Telling the Stories of Women in the Word
Many Bible studies that focus on a female character in the Old or New Testaments are centered around determining if she is an example to follow or a cautionary tale. But when we ask of our Dorothy, "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?", we miss the overarching theme of the story, which is always first about God and only secondarily (if at all) about the major players.
God uses the weak and foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and none of the featured characters in the Bible, except Jesus himself, break this mold. All of them are morally weak or socially weak, many even physically weak. And so it's what God does through them that we find so fascinating.
In my quest to explore what the Bible says about womanhood, I want to look deeper into these stories of women to understand what God is trying to teach us about himself through their narrative. I suspect that by drawing near to the character of God, I will begin to understand more clearly how He views women, and thus what He wants us to learn about womanhood itself.
In Whispering the Word: Hearing Women's Stories in the Old Testament, Jacqueline E. Lapsley, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, offers a series of tools that help navigate what are often confusing and frustrating stories about women in the Bible. Her framework for understanding Biblical narrative is useful for reading both male and female characters, but she uses specific stories about women as case studies to illustrate her points. Her work is especially inspiring because it provides a way to think deeply about even the most brief appearances and also offers cultural insight to unlock God's surprising treatment of women during a time known for deep neglect and oppression.
The book of Judges is one of the most difficult to stomach for its violence in general, but especially toward women. In one such story (trigger warning), we read of a man who casts out his wife to be raped and abused by a violent mob, all to save his own skin. He then dismembers her body and sends the pieces to various regions of Israel, instigating a civil war (Judges 19). Lapsley uses this example to invite a closer look at how the narrator frames the story, so that we might better understand the reason for its inclusion.
At the beginning of the story, we learn that the man in question, a Levite, was traveling home from retrieving his wife at her father's house. Though subtle, the narrator gives us many clues that this man does not love and care for his wife in an Ephesians 5, Christ-and-the-Church kind of way. First, we learn that she has run away from her husband's home, which is significant in a culture where the social and economic consequences would be severe—she cannot work to support herself and cannot hope to be received warmly after abandoning her duty as a wife. What could have been so miserable in her home that she would risk a life as a beggar or even death to desert him? The Levite waits about four months before he determines to seek her out, then journeys to win her back. Upon arriving at her father's house, he seems to forget the purpose of his visit and instead eats and drinks with his father-in-law for several days. The narrator conspicuously omits any interaction between the Levite and his estranged wife. In fact, she is entirely absent from the story until it is time to collect her and bring her back to his house. Though the text says explicitly that his purpose was to "speak kindly to her," we see no evidence that he made any effort to restore their broken relationship.
On their journey home, the travelers are welcomed as guests in the home of an old man in Gibeah. Here, Lapsley points out, the Levite uses subtle language that reveals his self-focus and disregard of his wife. He seems only concerned with who will take "me" (rather than his traveling party) into their home for the evening, and when introducing his wife, he uses a term that would denote a slave woman, rather than a wife.*
All of these clues, when read carefully together, prepare the reader for the violent act to come. A mob surrounds the house, demanding that the old man deliver his guest, the Levite, so that they may "know him." The old man instead offers to send out his daughter and the Levite's wife, since the rape of women is considered a lesser evil than the rape of a man.
Lapsley describes the next moment this way:
Suddenly the conversation between the old man and the mob is interrupted by the intervention of the Levite, who has up until this point been silent. Without saying anything, without any further negotiation, he seizes his wife and casts her outside to the mob. We imagine him having to shove aside the old man in order to accomplish this, an act of violence in and of itself. This is the first narrated interaction between the Levite and his wife since the story began, and his mission to be reconciled to his wife is brutally contrasted by his casting her out to a mob of violent rapists...Seizing her and throwing her to the mob thus conforms to what we know of his character. While not remarking explicitly on it, the narrator, like the modern reader, censures the Levite's action, and this casts into doubt the cultural logic of valuing men's sexuality and ultimate safety over women's. The culture may well prefer to sacrifice women instead of men in extreme situations of this kind, but that does not mean that the narrator allows this perspective to pass uncriticized (45-46).
The story continues with the heart-wrenching image of the poor Levite's wife crumpled upon the door step, either near death or already there. There is further disregard, dismemberment, blame-shifting, and the start of a civil war. I will spare you the details.
It may be easy for us to miss, since the narrator does not denounce the Levite's behavior obtusely, but the Levite is never described in honorable terms. This is a man who would be part of the religious, elite tribe of Israel—a person we would expect to uphold God's law and live righteously—yet he thinks only of himself and is responsible for the atrocities committed against his wife. This story fits well within the larger theme of the book of Judges, where we are reminded again and again that "everyone did what was right in his own eyes." The Bible describes this era, the period before the kings of Israel, as a time of brutal chaos. Rather than affirm the violence of the time, the narrator frames the story so that we might judge for ourselves what can happen when people follow their own moral compass instead of the way of Jesus.
For Further Reading
I hope you'll join me in digging more deeply into the female characters in the Bible. Let me know what stories spark your curiosity and what discoveries you make along the way. Here are just a few questions that come to mind as I consider the narrator's perspective in Biblical stories of women:
When David commits adultery with Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11), the only words we hear from her are after-the-fact: "I am pregnant." But can we learn anything from the way this story is told? Why does the narrator make a point to tell us that she was "purifying herself from uncleanliness"? Was she tempting the king by bathing near a window or is this a case of abuse of power?
King Solomon has an interesting encounter with the Queen of Sheba (1 Kings 10). What would diplomatic encounters like this have looked like during that time? What could he have said that left her breathless? After they exchange gifts, then what? Are we to see this as an advantageous partnership or part of Solomon's downfall?
Women are mentioned as part of the traveling entourage of Jesus as well as influential in the early church in Acts. Are they described with any language that gives insight into their role in Jesus' ministry? Is their involvement distinct in what we would expect for women in ancient Rome?
*There are a few different English terms used in the passage to describe the woman. If you are reading in the ESV, the text refers to the woman as the Levite's "concubine," which I always thought meant "fancy harem member," but Lapsley suggests that it is more accurately be figured as "secondary wife." Either way, the Levite was legally and morally responsible for the care of and provision for this woman.