by Ken Adams (e-mail: KAdams@liberator.net) [Updated April 24th, 2005]
Throughout
its pages, the Bible is consistent in its treatment of women. This is probably the kindest thing that can
be said about God’s gender relations.
He is consistent. From start to
finish, the Bible is unwavering in its opinion of women as inferior and
unworthy possessions.
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| “The Bible has a long and unvarying history of discrimination against women. Undoubtedly, no other book has done more to prevent gender equality.” |
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The
Bible seems to have had it in for women right from the start. It was man that was created in God’s image,
whereas woman was an afterthought that was manufactured out of spare man
parts. The Bible documents that the
first woman in history made a pretty big mess of things. Eve messed things up for the whole human
race by eating of the forbidden fruit.
So, since that time, woman has been blamed for all sin, imperfection, sickness,
and death. As a result of Eve’s action,
all women born on the face of the earth have been cursed to feel pain during
childbirth and be dominated by men.
All
of the above things happened before the end of the first three chapters of the
Bible. And from that point on, things
didn’t get any better.
In
the notorious third chapter of Leviticus, the relative value of humans is
placed in dollar terms. Humans that are
dedicated to God are assigned a sacrifice value, measured in shekels. Not surprisingly, male humans are assigned a
greater value, with a female being worth between 50% and 67% of a male’s value.
The
book of Proverbs sums up the Bible’s view of women quite succinctly when it
says: “A capable wife is a crown to her owner.” (Proverbs 12:4 NWT)
You
might expect that things improved for women in the New Testament, but alas, any
improvement was minor. Although they
made some progress beyond the level of possessions, they were still treated as
subordinates, and denied any privileges in the congregation. Many Christian churches today, including the
biggest of them all, do not allow women clergy. The Apostle Paul’s viewpoint on the matter is summed up below:
“As in all the
churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the churches. For they
are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says.” -
1 Corinthians 14:33,34
Fundamentalist
religions go even beyond this level. I
grew up in a religion that allowed women the freedom to work as hard as they
wanted, but would not grant any form of recognition or prestige to them. In fact, they took the following scripture
quite literally:
“Any man who
prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, but any woman who
prays or prophesies with her head unveiled dishonors her head -- it is the same
as if her head were shaven.” - 1 Corinthians 11:4,5
In my
particular religion, there was a rule that a woman could not say a prayer aloud
in front of a baptized man. The
baptized man must say the prayer. If
the man was unable to say the prayer, or if the only present man was
unbaptized, a woman could say the prayer, but only if she had a head covering.
This created
an occasional problem. When the rule
was made, hats for both men and women were very common, but over the years,
fewer and fewer people wore hats. There were situations where a woman would
need to say a prayer, but couldn’t find anything suitable to put on her
head. I can still bring to mind an
event from my childhood, where my mother, who was the equal of any man in
religious matters, said a prayer for a small group with a paper napkin on her
head. Pretty classy.
The
Bible has a long and unvarying history of discrimination against women. Undoubtedly, no other book has done more to
prevent gender equality. But, to be
fair, the Bible didn’t actually invent sexual discrimination, it merely
reflected it.
It
is unfortunate that the Bible did not recognize the talents of the women in its
pages, because some of them were truly remarkable. This chapter deals with some of the amazing women of the Bible.
The Old and
the Beautiful
Sarah
was a looker. There was no doubt about
it. We know this for a fact, because on
one occasion, Abraham and Sarah took a trip to Egypt, and on that trip, Abraham
was so worried about Sarah’s beauty that he came up with a plan. He was afraid that the Egyptians would kill
him so that they could take his wife.
Here is the plan:
“When he was
about to enter Egypt, he said to Sar'ai his wife, ‘I know that you are a woman
beautiful to behold; and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, “This is
his wife”; then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, that it may go well
with me because of you, and that my life may be spared on your account.’ When Abram entered Egypt the Egyptians saw
that the woman was very beautiful. And
when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman
was taken into Pharaoh's house.” - Genesis 12:11-15
So, Sarah went
along with the plan, and apparently lived as a wife of Pharaoh for a
while. This story is plausible. There are beautiful women in the world, and
Abraham would not be the first husband blown away by a new suitor. Unfortunately, Sarah was a little old for
this kind of attention. Genesis 12:4
tells us that when this trip took place, Abraham was 75 years old. According to Genesis 17:17, Sarah was ten
years younger than him. So, this
temptress was 65 years old when she turned the head of Pharaoh. And don’t forget that Pharaoh had a harem
full of young, beautiful, women.
But, it gets
even better. Eight chapters later, it
happens again - same story, same plan by Abraham:
“And Abraham
said of Sarah his wife, ‘She is my sister.’ And Abim'elech king of Gerar sent
and took Sarah.” - Genesis 20:2
Now, this is
getting a little ridiculous. By this
time, Sarah is 90 years old. Not only
is she old, but no one has any illusions about her allure. These words were spoken prior to the fling
with Abimelech:
“Now Abraham
and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the
manner of women. So Sarah laughed to
herself, saying, ‘After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have
pleasure?’" - Genesis 18:11,12
Apparently,
she still had a fair bit of pleasure coming.
But, let’s
bring this back to reality. The Pharaoh
story, with Sarah at 65 years of age, was a little hard to swallow, but this is
ridiculous.
On the other
hand, maybe these early kings, with harems full of beautiful young girls, both
had a kinky thing for old women. Could
this be where we get the modern expression “Abimilech-bait”?
