major as that of Jael.  I am thinking that this picture would have taken place after the murder of Sisera, just by looking at Jael's expression. It looks to me to be a look of murderous rage. Deborah could be praying and thanking the Lord for allowing the Israelites to be free, and Barak looks as if he has just come home from war and is reliving what just happened in his head.

What surprises me is that there are not many varying depictions or Jael. I was not sure exactly what to expect, but it seems that nearly every artist depicts her with a tent peg in one hand and a hammer in the other. Many depict her killing Sisera while he sleeps. Seeing as there are no other stories in the Bible about her, artists do not really have much to go on, so it makes sense that many depictions are extremely similar.

Modern Midrash: Adam and Eve

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, which had no form, were empty, and were in complete darkness.  God hovered over the formless earth, said "Let there be light," and, at his command, there was light.  He separated it from the dark and called it 'day' and the darkness 'night'.  There was darkness and then light, the first day.

And then he said, "Let there be an expanse as a separation between waters, and the expanse will be called 'sky'".  Then there was darkness, and then light.  This marked the second day.

On the third day, God created land as a separation between waters below the sky, and those waters would be called seas.  God saw that this was good.  Then he said, "Let the land produce plants of various kinds, that will produce seed and reproduce."  And He saw that it was good.

On the fourth day, God created the seasons, days, and years as signs for the creatures He created on the fifth day.

On this fifth day, the Lord said, "Let the waters be filled with creatures, let birds fly above the water, and other creatures roam around on the land and communicate with man," and he saw that the creatures were good.

On the sixth day, the Lord said, "Let there be created a man in our image, like me, and let them rule over all other creatures of the earth."  So He created male and female in His image.  He told them to be fruitful and multiply, and to rule over the creatures of the earth.  He also told them to take of any green plant for food, except the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, planted next to the Tree of Life, for if they even touched it they would surely die rather than live eternally.  And it was so.

On the seventh day, God rested from all of his work.  This day is the Lord's day, and all men are supposed to rest from all of their work from the previous days.

The Lord had formed man from the dust of the land and breathed into the man's nostrils and mouth the breath of life.  He placed him in a garden that he had planted, in Eden, and told him to take care of the land, to name the creatures and to rule over them.

When He saw the man working, he noticed that the man did not have a companion, somebody enough like him to bond and reproduce with, and said "It is not good for man to be alone.  I will make a helper and companion suitable for him."  So He put the man in a deep sleep and took from him a rib.  Then the Lord closed the wound and formed woman from the rib.  When the man woke, the Lord brought the woman to the man, and she was called 'woman', meaning 'of man'.  He taught her everything that the Lord had taught him about taking care of the land, and they did so side by side.

Now the serpent was a crafty creature, being that he could communicate with man.  He asked the woman, "Did God really say that you must not eat from the garden?"  The woman replied,  "We may eat fruit from all of the trees in the garden except that of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  The Lord said that if we touch it, we shall surely die instead of living life eternally."  "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. "God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes shall be opened and you will be like Him, knowing good and evil."

The woman saw that the fruit was pleasing to the eye, and she ate of it.  Her eyes were opened, and she gave some to her husband, and he ate as well.  Then his eyes were opened, and they both realized that they were naked.  The man said to his wife, "let us cover ourselves, so that the Lord may not see our nakedness."  As he said this, they heard the Lord walking in the garden, and not having time to cover themselves, they hid from the Lord.  "Where are you?" the Lord asked.  "We were afraid because we were naked, so we hid," they replied.  "Who told you that you were naked?" The Lord asked.  "Did you eat from the tree that I commanded that you not eat from?"  "The woman gave me fruit and I ate it," the man replied.  "The serpent told me that I would not die if I ate it, so I ate," the woman said.

And the Lord said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, you are cursed! You will no longer have legs and you will crawl on your belly and eat the dust of the earth all of the days of your life.  I will put distance between you and the woman: you will no longer be able to communicate with her.  Her offspring, who will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

Then he said to the woman, "I will greatly increase your childbearing pains, and your giving birth to children will be painful.  You will submit to your husband, who will rule over you."

Then he turned to the man and said, "Because you listened to your wife, the ground you work is cursed: you will have to tend to it all the days of your life because it will not willingly and easily produce fruit for you.  You will eat from the ground which you will return to, for you were formed from dust, and to dust you shall return."

The man, who was called Adam by the Lord, named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all the living to come.

The Lord clothed them with skins of animals, and then banished them from the garden.  Then the Lord placed angels as guardians of the Tree of Life, so that the neither man nor his descendants could take from the tree and be given eternal life.  Any man who tried to partake of it would be killed by the flaming swords that were the angels' weapons.

Because of what Adam and Eve did, nobody can live life eternally, but they do know good from evil.

Esther and Judith

Esther is a woman who can be admired for being a heroine, but her way of going about it was not exactly the idea women would today. Yes, her people were in danger of being killed, and yes, she managed to save them, but the morals of the story are not exactly relevant to women of today.

