Through Fresh Eyes

I was a teenager when I first started to wear glasses. At the time I was studying for my A Levels, and had constant headaches because my eyes weren’t coordinating properly. I’ve been wearing them ever since and, of course, the prescription has changed many times over the years. And each time the glasses change, so does the clarity of my vision.

I think our spiritual vision is rather similar. What we find in the Bible depends very much on the lens through which we read it. It might be a literal lens, or a scientific lens, or an historical lens, or a traditional lens, or a Christadelphian lens, or whatever.

Purpose

As we know, much of the Bible is written by men, reflecting a patriarchal culture where male voices predominate – and I’ve certainly spent a large chunk of my life seeing it through those prescription lenses. We’re encouraged, aren’t we, to see a broad-sweep picture of God’s plan and purpose and promises through the big characters – Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David – you know them. The focus is on these men, and their place in the big scheme of things. The stories are often macho, often involving power struggles, often bloodthirsty, and often hard to sympathise with or reconcile with New Testament teaching.

One casualty along the way, it seems to me, has been the womenfolk. Throughout the centuries, many of the female characters have been rendered invisible, some unfairly labelled, and their stories inaccurately taught. A change of glasses to see through their eyes, and a whole different picture emerges.

It was this book – Vindicating the Vixens, edited by Sandra Glahn – that provided a glimpse of what new specs might do for my own vision. It revisits women in the Bible who’ve been sexualised, marginalised and vilified, and shows us a different dimension to their stories. And I want to suggest that, by changing lenses, removing some of the misunderstandings and bias, we get a more compatible view of the love and justice Jesus taught.

Tamar

By way of illustration let’s look at a couple of examples of women who’ve had a bad press.

We’ll start in Genesis 38 with Tamar. I’m sure you know the story. In a nutshell, Judah chooses this Canaanite girl for his eldest son. When he dies, she’s given to the second son. When he dies, and Tamar is both widowed and childless, she disguises herself as a prostitute to lure her father-in-law into giving her a child to inherit her husband’s share of the family wealth.

On the face of it, Judah has all the power and advantage.

• Here he is in a family favoured by God. The line through whom God’s promises came.
• He’s a wealthy man.
• He is himself the father of the largest tribe of Israel.
• It was Judah’s branch of the family through whom the kingly line of David and Jesus was to come.

A key figure then, huh? One of the good guys.

And Tamar? Well, she’s a nobody, from a race despised by the Israelites, who stoops to prostitution to get what she wants.

But look closer, look through her eyes, and a very different picture emerges. It’s an arranged marriage to Er. She’s almost certainly a teenager. When she marries into Judah’s family, she becomes his property; he has absolute power over her. And, what’s more, his sons are wicked men. So, when Er dies, in accordance with the rules of a levirate marriage (outlined in Deuteronomy 25), Judah passes her on to Onan, who’s far more concerned about his share of the inheritance than with treating his wife well. When Onan too dies, the third son is too young to marry, and Judah superstitiously decides Tamar is the reason his sons are dying. So, he sends her back to her father, ostensibly to wait till Shelah grows up, though he has no intention of risking a third son.

As time goes on, Tamar realises she’s been abandoned. But she knows her duty and entitlement, and what’s due to her dead husband, Er, wicked and undeserving though he may be. Culture dictates that she’s honour bound to fulfil that duty to reproduce. And she’s no fool.

• She knows Ancient Hittite and Assyrian laws indicate that if a brother refuses to perpetuate his dead brother’s name, responsibility falls to the dead man’s father.¹
• She knows Judah is by now a widower, so she isn’t dishonouring his wife.
• She must also have known he was the kind of man who would take a prostitute.

So, she sacrifices herself in the name of family honour. She sheds her widow’s clothes, disguises herself as a prostitute, and positions herself in Judah’s path.

He’s been partying after sheep shearing. He approaches the mysterious prostitute whom he doesn’t recognise. He doesn’t have money, but promises to send a goat in exchange for sexual services. But Tamar is a shrewd operator; she demands security – his seal and staff. A kind of ID. Like a passport or driving licence.

Three months later someone reports back to Judah: Tamar, your widowed daughter-in-law, is pregnant – the result of prostitution. Judah’s response is horrific: ‘Bring her out and have her burned to death!’

Imagine his feelings when she confronts him with his own seal and staff, identifying him beyond question; a mirror for him to see his own culpability reflected back. Surprisingly this hardened abusive man reacts with: ‘She is more righteous than I’. She is vindicated.

And there it might end if you aren’t looking for Tamar’s story, her influence. But Judah’s story resurfaces four chapters later and look! he’s a changed man. When he and his brothers are obliged to go to Egypt a second time during the famine

• Judah is the one to take full responsibility for Benjamin’s safety.
• When they’re accused of theft, and Joseph’s silver cup is found in Benjamin’s sack, and they’re forced to return to Egypt, even though Benjamin usurped him in his father’s affections and inheritance, even though he was previously an angry resentful man, Judah offers himself instead.
• Twenty years after selling his other brother Joseph, and heartlessly concocting a story of his death for Jacob, now he can’t bear to see the anguish it would cause his elderly father.

