One of the first things that pops into your head when you think of Eve is sin isn’t it? So, it’s interesting that the word sin does not appear once in regard to her. It only appears when Cain kills Abel.
Rahab, you know, that prostitute in Joshua. Well, she saved her entire family from being gruesomely murdered, but sure, let’s just remem
ber her for being a whore.
These are only some of the examples of the women in the Bible who have been either forgotten, painted negatively or sexualised. Through studying many different modules surrounding issues of Gender and the Biblical text and growing up in Church, the issue of the almost absent women in the Bible sparked my interest. I have attended Church pretty much every single Sunday for the past 21 years and until my first year at Manchester, I had pretty much only been taught or read about Eve and the Virgin Mary; even then, these women were portrayed to me as a dichotomy of evil against good. Of course, I have always had access to these women in the Bible, but in all fairness, I was never given the tools to accurately read the Bible.
Growing up, I learned about obedience and faithfulness from Abraham, strength from David, courage from Jonah, joy in all circumstances from Job and that virginity was an identifier of a good person from Mary. Perhaps most frustrating of all, I didn’t realise that I was mainly taught about God’s love, good characteristics and life lessons from men until I had a lecture from Dr Holly Morse on Eve. That was the beginning of a huge realisation for me; that more often than not, Biblical women are muted, underrepresented, considered as irrelevant and not talked about unless it’s in reference to a strong Biblical man. Let’s not forget that it is almost impossible to find a woman in the entire Bible that does not have reference to her virgin status or her sexuality, but it’s almost impossible to find a man that is characterised by whether he is a virgin or not.
In all honesty, this past year and a half, I have felt let down by the Church, slightly lied to and confused. Could patriarchy be so embedded in my life that I subconsciously have felt misrepresented by the Church? Possibly.
So, through this realisation, I decided to do something that would stop young girls from feeling the way I feel (or at least try to help them with feeling misrepresented). I started a blog, theothercom.wordpress.com, or for short, THE OTHER. Here, I write about Biblical women and try to rediscover their stories for everyone to know and to learn about. I start with their context, their appearances in the biblical text and I go on to discuss scholarly ideas about these women, and what questions remain but also, what we can all learn from them. Alongside this blog, I host a group, (on Zoom for now) with some teenage girls from my church that wanted to get involved in discovering more women in the Bible and to learn from them also. We meet every other Monday for an hour or two. I one day hope to open this up to whoever may be interested, hence why my blog is open to anyone who wants to have a read. It’s such a blessing to be able to relate to other women who feel confused about their place in the Bible and the Church. It is quite possibly the best feeling in the world to let them know that God sees them as equal, and that although we have been misrepresented throughout history, no longer can we do nothing. I am determined and we are determined to allow women the same freedom to learn from their Biblical sisters as men have to their Biblical brothers. There is no reason, apart from internalised patriarchy, as to why lessons and life stories of Biblical women shouldn’t be preached from the pulpit, yet they aren’t. That’s not good enough.
I’d love to hear from anyone who thinks this is absurd, anyone who agrees, anyone who is remotely interested! Please check out my blog, THE OTHER and feel free to leave a comment!
https://theothercom.wordpress.com
Thanks for reading,
Libby Jackson,
Third year Religions and Theology student.