First, she was basically told what to do by her adopted guardian and cousin, Mordecai. He told her that the Jews were in danger of being killed, and he formulated the entire plan. Esther did what she was told without question. That can be a good thing in most situations, but the story almost seems like if Esther had not listened to Mordecai, then the Jews would have perished. The moral there is that women need to rely on men to get things done. Yes, Esther did go through with the plan, but because Mordecai told her to.

Another moral of the story is that women must be manipulative to get what they want. Esther basically uses her charms as the queen to get King Ahaserus to issue a decree saying that the Jews will be allowed to defend themselves in the event of an invasion of their lands in order to stop his advisor, Haman, from killing them all. This idea of manipulation does not really have to apply to women nowadays. Women do not have to manipulate in order to get what they want; they can work for it.

Judith can be seen as a heroine, as well, but she also used manipulation in order to get what she wanted.

Being a widow, Judith had nobody to answer to. When she heard of Nebuchadnezzar's plan to invade all of Egypt, she decided to take matters into her own hands and save the Israelites, since nobody else wanted to do it. She met with Holofernes (advisor to Nebuchadnezzar who was to lead the Assyrians to invade), seduced him (but did not sleep with him), and cut his head off. She brought his head back home with her, and the Assyrians did not invade the town.

Both of these stories hold women highly, but also show that women need to have a man's approval before they go out and do something, as was the case with Esther, and that manipulation is the way to go about getting what you want. Women should not be seen as manipulative as a whole unit. This idea puts all women in a negative light, and not all of us are that way.

Jephthah's Daughter

Judges 11 tells the story of Jephthah and his daughter.  Jephthah was a warrior and prayed to God to deliver the Ammonites into his hands.  He promised God that if hs defeated the Ammonites, then he would sacrifice whatever came out to greet him first as a burnt offering to God.  It just so happened that his one and only virgin daughter, unnamed in the biblical text, came out to greet him.  He told her of the promise he had made to God, and she asked him to allow her two months in the mountains to mourn.  She returned after the two months and Jephthah kept his promise.

How do we view Jephthah in this story? He was perhaps careless and arrogant with his vow, seeing as he only had his daughter and his wife as family.  Why wouldn't they greet him first?  Perhaps he was expecting an animal of some sort to greet him.  In the New Testament, he his held in high regard.  Perhaps he is held in a positive light because he was a good warrior and he kept his promise.

God does not speak in the story.  Why was God silent?  Could it be that God was silently judging, or possibly that the narrator just did not bother to include dialogue between God and Jephthah?  We may never know the answer because, as we have learned in class, the Bible is cryptic.

There are many parallels with the story of Isaac and Abraham in Genesis 22.  Both are to sacrifice their "only" child (Abraham had Ishmael, but he is not mentioned much) as burnt offerings.  The mountains are another parallel between both stories, serving a different purpose in each.  Abraham takes Isaac to the mountains to sacrifice him, and Jephthah's daughter runs to the mountains as a place of refuge and mourning.

In the Genesis story, God intervenes before Abraham kills Isaac, substituting a ram, whereas he does not intervene with Jephthah's daughter.  Why did he not intervene? Was it to punish Jephthah for being careless with his vow? Or was Abraham just more special or more worthy of keeping his offspring in God's eyes?  Again, the Bible is cryptic.

This tragic story is often looked over or forgotten.  I had not read it until Monday, and I wondered why I had never come across it before.  Why should this story not be told?  Is it because people would question, like our class did?  Do teachers not want their students to know that God does not always intervene?  Does this passage make God look bad?  Not necessarily.  Maybe what we can take from this is to make good on promises and to not be careless with them.

Tamar and Judah

In Genesis 38, Tamar is the daughter-in-law of Judah. She marries the oldest son, Er, who God struck dead for reasons unknown. The next son, Onan, was to marry her in order to give his brother offspring. He would not do so, and "spilled his seed on the ground" when he slept with her. This made God angry, and he struck Onan dead. The last son, Shelah, was next in line to marry Tamar, but Judah sent her away until he grew up, or so he said. Judah went into town with Shelah to shear his sheep, and Tamar went to see that he was grown and that he had not been married to her, so she dressed up where she would not be recognized. Judah saw her and mistook her for a prostitute, and slept with her. She took his forms of identification to know who the father of her child was if she conceived. When Tamar became pregnant, she showed the items and said they belonged to the father of her children. Judah recognized them and said "She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn't give her to my son Shelah" (Gen 38:26). She gave birth to twin boys, one of which is an ancestor of Jesus.

Why is the reason for Er's death unknown? All that we have to go on is that he was "wicked in the Lord's sight" (Gen 38:7). What does this mean? What could he have done to deserve this punishment? Maybe he could have killed a man. We do not know, because the Bible is cryptic.

