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The Bible’s Lost Stories
(Continued) PAGES 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | of 4 (Page 3 of 4) That’s certainly true for the women who see in Mary Magdalene’s rediscovered importance a pathway to their own new roles in the church. Mary Magdalene’s story gave Maggie Albo, a 49-year-old volunteer hospice chaplain from Spokane Valley, Wash., the courage to lobby the Diocese of Spokane for space in local Catholic cemeteries to bury abandoned remains from the county medical examiner’s office. “Mary has taught me to step out in faith to do the work of Jesus,” she says. “I aspire to be a Mary of Magdala... a woman unafraid to speak up.” Mary Magdalene is not the only Biblical heroine to benefit from a modern makeover. A number of scholars have gone back to the original Hebrew texts for a clearer understanding of Eve, the original woman in the Bible. The popular conception of Eve is the product of centuries of myth and artistic interpretation. One widely held misconception is that the fruit Eve offered Adam in the Garden of Eden was an apple. In fact, scholars say, the Bible never states that. “Just because Milton mentions it in ‘Paradise Lost’ or some Renaissance painter puts it in a picture doesn’t make it an apple,” says Carol Meyers, professor of Biblical studies at Duke. Meyers says that not only is the apple missing from the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis, but there is also no mention of the words “the temptation of Adam,” “seduction,” “curse of Eve,” “Fall of Man,” “sin” or “original sin.” And yet the Creation story has traditionally been the basis for the argument that women are responsible for sin and should therefore be subservient to men. This error “has oppressed both women and men,” says Phyllis Trible, professor of Biblical studies at Wake Forest University, “because the master-slave relationship isn’t a relationship of freedom for either party.” Trible gives a more egalitarian rendering of a passage that has long troubled many women readers. When God tells Eve “Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you,” Trible sees a patriarchy turning description into prescription. In the original Hebrew, Trible insists, “it doesn’t say he shall rule over you. It just says he does rule over you—a description of the way things are.” |
| In the ancient cultures where the Bible was formed, men did indeed rule over women. They owned and sold them, often as slaves. One slave in particular, Hagar, has captured the imagination of contemporary Hispanic and African-American women. Just as women’s perspective is not necessarily the same as men’s, minority women do not necessarily share the same perspective as white women. According to the Bible, God promises Abraham land and a multitude of offspring. But because he and his childless wife, Sarah, are old, Sarah suggests that he father a child with Hagar, her Egyptian handmaiden. After a son is born, Hagar feels superior to the jealous Sarah, who in turn abuses her handmaiden—forcing Abraham to send Hagar away. Eventually God addresses Hagar directly (the first woman after Eve so honored), names her child Ishmael and encourages her to return. Later, Sarah also conceives and, at the age of 90, delivers Isaac, through whom Jews claim their spiritual lineage to Abraham. Hagar’s has always been the lost voice in this narrative, but no longer. “Her character resonates by ethnicity and class—as an African and a slave,” says Renita Weems, an associate professor of the Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt Divinity School. “And we understand slaves.” Similarly, Megan McKenna, author of several books on Biblical women, found that the figure of Hagar powerfully appealed to the Hispanic maids in her Bible-reading group at a California motel. She remembers one illegal immigrant from El Salvador saying in halting English: “Oh, now Sarah knows what it’s like to be treated like dirt all the time.”
Equally appealing to modern women looking for inspiration are overlooked stories that celebrate the bravery of women. In the Book of Joshua, it is Rahab, a prostitute, who helps Joshua conquer Jericho by hiding his spies in her house. For her courage, she and her children are the only ones spared in the Israelites’ sacking of the city. One of the most prominent warriors in the Book of Judges is Deborah, a military commander and judge who leads an army into battle because her general will not go without her. Deborah predicts that only a woman will capture the enemy leader, Sisera. That woman, it turns out, is Jael, into whose tent Sisera flees for refuge. Jael feeds him, puts him to bed and then, as he sleeps, picks up a mallet and drives a tent peg through his head. (Continued) PAGES 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | of 4
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