EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E
The Bible's Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future
Dr. Jacob L. Wright, Emory University
 |
C O U R S E L E C T U R E The Biblical Authors' Portrayal of Women and Heroism Notes taken on July 4, 2016 by Edward Tanguay |
•
similar to Jane Austen in English literature, the Biblical authors redefined the hero
•
rather than valiant warriors, figures like Ruth and Boaz were a new kind of hero
•
Boaz
•
referred to as a mighty hero
•
instead of a fighting hero, he is a hero through being a man of
•
class
•
aristocratic virtue
•
nobility
•
established justice in his society
•
some of the most beautiful stories in the Bible
•
especially in Genesis where most of them are told have nothing to do with military virture
•
we have a lot of them
•
David
•
Joshua
•
but these are in the background
•
in the forefront are stories of family life
•
finding a wife for Isaac
•
similar to themes in Jane Austen's novels
•
adventures are about romance and family life and preserving one's name
•
inheritance
•
making it possible that a society can survive catastrophe and dramatic change
•
for a people who lack military technologies, strength is in the numbers
•
this explains the extraordinary attention paid to procreation in the Bible
•
its imperative that procreation and children are held up in high esteem
•
so that the nation can survive just in terms of sheer numbers
•
a blessing for people is a long life and children who carry on their names
•
Biblical law codes repeated return to family matters
•
create conditions to insure the preservation of individual families
•
the Biblical authors make the home, not the battlefield, the center of collective life
•
refashion gender roles
•
the domestic sphere is no longer a place only for women
•
this becomes complicated within the Biblical narratives
•
men play a larger role in family life than you would find in much heroic literature
•
show women as contributing to military victory
•
undermines a traditions justification for male authority
•
Deborah
•
the only female judge mentioned in the Bible, Deborah led a successful counterattack against the forces of Jabin king of Canaan and his military commander Sisera (Judges 4-5)
•
the Biblical authors present women in more public roles
•
expected to be present at public assemblies
•
extolled for taking individual initiative
•
venerated along with the nation's patriarchs
•
Sarah is next to Abraham
•
Rebekah is next to Isaac
•
there was never a full egalitarianism within Biblical literature
•
but despite all the patriarchal emphasis in the Biblical narrative
•
a more robust role for women
•
civic affairs
•
military life
•
in the creation of the nation
•
Genesis depicts the most important moments in Israel's history in the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, each of these stories have women prominently in them
•
this is not something revelatory
•
doesn't have to do with the native Israel compared to surrounding cultures e.g. in Babylonia
•
or that it received a revelation to portray women this way at some point
•
these new roles that women and men have to play in society
•
have to do with a response to a crisis and a catastrophe
•
that these roles continue on in more progressive societies and are more identifiable in our society
•
is due to the fact that in a time when their society has been nearly destroyed
•
they have to involve men in the family life in a different way
•
and need to involve women in public life in a different way
•
they need to expand their nation
•
these ethics were a way for Israel to reconstruct and reinvent itself