“Unveiled: Women Erased from the Bible” by Shelly Eshkoli

If I were asked to name women in the Bible, my answer would come out rather perfunctory. Other than Eve, my answer would gravitate to the New Testament. Mary. Mary Magdalene. Martha. The woman at the well. Priscilla, friend of Paul. The woman who touched Jesus’s robe. All people from the New Testament. 

I have to think harder about the Old Testament. Then they surface. Sarah. Pharoah’s daughter. Rachel and Leah. Rebecca. There are more. They all have stories, some short and some longer. But there are also women who appear and then almost vanish.

 

Writer Shelly Eshkoli aims to correct that with Unveiled: Women Erased from the Bible. She features 10 women from the Old Testament, some named and some nameless, who appear in the accounts and then almost vanish, or as Eshkoli might say, almost erased.

 

Shelly Eshkoli

The 10 women are Zipporah, the wife of Moses; the daughter of Jephthah in the Book of Judges; Hagar, the maidservant of Sarah; Lot’s wife; Jael, the woman known for a mallet and nail; Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah; Athaliah, the murderous daughter of Jezebel; Esther, the queen of Persia who saved the people of Israel; the Queen of Sheba; and the witch of Endor, consulted by Saul and supposedly summoning the ghost of the prophet Samuel.

 

Eshkoli begins each account with a fictional “scroll,” allowing each woman to tell her story in her own words. Then a solid, well-researched account follows. Eshkoli sifts through history, archaeology. Linguistics, and other sources to draw a picture of each woman and the times in which she lived. What emerges is a nuanced, thoughtful discussion which brings depth to the story of each woman.

 

The author is a well-known and highly regard tour guide and group leader in Jerusalem and the Biblical lands of Israel. She holds an M.A. degree in Biblical Studies and is also a lecturer and teacher, bringing in-depth knowledge of the life and culture of the ancient Near East to her work.

 

Unveiled is an engaging look at 10 women of the Bible we know little about. Eshkoli brings them alive on the page, and we can see the vital role they played in the Bible story.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

America at 250: Teaching with Honesty and Gratitude – Janie Cheaney at Redeemed Reader.

 

The Sad Death of Tabloid English – Christopher Gage at Oxford Sour.

 

The Siege of Basing House – A London Inheritance.

 

Spring Blossoms and Untimely Reflections – K.S. Bernstein at Apple Blossoms in a Mournful Wood on Prince Andrei and War and Peace.

The Book of Joshua: Understanding What We Don’t Like

The story is often told about how Thomas Jefferson, dissatisfied with the New Testament gospels as they had been handed down over the centuries, took a pen knife to the texts to remove the passages he didn’t like, the ones thought contrary to reason, or the ones believed untrustworthy. He believed all of the gospel writers were untrustworthy, so I suppose it made the excising easier. Generally, what Jefferson did was remove the references to miracles and the resurrection of Jesus (he kept the crucifixion and death). He entitled his new book The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.

We have our own version of this today, although it doesn’t involve a President (past or present). A few months ago, Andy Stanley, pastor of a large church in Atlanta and the son of Charles Stanley, published a book and gave a few sermons about the need to “unhinge” the Old Testament from the Christian faith. I’m not going to respond to this; a lot of other people with more theology and Biblical history in their heads than I do have already done that. Stanley wrote an article for Christianity Today in which he tried to explain and clarify what he said, but I don’t think he quite succeeded. 

What we think the point here is the Old Testament’s teaching on sexuality. It makes a lot of people uncomfortable that the teaching is so at odds with the prevailing culture. The problem that Stanley didn’t address was that, if sexuality is the concern, it’s not only the Old Testament that has to be unhinged from Christian faith. Quite a bit of the New Testament would have to be excised as well. 

If I want to deal with “problem” passages in the Old Testament, I need look no farther than the Book of Joshua. I reread it recently, and I’m still struck by the unequivocal instructions given to Joshua and the Israelites for conquering the Promised Land. It’s clear: God tells Joshua to kill every man, woman and child, and often includes farm animals and anything that lives or breathes. 

The mind boggles. The mind boggles even more when Joshua and the Israelites did it. The specific chapters in the book are five through twelve. After the land is conquered comes an extended discussion of how it was divided up for the various Israelite tribes. That division of the land is an easy one to skim and skip, but it’s worthy of its own study, starting with the question of why the division is so incredibly detailed.

But the killing part, what’s called herem in the Hebrew, is stark and troubling. It’s not genocide of specific ethnic groups; it’s genocide of all of them. 

More than eight years ago, I used that section of Joshua for a poetry workshop. Our assignment was to use poetry to explore a troublesome verse, story, or section of scripture. I chose Joshua, specifically because it made me so uncomfortable. It still makes me uncomfortable. (My account of that workshop can be found in three parts: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.)

But here’s the difference between me and Andy Stanley. Just because it makes me uncomfortable, or because it so conflicts with contemporary sensibilities and beliefs, doesn’t mean I think the Book of Joshua should be unhinged from the Old Testament, the Bible, or my faith. It would have made things a lot easier from a human perspective if the Book of Joshua had never been written or never included, perhaps covered with “And Joshua and the Israelites conquered the Promised Land as instructed by God” with the details omitted.

What we have instead is the whole story, with all its gory details. That’s true for a lot of the stories in the Bible. We’re not shielded from the hard and difficult things. Of course, we’re not shielded from the hard and difficult things in life, either. We’re not shielded from the reality that all of us are sinners. The Old Testament, far from being “something that Jesus set aside,” is an account of full array of human sin and depravity. 

But then, the New Testament doesn’t shy away from that either. That is point of why Jesus came in the first place. Only one thing would propitiate human sin, and that was a sacrifice like had never been seen or experienced before. 

Top photograph by Hasan Almasi via Unsplash. Middle photo by Jeremy McKnight, also via Unsplash. Both used with permission.

This wall you build

After Haggai 1

Ignore the taunts

disregard the insults

forget the threats

they’re nothing

all nothing

be strong be encouraged

to do this task

this rebuilding

this wall you construct

for your children’s

children this wall

you build for eternity

be strong

build and rebuild

a people together

a people separated

a people of the word

you will be called

a people of the word

Photograph by Lilla Frerichs via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Nothing more than this

From Zephaniah 1-3

Prediction:

Nothing more than this:

doom, nothing can save

or deliver not money

not armies not cleverness

nothing: doom,

what you prize turns

to dust, what you hold dear

finds destruction

Promise:

Deliverance. No sorrows,

No capture. Deliverance,

rejoicing not sorrow

freedom not oppression 
light not darkness

deliverance

Photograph by Sabine Sauermaul via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Plots and conspiracies

After Nahum 1:1-11

They plot, they conspire

they ridicule, they plan

parading what passes

for knowledge, for wisdom

they upend what is good

enshrine what is evil

the people suffer

the righteous destroyed

the whirlwind comes

shredding the evil

shattering rocks into sand

pursuing them into darkness

destroyed

Photograph by Maliz Ong via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.