Fierce
Women of the Bible and Their Stories of Mercy, Bravery, Wisdom, Sex and
Salvation
By Alice
Connor
A Review
Alice Connor, an Episcopal priest, is a story teller. Her
stories, mostly about women and taken from the Bible, are vivid, earthy,
twisted and meant to help women explore their own identity. Spiritually Connor has a worthy motivation.
She writes:
“When we talk about feminism in the church, in the workplace,
and in our families, these conversations are all about power: who has it, who
doesn’t have it, what it’s used for. These are good questions to ask, don’t get
me wrong. But as Christians, we are called to something else. The God we
worship, the God made human, seems to be all about the powerless, the outsider,
whatever that means in a given story. And so often in our scripture, God calls
us not to success but to faithfulness. God calls us not to power but to
presence.”
This picture of faithfulness would make a beautiful framework
for presenting biblical women, but Connor dismisses much of the truth of the
stories and uses them as metaphors and principles for women’s (and men’s) experiences.
And in doing so, although a good story teller, she misses the prophetic word of
God which doesn’t center on our experience but on God’s work and purposes.
After writing about Rahab and Bathsheba, Connor states, “The
stories of Rahab and Bathsheba are likely more legend than history, but as with
all good stories, that’s not the point. What matters is what we do with them. …
Rahab and Bathsheba are part of an epic narrative about how to be human to each
other.”
No, if one reads the story of Rahab who hid the Israelite
spies, one finds a beautiful testimony to the greatness of our God. And it is
Rahab’s testimony and it is about the work and purposes of God. As one scholar
has noted her words about the history of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt and
destruction of two kings and their peoples are part of a chiastic construction that
centers the whole book of Joshua. Richard S. Hess writes “Rahab has learned her
history well and responds with a reaffirmation of the fear of those who oppose
Israel and with the confession that only Israel’s God controls the destiny of
the world.”[1]
In a different piece I have written about Connor’s use of
Asherah as a worthy biblical woman; she was, however, an ancient goddess. Asherah was one of the causes of ancient Israel’s
unfaithfulness. The prophets condemned the worship of Asherah and the good
kings of Israel pulled down the Asherah poles which were too often placed in
God’s temple.
But Connor uses Asherah as first the missing goddess, wrongly
erased, and then the missing feminine aspects of God. She then uses the goddess
as a metaphor for those missing people that the community ignores, kills and
erases from history. Connor, with this description, implies that Israel was evolving
in their religious views and that it is acceptable to use the stories as mere
images of human experience. Doing that, Connor is able to ignore humanity’s worship
of false gods and the prophetic word of God that condemns such worship.
In the same manner Eve is used as an example of human growth;
she is the seeker, a child who grows up. According to Connor, Adam and Eve are
sinners but their sin is a matter of nature; growth, curiosity and sorrow—not
fallen-ness, is the theme of the Genesis story.
Connor explains that Paul uses the story of Adam and Eve to
show the importance of Jesus. She writes, “He said because we are all Adam and
Eve’s grandchildren, therefore we die. And since we are God’s children because
of Jesus the Christ, we will live.” But it is his death on the cross, his
resurrection—it is Christ’s redemptive death that is missing in the telling.
The story of Ruth is turned into a romance novel and a cheap
one at that. For Connor, there is flirting (rather than goodness) by Boaz and
when Ruth goes to the threshing floor and uncovers his feet, she supposedly
uncovers his penis and they have sex. And yet the text actually tells the
reader when they have sex. After Boaz redeems Ruth according to the custom of
Israel, after the elders of the city bless Boaz and Ruth, “So Boaz took Ruth,
and she became his wife, and he went in to her. And the Lord enabled her to conceive,
and she gave birth to a son.”
Still, again Connor misses the redemptive beauty in the story.
She attempts to picture the people Naomi returned to as seeing and referring to
Ruth as a “dirty foreigner,” but the text doesn’t say this. Instead Boaz says
to Ruth, “All that you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your
husband has been fully reported to me,
and how you left your father and mother and the land of your birth, and came to
a people that you did not previously know.” (Italics mine.)
The blessing that Boaz gives to Ruth, “May the Lord reward
your work, and your wages be full from the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose
wings you have come to seek refuge,” actually is echoed in Ruth’s request that
Boaz spread his covering over her as she lays at his feet. The literal meaning is
a request for Boaz to spread his wing over her. It is a request for marriage as
well as a request for “incorporation into the covenant people of God.”[2]
The Bible is full of stories about women, some unfaithful,
some faithful, but the story, the main story is about God’s redemptive purposes
in our lives. Through the telling of each story we should here the Spirit of
God wooing us toward a closer walk with our Lord and God. That is not so with Fierce Women of the Bible.
[1] Richard
S. Hess, Joshua: An Introduction & Commentary, Tyndale Old Testament
Commentaries, D.J. Wiseman, general editor, (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity
Press 1996) 89.
[2] William
D. Mounce, Mounce’s Complete Expository
Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan 2006)
679.
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