Tamar so often portrayed as a dishonourable woman who seduced her own father-in-law. Change your lenses and you see that, in fact, she’s an example of a courageous woman of honour, who was instrumental in helping to transform a brutal selfish man into a much better one. And it’s not just Judah who recognises her moral superiority.

• There she is in the royal genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:3) – one of only four women.
• She’s named in the wedding blessing of Boaz and Ruth (Ruth 4:12)
• Both King David and Absalom name their daughters Tamar (2 Samuel 13:1; 14:17). And in Hebrew culture, children were given names to aspire to.

Bathsheba

Mention of David’s royal line brings me to my second example: Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11) one of the most well-known stories in the Bible.

Just like the earlier patriarchs, David is a towering figure in the Old Testament records. ‘A man after God’s own heart.’ Oh wow! What an epithet. And I think it’s perhaps because of that accolade, and his ancestry to Jesus, that people often distort the picture of his sin with Bathsheba to reflect badly on her. They speak of her tempting him; of their adultery. She’s also pretty much dismissed in the Biblical record itself. She’s referred to simply as ‘the woman’, a throwaway character, not even accorded her name in most references to her, a creature of no significance compared with the mighty king David.

But in truth, she was not flaunting her beauty on the roof. She was a devout woman, observing the religious ritual of cleansing after menstruation in a secluded part of her own house. It was David who should not have been on the palace roof staring down into the houses below; indeed, he should have been away at war.

Bathsheba was not infatuated by David. She loved her husband, Uriah, a truly honourable man who, though a Hittite, shows a greater respect for God’s laws than David. He wouldn’t even take up the offer of a night with his wife when it came from the king himself.

She was not available. She was off limits for all sorts of reasons. Not only was she married, but both her husband and her father, Eliam, were two of David’s elite warriors, know to him personally; her grandfather Ahithophel was the king’s trusted advisor! The men sent to establish who she was gave David plenty of warning signals. This was a complete no-go area.

She did not enter into a clandestine liaison with David from choice; he took her by force. It was rape not consensual adultery. The words used make that clear … ‘David sent messengers to get her’; ‘he took her’. And he compounds his sin by trying to cover up his part in this whole sordid business, resorting in the end to deliberate murder. Even sinking low enough to send Uriah to certain death carrying his own death warrant! And if that isn’t enough evidence of Bathsheba’s innocence, Nathan’s parable of the little ewe lamb clinches it. She was an innocent in the whole sorry tale.

And yet, Bathsheba pays a heavy price, not just as the victim of abuse, but now a widow grieving for the husband she loved. Then – probably around eight days later – married to her rapist. And thirdly, losing her baby son.

How sad that thousands of years later, people vilify this tragic figure, blaming her as seductress, complicit in adultery, compounding the sins perpetrated against her so long ago. I found it so sobering to see things from her perspective, and to watch the progression from a passive agent powerless in the face of David’s lust, to a powerful instrument in ensuring her son becomes king and remains on the throne. Looking through her spectacles, we can see how careful we ought to be in how we judge situations and apportion blame.

Other examples

These women – Tamar, Bathsheba – are but two examples where we get a very different picture if we walk in their shoes. Try something similar with other women who often don’t get the credit they’re due because we’re so busy looking at the men’s story:

Sarah – whose faith is commended in the famous list in Hebrews 11. Obliged to adopt a nomadic way of life; the victim of Abraham’s lies to save his own neck; willing to step aside and let her slave girl Hagar bear Abraham a child; although also herself far from charitable towards this surrogate mother. (Genesis 11-23)

Rahab – so often vilified for her supposed life style, but demonstrating extraordinary faith in the one true God worshipped by the enemy, risking her life to help the Israelite spies who came to her city, Jericho. (Joshua 2 and 6)

Deborah – both prophet and judge, a commanding leader in her own right, chivvying Barak into obedience, and even accompanying him into battle. (Judges 4-5)

Vashti and Esther – both standing up against a capricious, lecherous, hot-headed but hugely powerful king. One defying him outright, when he was bent on humiliating her as well as himself, but banished anyway. The other cleverly using court protocol to save her people from the wholesale massacre of the Jewish race in Persia. (Esther 1-5)

The Samaritan woman at the well – so often denigrated even by serious scholars as a loose woman, but whose history needs to be understood in the context and marriage practices of her time. She’s not only engaging Jesus in serious religious discussion, but her testimony is most persuasive with the townspeople. (John 4:4-22)

Mary Magdalene – who’s often given mixed reviews …

… but now we’re straying into the New Testament, and one thing jumps out and hits you right between the eyes when you get to Jesus. He really understands a female point of view. Oh yes, he has to contend with the cultural norms of his time, a time when women were of very low status and seen as inferior. Though there were exceptions, in general they received minimal education outside the home, and were excluded from actively participating in synagogue worship. Men like rabbis and Pharisees were often reluctant even to talk to women, especially in public. And remember the daily blessing recited every morning by Jewish men: ‘Blessed are you, Lord, our God, ruler of the universe, who has not created me a gentile, a slave, or a woman’?