So how did Tamar go about reproducing with Judah? Was it unintended and just happened because she was looking to see if Shelah had grown up? Or did she plan this out in advance? My understanding is that it was the latter, because she took the time to change out of her widow's clothes.

Was it Dinah's Fault?

In Genesis 34, Dinah, daughter of Jacob, is forced to have sex with Shechem. Shechem falls in love with her afterwards and goes and asks for her hand in marriage. Jacob agrees to the marriage on the condition that all of Shechem's men be circumcised. While all of the men are still in pain from circumcision, two of Dinah's brothers, Simeon and Levi, go and slaughter Shechem and all of his men. When Jacob confronts them about it, they reply: "Should [Shechem] have treated our sister like a prostitute?"(Gen 34:31).

The Bible leaves the question of whose fault it was that Dinah was raped open to interpretation.

The selection from Legends of the Jews, however, concludes that it was Jacob, Dinah, and Shechem were at fault. It is Jacob's fault for not allowing Esau, his brother, to marry her. It is Dinah's fault for going out and being seen by Shechem. It is Shechem's fault for not controlling himself and thus committing adultery.

In my opinion, it is purely Shechem's fault. If he wanted her so badly, he should have married her first. He was a grown man and needed to utilize self-control and, for lack of a better phrase, "keep it in his pants", especially since he knew the rules about committing adultery.

I also understand why Simeon and Levi slaughtered Shechem and his men. If anything like that happened to my sister, I would want justice. I would not want my dad to marry her off to the man who defiled her, because he would not be good for her. I would want the perpetrator dead. I think that Simeon and Levi were completely in the right.

Ruth: Modesty at it's Finest

Anyone who has gone to Sunday School probably knows the story of Ruth. She was a widow with no children who went with her mother-in-law, Naomi, to her homeland in spite of Naomi telling her to go back to her family. She meets Boaz when working in his field, he notes her modesty and other good characteristics and marries her. The story may not be as G-rated as the Sunday School teachers made it out to be, however.

In Ruth 1:16, she says to Naomi, "Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay," which shows how much she cared about Naomi and how determined she was to go with her, no matter what the consequences were for her being a Moabite woman in Israel (Moabites and Israelites did not get along).

In Ruth 2, Ruth gleans (picks up the grain left behind by others) in the field of one of Naomi's relatives, Boaz. He allowed her to glean and commanded his workers to leave her be (perhaps because of her Moabite heritage). When Ruth asked why he took such notice of her, Boaz told her that had heard about everything Ruth had done for Naomi, leaving her family for her and going to a foreign land. "May the Lord repay you for what you have done" (Ruth 2:12). Boaz noted her kindness and determination, characteristics of a good woman.

In Ruth 3, Naomi tells Ruth to get cleaned up and go visit Boaz at the threshing floor, "uncover his feet, and lie down. He will tell you what to do" (Ruth 3:4). Ruth did just that, and told him that he is a kinsman-redeemer, someone who could redeem her late husband's land. Boaz told her to lie there until morning
 and he would go into town and see if the nearer kinsman-redeemer wanted to redeem the lands, If he did not Boaz would redeem the lands.

This chapter can be interpreted as erotic, and the use of the word "feet" might actually be an innuendo for Boaz's genitalia.Wouldn't that make Ruth out to be less modest than she appears? Judging by the text, nothing happened sexually between the two, as there is nothing mentioned about Boaz "lying with her." Ruth says, in Ruth 3:9: "Spread the corner of your garment over me, since you are a kinsman-redeemer." This whole erotic scene could have been something similar to a marriage proposal, which I thought was a rather bold move on Ruth's part.

In the end, in Ruth 4, Boaz does end up marrying Ruth and they have a son, Obed, who becomes the father of Jesse and the grandfather of King David.

My perception of Ruth has not really changed. I did note, though, the scene with Boaz at the threshing floor as more than G-rated, and that surprised me somewhat. I still see Ruth as a kind, modest, determined individual and think of her as a model for Christian girls everywhere.

Woman's Place in the World

This post is late, but I am posting anyway because I felt the need to share regardless of the fact that this may not be counted.

This week I rediscovered an interesting aspect about man and woman. Eve was created from Adam so that Adam wouldn't be alone in the Garden of Eden. When reading Genesis 2-3, a few verses really caught my attention, even though I know the story and have been reading it since I was about seven years old.

In Genesis 2:23, after Eve is presented to Adam, he says, "This is now bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman' for she was taken out of man."  I still am astounded by this verse because I interpret it to mean that a woman is made specifically for a man, which is said in the next verse, Genesis 2:24: "For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh."

I think that God chose to form Eve from Adam's rib because the rib is a supportive structure, so woman was made to support man, which can be justified if we back up a few verses to Genesis 2:18: "The Lord God said, 'It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.'"

So, to conclude, I think that women were created to have a supportive role in life.  We were created to be there for our men, to help them, love them, and support them.