Hagar the
Horrible
Sarah, the
wife of Abraham, had an Egyptian slave girl named Hagar. When Sarah was unable to have children, she
suggested that Abraham take Hagar to produce a child on her behalf. Abraham agreed, and a child, Ishmael, was
born.
The Bible
describes Hagar as a pretty much normal woman.
But, if we look below the surface at one of the bible events, we find
that she must have been extremely large and powerful. Notice how forcefully she handles her young son:
“So Abraham
rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to
Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And
she departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba. When the water in the skin was gone, she
cast the child under one of the bushes.
Then she went, and sat down over against him a good way off, about the
distance of a bowshot; for she said, "Let me not look upon the death of
the child." And as she sat over against him, the child lifted up his voice
and wept.” - Genesis 21:14-16
Notice that
Hagar carried her son on her shoulder.
She also cast him under a bush, and then went away to let him die of
exposure. This seems fairly plausible,
providing Ishmael is a small child. How
big was he? Well, let’s calculate.
To begin, we
need to determine the age of Ishmael when the events of the story take
place. Here are some references to
help:
“Abram was
eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ish'mael to Abram.” - Genesis 16:16
“Then Abraham
fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Shall a child be born to a
man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a
child?’” - Genesis 17:17 (speaking of the birth of Isaac)
“And the child
grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was
weaned.” - Genesis 21:8
So, Ishmael
was 14 years older than Isaac. When our
story takes place, Isaac has just been weaned. The Bible does not say how old
Isaac was at this time, but it was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of
two years. This number couldn’t be out
by more than a couple of years. So,
Ishmael must now be around 16. This
conclusion is backed by the reason for the events. Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael away because Ishmael had been
teasing Isaac. It would be difficult to
taunt an infant, so the 16 year age for Ishmael would be on the low end of
possible ages.
Now, let’s go
back and rethink Hagar’s actions. First
of all, she carried her 16 year old son on her shoulder. My son is 14. He is almost as tall as I am.
I suspect that I am bigger and stronger than Hagar, but I wouldn’t
consider carrying my son on my shoulder.
The hernia would be secondary to the absurdity of the spectacle.
Then she cast
him under a bush and left him to die.
Why would he die? He would just
get up and walk away. If anything,
Hagar would probably die of exposure before he did.
But, since we
know that the Bible is accurate and infallible in all its details, then we can
only conclude that Hagar must have been built like Andre the Giant.
The Geriatric
Beauty Queen
The
book of Esther records the story of an ancient beauty pageant. The King of Assyria had become displeased
with his wife and was looking for a successor.
So, a contest was held to find the most pleasing young virgin in the
empire.
“Then
the King’s servants who attended him said, ’Let beautiful young virgins be
sought out for the king. And let the
king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom to gather all the
beautiful young virgins to the harem in Susa the Capital, under the custody of
Hegai the king’s eunuch, who is in charge of the women; let their ointments be
given them. And let the maiden who
pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti.’” - Esther 2:2-4
It’s
clear that he was looking for someone young and exceptionally beautiful. As a king with a harem, he could be pretty
choosy. The call went out specifically
for young virgins.
A
Jewish girl, named Esther, turned out to be the most pleasing girl in the
empire. She was chosen by the king, and
was installed as his queen. The story
goes on to tell about the events of the day, and how the Jews were saved from
genocide by the actions of courageous Queen Esther.
The
problem with this story is that the time and age numbers do not add up. To begin, let’s place the story in history:
“In
those days when King Ahasuerus sat on his throne in Susa the Capital, in the
third year of his reign, he gave a banquet for all his princes and servants.” -
Esther 1:2,3
The
third year of the reign of king Ahasuerus was 484 B.C. Now, let’s get the age of Esther, calculated
through her uncle and step father, Mordecai.
“Now
there was a Jew in Susa the capital whose name was Mor'decai, the son of Ja'ir,
son of Shim'e-i, son of Kish, a Benjaminite, who had been carried away from
Jerusalem among the captives carried away with Jeconi'ah king of Judah, whom
Nebuchadnez'zar king of Babylon had carried away. He had brought up Hadas'sah, that is Esther, the daughter of his
uncle, for she had neither father nor mother; the maiden was beautiful and
lovely, and when her father and her mother died, Mor'decai adopted her as his
own daughter.” - Esther 2:5-7
So,
Mordecai had been one of the captives taken to Babylon in the year 597
B.C. If he was a newborn baby when this
happened, he could not be less than 113 years old when this story took
place. Likely, he would be even older
than this. Esther was his cousin.
What
is the maximum age difference between two cousins? Well, my father is the youngest of nine children, and I am his
youngest child. I have a cousin who is
thirty years older than me. This is
much higher than average. If we use the
extreme low figure for the age of Mordecai when he was taken to Babylon (113),
and the extreme high figure for the age difference between Mordecai and Esther
(50), we come to the minimum possible age for Esther at the time of this story
- 63. Using more realistic numbers, she
was probably between 85 and 100 years of age.
Now,
let’s visualize this beauty pageant.
The most beautiful young virgin maidens come before the king. In those days, they liked their women young,
so most of the girls would probably be in the range of 16 to 21 years old. Standing in the middle of the group is 85
year old Esther... I suspect that
whoever put her in the lineup got beheaded at that point. But, amazingly, she was the one who was
picked.
She
must have been one hot old lady. I hope
my wife looks that good when she’s 85.
Further Study
PBS: Women in Ancient Christianity: The New Discoveries
Religious Tolerance: The Status of Women in The Bible
No Beliefs: The Dark Bible: Women's Inferior Status
Freedom From Religion Foundation: Why Women Need Freedom From Religion
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