Women and hidden truths of terror in Old Testament
Hagar. Miriam. Jeptha’s daughter. Tamar. Vashti. Susanna.
Women whose stories are not front and center for most readers of the Bible. And most likely, not featured in many Sunday sermons.
Nevertheless, they persist. Their experiences may fade … but they don’t disappear. However silenced or disregarded in their own day, they speak to our time if we listen.
Hagar. A slave exploited by her wealthy owners who need a child. A surrogate pregnancy produces the desired heir. But as time goes on, she becomes disposable. She’s done what’s needed. And so, evicted, she is left to her own resources for the survival of herself and her now not-favored son.
Miriam dares to challenge authority, that of Moses her brother, and is punished with an all-too visible disease that makes her an outcast, never to be heard from again in biblical pages until her death is noted. (Although her brother Aaron is her partner-in-challenge, he is not punished; in fact he’s promoted to a higher leadership position.)
Known only as “Jeptha’s daughter” a young girl is sacrificed as a result of a rash vow her father makes. Even though he makes this promise publicly, no one steps forward to warn his daughter that she is vulnerable. Does she have no advocate? Is her mother voiceless to protect her daughter?
Tamar. This victim of sexual violence at the hands of her brother is told to keep quiet and forget, thereafter doomed to live her life in the dark shadows of her royal and powerful Davidic family.
Vashti, chosen as royal consort perhaps because of her beauty, is banished when she refuses to appear at a drinking banquet so that her husband the king can show off her beauty to his friends. An uppity woman, she’s soon replaced. (In a magnificent example of irony, her successor Esther appears to inherit her mantle, so to speak, and brilliantly accomplishes — in a man’s world — the survival of her people!)
Susanna. Also the wife of a powerful man. Two other powerful men find her too beautiful to resist; they threaten her with death (by false allegation) if she does not submit to their advances. She refuses and is brought, stripped, to trial where no one testifies on her behalf. (Unlike Jeptha’s daughter, she is saved by divine intervention, which makes her story somewhat easier to read.)
What are we to do with these stories? It’s tempting to avoid them, to keep them hidden. They are, as biblical scholar Phyllis Trible terms them, “Texts of Terror.” Stories of abuse and death sanctioned by social, economic, political, and yes, religious power.
We may try to comfort ourselves by noting that these tales originated in and were recorded by a long past patriarchal culture. True. Yet, these women do not go away. They are right here: in Genesis, Exo- dus, Judges, Second Samuel, Esther, Daniel. And in the short story, Susanna, although it’s relegated to the apocryphal hinterlands of the almost sacred. They insist on being heard.
Do these women speak across the ages to raise our consciousness (and our consciences) to voices too easily ignored, stories deemed credible but not relevant?
Shall we risk turning deaf ears to those who dare to say what we don’t want to believe?
Does truth always belong to the most powerful? Can we welcome an open mic for all voices, no matter gender, political position, social status, university diploma, street address, employment, race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, religious preference?
For those of us who frequent the pews in houses of worship, the vulnerable, the oppressed, the assaulted will not, must not be silenced. They will continue to demand our attention. Perhaps as we pray in hope, we should ask for courage. To listen to their stories when others don’t. To act when others dodge.
What do we do when we hear stories of terror?
What are we to do with these stories? It’s tempting to avoid them, to keep them hidden. They are, as biblical scholar Phyllis Trible terms them, “Texts of Terror.” Stories of abuse and death sanctioned by social, economic, political, and yes, religious power.
Steilberg is a priest in the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia. She can be reached by email at isabel.steilberg@gmail.com.