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| Book cover for "Womanist Midrash." Image source. |
I started reading the book Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne [affiliate link], by Wilda C. Gafney, and I LOVE IT. This is how I want to read the bible. This is so good.
Let me explain what "womanist midrash" means:
- Womanism is basically feminism from a black perspective. It prioritizes black women's experiences.
- Midrash is the historical Jewish tradition of writing fanfic about the bible. You may know that I also write fanfic about the bible and it makes me so happy. Turns out this is a tradition with a very long history.
The book goes through the stories of women in the bible- laying out the whole story of what the bible says about them (not leaving out the ****ed-up parts like we do in church), discussing ancient Hebrew words and how they should be translated, and asking questions about how the characters felt, and about other aspects which were ignored by the biblical authors.
I am so here for this! This is SO how I read the bible- except Gafney is an actual biblical scholar who has studied Hebrew, so she has a lot of in-depth knowledge about the language and how English translations don't quite capture the meaning.
Right out of the gate, the book starts with talking about Genesis 1, when God created the world, and it says in Hebrew, the word "God" is masculine but "spirit of God" is feminine. YESSSSSSS I love this. (And Gafney doesn't use pronouns for God in this book.)
Then there is a section for each woman character. Some of them are well-known, like Eve, and some of them are obscure characters that no one talks about in church. I love this! Let's talk about the obscure ones! A lot of WEIRD stuff in the bible, but in church we streamline these stories down into simple lessons about morality. Gafney's book doesn't do that. She talks about every aspect of these characters' stories, even the really weird stuff, and the focus is on understanding what they experienced and how they felt, and aspects of their lives which are similar to things that happen in our world now (with a particular emphasis on black women).
For example, there's the section on Adah and Zillah. You may be saying, "who?" We find these 2 women in Genesis 4, which is about the descendants of Adam and Eve. The bible says that Adah and Zillah were the 2 wives of Lamech. This is the first example of polygamy in the bible.
Now, when I've seen Christians talk about this story before [if they ever mention it at all], mainly they say something like this: "God made Adam and Eve, and that was the ideal for marriage- 1 man and 1 woman. But look, we're here in Genesis 4 and already people are straying from God's plan. Lamech had 2 wives, and that is BAD." Like it's just a simple morality lesson for us about "monogamy is good, polygamy is bad." And that's it. And nobody cares about how Adah and Zillah felt.
Well, Gafney cares about how Adah and Zillah felt. Yes!
And, Gafney asks questions about how to think about relationships in the bible which English translations typically call "marriage." Actually, she says, the bible doesn't use the words husband/wife/marriage when talking about Adam and Eve. She is very very careful with her translations. And check out this part:
Should unions that encompass polygamy and permit sexual access to abducted women, slaves, sex-workers, non-Israelite women, and widows without sanction be called "marriage," as the term has come to be used? Should they be called something else?
How did Adah and Tzillah feel about this new social structure Lamech invents? Was their participation voluntary? What did God think about this new development? Why is God silent on this development in the text? Since neither God nor the text critiques the practice, is it permissible? Is it simply a matter of human volition? Does this text mean marriage, coupling, or partnering, by whatever name, is ultimately just a human, social construction?
Yes! These are all questions we should be asking! Not simply taking our modern understanding of what marriage is, and assuming that's what it meant for Adam and Eve, and that's what it should mean for everyone, and that's what it means when the bible says "marriage."
I remember when I was a kid, reading the bible, reading about how Sarah wanted her husband Abraham to impregnate her slave Hagar- and I was thinking about how that's wrong because sex is only supposed to be in marriage. But then I read in the bible, "Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife." And I was like "... to be his wife? So... so... so then Hagar and Abraham are married, so that makes it okay. ...?" And thinking about how I had been taught that sex is only for marriage, and if you have sex outside of marriage then that's bad, because you form a lifelong emotional connection to someone when you have sex, but since you're not married then you end up breaking up and you're sad forever, and you're "impure" in your next relationship... But if Hagar was Abraham's "wife" then you wouldn't have to be concerned about those things, so... that means it's okay?
It's about the definition of "marriage", and the weird belief that if you call something "marriage" then it's a good and healthy relationship. What it actually was, though, is Sarah and Abraham mistreating Hagar, using her body for their own purposes. There was no consent; nobody cared what Hagar thought. Doesn't matter if you call it "marriage"- it's still wrong. (And "Womanist Midrash" has some really interesting stuff to say about intersectionality and privilege and how Sarah used Hagar, rather than women standing together and supporting each other.)
