[Author’s Note; I am going back to feminist reinterpretations of the Bible, this one focusing on the work of Alice Bellis. I especially love her reexamination of Ruth. I remember watching the movie on TCM when I was in middle school, and it stuck with me. Even in the movie, made in 1960, Ruth is an active character, choosing her destiny and not passively accepting men’s plans for her. That is a definite lesson many interpretations of the story leave out, focusing instead on Boaz as the hero and YHWH’s protection.]
Male interpretations of the Bible have often been criticized for opposing women and feminism. This opposition to women has spread to some sects of the three religions, which draw their foundations from this source material: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In this essay series, I have focused my research on Christianity and Judaism, hoping to encourage those who study Islamic interpretations of the text to continue the discussion.
Even when the text itself seems to have a good message regarding hope or love, in the past, the overarching teaching of the Church and Synagogue has been that women are lesser beings, lesser in God’s sight, and less worthy of respect or protection. In fact, in the Orthodox Jewish community, the daily morning prayers recited by the men include their thanks to God that they were not born women.
This kind of devaluation of women “justified” by sacred text is what finally ended my worship in the Catholic Church. It was not the teachings of Christ; I still consider myself a Goddess follower of his message to love each other and help those in need. It was what I saw as the Church’s hatred for women, for women’s ideas, for women’s very right to be free that ended our relationship. Philosopher and Jewish ethicist Anya Topolski experienced this same problem, but her struggle did not end her practice of Judaism but enhanced it.
Topolski writes, “Being born a Jew means being required to challenge the world and G-d. … It is as if struggling is the unspoken root of all of Judaism’s rituals and rules.”[1] It is this constant struggle with the text that brought her attention to the story of Rebekah, which she believes lies at the root of Judaism’s unfair treatment of women because she helps her son Jacob trick his father Isaac into blessing Jacob as YHWH intended instead of his elder brother Esau as tradition demanded.
Rebekah is a remarkable woman; her genealogy lists her grandmother rather than just the father’s line, and unlike all other women in the Bible, Rebekah is given the choice to follow a stranger to meet her husband. Topolski rescues Rebekah’s good name, pointing out that while Isaac was weak, Rebekah became the keeper of the covenant and put her faith in G-d over tradition. Rebekah’s story is about a woman of true faith, belittled by the passage of time and male interpretation. It has only been through a reexamination of the text using a feminist lens that she has been redeemed.
If we take Topolski’s understanding of the struggle to challenge the word of G-d and to rediscover the strong and faithful women of the Bible who have been made invisible by centuries of male-only interpretation, then women of faith can find a new meaning in the traditions without being driven away. Within the texts, there are numerous references to female prophets, such as Miriam, the sister of Moses.
We also find women’s participation in religious festivals or rituals, such as the women who baked cakes for the Queen of Heaven in the book of Jeremiah. We know from studying other societies that Goddess cults like those in ancient Greece had female priestesses and sometimes excluded men altogether. Goddess cults attract, and their festivals, feasts, and rituals are oriented toward women.
It is logical to believe that if we find evidence in the biblical and extra-biblical texts of a female divinity or Goddess worshiped by the ancient Israelites, women would not only have participated in these rites but would have had central positions of power. In the Hebrew Bible, we find references to named Goddesses such as Asherah, Astarte, and the unnamed Queen of Heaven, a figure that I have written about previously in the journal S/HE.
Conclusion
The sacred texts that form the basis of Judaism and Christianity have long been problematic for women and minority peoples. Used to justify marginalization and horrible treatment in the name of saving souls. When these people looked for figures in the text they could relate to, the accepted interpretation of the text hindered them. Within the last century, we have seen a rise in published works by marginalized groups that returned to the original texts and reexamined them through the lens of feminism and humanism.
So many entrenched ideas that were taken for granted have been reevaluated, even within the established hierarchy, such as the idea that biblical figures such as Jesus were white with blond hair. Those who studied the text used anthropology and archaeology to understand the world the women named in the Bible lived in and to put their actions into context. Rather than looking at their actions from the surface, they looked deeper into the culture and society the women existed in to see how remarkable they were.
Ruth left her homeland and faith to follow her mother-in-law back to the land of her husband’s people. She found a husband she respected rather than one she was expected to marry. Rebekah followed YHWH’s intention and had her son Jacob receive his father’s blessing, defying tradition but putting her faith in the Divine.
If those who seek solace in the text do so with faith in their hearts and take the time to understand the ancient societies in which it was written, they will find that there is a place for them in the text. Not as servants or unnamed partners. Instead, as receivers of the Divine word, we are equally loved by that which we cannot see.
[The End of the Essay]
[1] Anya Topolski, “Reconsidering Rebekah: Struggles with Faith and Jewish Tradition.” Bridges: A Jewish Feminist Journal 15, no. 2 (October 2010): 13. Humanities International Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed October 26, 2013).