Ain't I a Woman?

I have born 13 children
     and seen most all sold into slavery
and when I cried out a mother's grief
     none but Jesus heard me. . .
and ain't I a woman?
     that little man in black there say
a woman can't have as much rights as a man
     cause Christ wasn't a woman
Where did your Christ come from?
     From God and a woman!
Man had nothing to do with him!
     If the first woman God ever made
was strong enough to turn the world
     upside down, all alone
together women ought to be able to turn it
     rightside up again.
-Sojourner Truth


So, this past summer, I read Eve's Bible: A Woman's Guide to the Old Testament. It was a gift from my grandmother, who wanted me to have a fully developed knowledge of the kick-ass women in the Old Testament. The author, Dr. Sarah S. Forth, provides the reader with a treatment of women of the biblical era and provides some context. It has biblical timelines, discusses genealogies and laws, and explains a lot of the gender language in the Bible (for example, in a lot of the prophetic writings and lamentations, Israel is referred to in the feminine: I will strip her naked and expose her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and turn her into a parched land, and kill her with thirst...Now I will uncover her shame in the sight of her lovers and no one shall rescue her out of my hand -Hosea 2:3-10. That's not quite something you hear regularly in CCD, Sunday School, Torah study, etc.). Anyway, after discussing the Jahwist writer and the possibility of the writer being a her, I've been thinking a lot about Eve's Bible.

In my last post, I wrote about my preconceived notions regarding Exodus and Moses in general. So, walking into Bible as Lit after spending my summer reading books like Eve's Bible and Red Tent, in addition to books like A History of God and Adam, Eve, & the Serpent: Sex and Politics in Early Christianity, I definitely came in with my own ideas about women in the Bible. I didn't think Eve was out of line; she was just curious. I came in admiring women like Sarah, Hagar, Rebekah, Leah, Rachel, Tamar, Jocheved, Miriam, Deborah, Ruth, Jael, Esther, Rahab, Jezebel, Bathsheba, and Delilah. Sure, some of them were a little morally reprehensible, but they were strong, amazing women. Their stories are incredibly fascinating and, even if they didn't actually exist, they act as a representation of their counterparts, the women of the Ancient Near East. In fact, they're not so different from women today. We as a culture are still fascinated by Biblical characters, which is why we invoke them in our stories and music.

The Documentation Theory has fascinated me for quite some time now and I was incredibly delighted when Dr. Sexson first introduced it that second week of class. Harold Bloom, in his Book of J, has convinced me that the Jahwist writer was, indeed, a woman. I don't think J treated either gender unfairly, but, after reading this far in the Bible, I've come to the conclusion that a lot of the characters, regardless of gender, are kind of douchey. Sure, they're compelling characters; but a lot of them seem, well, corrupt, and make ethically questionable decisions.

 The worst part is, God seems to just love it! Let's look at Rebekah and Jacob; they conspire to have Isaac bestow his paternal blessing on Jacob instead of Esau, Isaac's favorite. What does God do? He makes Jacob a patriarch. Why? Because he's clever and morally unsound. Poor Esau, he's such a good guy. But he gets duped. I guess God's into douchebags. Plotz agrees with me numerous times, btw. So, I think that the J writer was possibly trying to illustrate some sort of moral regarding this notion that, no matter how good you are, God's going to like the douchebag better. But do you really want to be that guy or girl? For serious, do you? I don't. If that's God's bag, I'm not buying. Maybe it's like a nice guys finish last sort of thing.

Anyhoo, a while back, I found a poem called Miriam's Song and I'd like to end the post with it. Miriam and Zipporah are two of my favorite biblical characters and this is a pretty awesome poem showcasing women's work. PS: If you've never read or listened to Ain't I a Woman? by Sojourner Truth, I highly suggest it.

Miriam's Song

I swept the house clean though nine plagues,
Swept when Moses turned the river into blood,
Swatted at frogs all day in the Egyptians' kitchen,
Chased frogs in the bedrooms, whacked at them
on the beds, jumped after frogs in the kitchen. Next
I cleaned off lice from the heads of the Egyptians.
When my brother sent flies, the Egyptians had me
stand over their meals and beds swatting at flies.
After the Lord killed their cows, we laughed
even as we smelled that horrible stench.
Then I spent hours wrapping up the boils
all over the Egyptians' skin, rejoicing.
The Egyptians made us women go into the fields,
round up their cattle, drive them into barns,
lock the doors against the pounding hail.
The day the locusts devoured the plants
I swept my house and swept three more days that
the Egyptians sat in darkness, for only we had light.
Before the tenth plague I swept once more,
then roasted lamb and cut up bitter herbs we ate
remembering four hundred years of slavery
that terrible night the Angel of Death screeched
and screamed as he flew over our houses
on his bloody way to kill the Egyptians' sons.
We were leaving so I baked my bread unleavened,
packed clay crockery, black pots onto a rickety cart.
I wanted to smash the pyramids.
We'd built them well. They'd last. A pity.
At the Red Sea, after we climbed onto the land and
saw Pharaoh lead his chariots into a gap
riding between two huge cliffs of water when
mountains of water crashed down on them,
I called the women who came with cymbals and drums,
"Come dance now for we are flying into freedom."