As I was reading this book and enjoying it, I thought to myself, this is a book specifically about the women in the bible, and normally I don't like that kind of thing. You know, church women's groups are always like "let's study the story of Esther" and I roll my eyes at that so much. Oh, we're women so we should read the bible stories about women. I always felt like, uh I want to read the whole bible, why should we limit ourselves to Esther and Ruth? (Because honestly, when they talk about studying the women in the bible, it's basically just Esther and Ruth. Oh and Proverbs 31.) And also, shouldn't Christian men read about Esther and Ruth too? I'm really not into this "the women's group is gonna read about the women" stuff. So what's different about Gafney's book?
The difference is, "Womanist Midrash" is examining these women's experiences from a feminist perspective, paying special attention to issues that specifically applied to women- like sexual violence, not having a choice in whom to marry, having your worth tied to your fertility, etc. It's not like those church study groups which talk about "Esther was a role model who had courage, and therefore we should have courage"- parsing the story into some lesson that we should apply to our lives, and that's it. I mean, if we want to talk about Esther from a feminist perspective, we could talk about how she came from an immigrant family, how she didn't have a choice in marrying the king, what it would be like to be in the huge harem of women who had sex with the king 1 time and then he may or may not ever be interested in them again (and maybe we need some F/F fanfic about this), how all these young women were brought in and whichever one sexually pleased the king most would be the new queen, what would it be like to know that was your objective during sex, and how would you prepare for it, and then after she became queen, she wasn't even allowed to talk to the king unless he called for her, and can you even call that a marriage, etc etc etc. (These are my own ideas, I don't know if the book "Womanist Midrash" talks about Esther or not. I'm still in the beginning chapters.)
Also, when I say midrash is fanfic, I'm not exaggerating. It's fanfic. And for some of these bible characters, Gafney even writes her own midrash. Here's one from the section on Rachel:
Rachel and Leah were ordinary sisters. They had largely separate lives. Leah preferred indoor life, and Rachel preferred outdoor life. Neither was much interested in marriage. Following the rules of the household established by Milcah, their great-grandmother, whose name their grandfather Bethuel ben Milcah bore, they were asked if they would marry each time a suitor came forward, as their aunt Rivqah [Rebekah] had been asked. And each time they said no. They said no to their brothers and cousins. They said no to intrafamily unions. They said no to the neighbors and to strangers. They said no to unions outside of their family.
Then one day their cousin Ya'aqov [Jacob] came to town looking for a woman from their family, his family. Their father said one of them would have to marry him. Auntie Rivqah would not take no for an answer. Ya'aqov asked for Rachel and offered seven years of his labor in exchange for her. She spent the seven years getting to know him, but she never came to love him. He turned to Leah to help him win her over. The more he pursued her, the less interested she became. The more time he spent with Leah, the more she came to love him.
When the time for the wedding feast and consummation came, Leah and Rachel agreed to switch places and told their father what they had decided. They waited until deepest night and put out all the lamps in the wedding tent. Leah hoped that Ya'aqov would realize that [it] was she whom he truly loved. Ya'aqov was angry and disappointed. He demanded Rachel. Lavan [Laban] tried to dissuade him. Rachel hoped he would give up, but he stayed another seven years. Ya'aqov's pursuit of Rachel broke Leah's heart. The love she held for him and for her sister soured. When Rachel finally consented to marry Ya'aqov, she was at the end of her childbearing years. He did not care. He wanted her, and finally he had her. That Rachel still did not want him and that he never wanted Leah wounded Leah deeply. Leah carried that hurt to her grave. She held on to and acted out of her deep hurt. She was never reconciled to her sister.
Wow, interesting! Some of that is in the bible; a lot of it is not. Very cool how occasionally in this book, we get midrash written by Gafney. Also I'm fascinated by the fan theory that Rachel didn't love Jacob.
(Also I love how this book makes no attempt to cover up all the incest going on in the book of Genesis.)
Another awesome thing about this book is that Gafney uses Muslim sources. Yes, many of these bible characters, like Abraham, are also important for Muslims, and there have been Muslim scholars writing about these characters (and writing fanfic on them) for hundreds of years. I love how "Womanist Midrash" brings in ideas about these bible characters from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim sources, and treats them all as useful. This is really astounding to me- wow, other people exist besides Christians, and they have ideas worth listening to! You normally don't see that in Christian books.
Anyway, those are my thoughts so far on this book. I'm very excited about it, and wanted to share this on my blog, though I don't really think I can do it justice because it's so good. This is EXACTLY how I want to read the bible.
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Posts about the book "Womanist Midrash" by Wilda C. Gafney:
Womanist Midrash
The Slavery We Ignore in the Book of Exodus
The Second-Worst Bible Story
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Related:
No One Can Take The Bible From Me
Not Sure I Want My Kid Reading the Bible
Reading US History Inerrantly (first post in my blog series on James Cone's book, "The Cross and the Lynching Tree")
Some of my bible fanfics:
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