Today’s
Scripture Reading (January 13, 2019): Joshua 17
Oscar Wilde argued that “Women have a much better time than men in this
world; there are far more things forbidden to them.” Wilde’s comment today
would likely draw the anger of our egalitarian society. How could Wilde make
such a comment? Anything a man can do, a woman can do, and probably do better.
But a close examination of Wilde’s comment reveals an egalitarian mind at work.
Wilde believed in breaking down traditions and borders. His comment does not
argue that women should be forbidden to do certain things, but that they can
have more fun because they have more barriers that they can cross and more
walls that they can, and should, knock down. Wilde seemed to be arguing for the
feminine revolution that we have experienced over the last century. And maybe,
by this time in our history, we should have arrived at gender equality. But the
truth is that even after a century there are still more battles that need to be fought.
Of
course, the gender fight has not always been pleasant. And the other side of
the question asks why a woman should have
to fight and knock walls to receive things that men get automatically on the basis of their sex. It is a good, and
very appropriate, question.
One of the problems that we have in reading the bible is that we
read the book with 21st Century
eyes. We read with our
morals, our beliefs. But it
wasn’t written in a time that reflected our values. When taken as a whole,
we do see movement – books written later do reflect more of the things that we
believe – but the most recent books in the Bible were still written over 1900 years ago. And it is unfair to impose
our morality on these writings. One
of these problem areas is the role of women. Women in the Bible often seem
to exist as second class citizens, and we
are continually reminded that in the
Bible, women did not seem to count. When we read the story of Jesus feeding the
five thousand, we understand that the underlying truth is that it was five
thousand men that were counted on that
day. Women and children were present, but they didn’t count.
But there is another reality that we need to understand when we
read the Bible alongside the mores that we know existed from other writings. If
we are willing to do that, we find something very surprising. The Bible is a step ahead of its
time. The Bible is actually shaping
the culture of its day.
The story Zelophehad’s daughters is a good example. In the ancient world in which the daughter’s
lived, men dominated the social and political scene. When it came to dividing up the land,
these ladies weren’t even considered. But God changed the reality of their
lives. Maybe it doesn’t
seem like much to us – but in the ancient world,
it was huge. Here, women could receive an inheritance and own property (as
long as there were no men to inherit). And this was a dynamic change from
the norm. In other cultures, even ones much more recent in world history, women
were forbidden to inherit and own property. But here we see a spark of equality.
Much more needed to be done, but with the daughters of Zelophehad, at least the
process could be started.
Tomorrow’s
Scripture Reading: Joshua 18
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