Jesus and women

But Jesus finds ways to reveal God's pure and true intentions. He doesn’t deflect attention away from his central message of the Kingdom of Heaven, so he doesn’t deal overtly with issues like slavery, or demons, or women, but just look at his behaviour! He affirms the value and significance of the women he meets, he reaches out to them, gives them an importance they have been denied in society. And he does this in at least three ways.

First, Jesus defies the social customs of his time, by actually consorting with women, treating them with respect and courtesy, not as inferiors. Think of his gentle way with …

• the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:4-42)
• Mary of Bethany sitting at his feet like a male scholar, and her busy sister Martha (Luke 10:38-42)
• the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:24-30)
• the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11)
• the widow in Nain (Luke 7:11-17)
• his grieving mother; even while hanging on the cross in agony (John 19:25-27).

He heals women too. I’m thinking …

• Peter’s mother-in-law (Luke 4:38-41)
• Mary of Magdala (Luke 8:2)
• Jairus’ daughter (Luke 8:40-56)
• the woman with the haemorrhage (Luke 8:43–48)
• the woman bent double (Luke 13:10-17)

to name but a few.

And his compassion, and sometimes even overt commendation, often contrast with disdain from other men. He’s so much more merciful to …

• the woman caught in adultery than those who haul her before him (John 8:1-11).
• the woman at the well than the surprised/scandalised(?) disciples (John 4: 4-42).
• the woman in Luke 7 who washes his feet with her tears, condemning the Pharisee host who doesn’t even do him the courtesy of a bowl of water never mind kisses or oil (Luke 7:36-50).
• the second woman who anoints his feet with spikenard, criticised by Judas for wasting money (Matthew 26:6-13).
• the women bringing their children to Jesus when his disciples wanted to send them away (Mark 10:13-15).
• the crippled woman in the temple who’s deemed less important than the religious laws by the synagogue dignitaries (Luke 13:10-17).
• the poor widow who throws her last mite into the treasury as compared with the rich men giving a fraction of their wealth (Mark 12:41-44).

Second, there’s his teaching. Jesus speaks to women as well as to men, and gives examples that women would relate to specifically. I love the way that Luke’s gospel brings out the pairing in the parables one from a male perspective, one a female. So, we have …

• the mustard seed and the yeast (Luke 13:18-19, 20-21)
• the lost sheep and the lost coin (Luke 15:3-7, 8-10)
• the persistent male friend and the persistent widow (Luke 11:5-8 and Luke 18:1-8)

Third, his choice of women as witnesses of his resurrection (seen in Matthew 28:1-10, and John 20:1-18). And this in a world and a time where women were of such low status that they weren’t even regarded as valid witnesses in a court of law. What a powerful endorsement that is.

As Dr Beth Allison Barr puts it in The Making of Biblical Womanhood, ‘Jesus has always set women free’.

Jesus came to show us how God loves everyone, including the oppressed, the marginalised, and the misunderstood. And how powerfully he did so. For me, his example is the most powerful reason for looking again at how we treat women today. We can argue the meaning of words and texts till we’re dizzy with going round and round, but looking to Jesus himself gives us a clear picture of what the Lord requires of us: to be alert, to defend, to support, to respect, those who are disrespected or side-lined or unheard. In his ability to affirm women, empathise with them, use their life experiences for his stories, to be comfortable around them and with them, Jesus was singular for his time, but sadly, he’s also at odds with many Christians today. And that’s a sobering thought, isn’t it?

Vision for us today

So, what can we, today, learn from all this?

I was amused to read in Dr Barr’s book, that in medieval times when the ordinary people didn’t have their own Bibles, but learned their Scriptures from going to church and listening to the passages from the texts available at the time, preachers took pains to use gender-inclusive language in order to nourish their whole flock. She writes:

The medieval world was far from promoting equality for women in everyday life. Yet medieval English clergy, charged with communicating Bible to ordinary Christians, seemed more concerned about including women in biblical text than about emphasising masculine authority.

Perhaps we too can learn something from them.

Certainly, we would do well to listen to the women in the pages of Scripture. To see the message through their eyes, as well as that of the men.

And we, in the twenty first century, in a very different kind of society, would also do well to consider how our own womenfolk are treated.

I find it interesting how much more aware young people are of inequality and discrimination and oppression. They’ve grown up in a society that’s so much more conscious of what’s fair. And many of them are challenging practices related to women which we’ve traditionally simply accepted in the past. That can be both scary and encouraging.

Perhaps if we personally change our lenses, we might be surprised at what some of our own traditions and practices really look like.

Are you overdue a visit to the optician?