In this episode, we talk about women all across the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament—from badass skull-breaking ladies like Jael to the too-many-Marys to the unnamed women that Jesus encountered, and everyone else in-between. We discuss the nuances of their stories that often aren’t brought up in church (if the women are even mentioned at all), and we talk about the “Proverbs 31 woman” and why evangelicals have taken it out of its original context—it’s a celebration of women for who they already are, not a checklist for what a perfect wife should be!
We also talk about Paul’s view of women when taking account of all his epistles and not just a few hand-picked verses—he worked alongside women in his missionary work, naming women in his letters as co-workers (or even with Phoebe’s case, calling her a deacon) and telling the recipients to thank them; there’s also the fact that some of the misogynistic-seeming verses from Paul’s epistles about women are scorning the behavior of rude, wealthy widows and not all women at all times.
This is by no means an exhaustive overview; if we didn’t talk about your fave “biblical woman,” let us know who she is! We’ll definitely get to her in a future episode (Bible Dyke Deep Dive on Esther, anyone?).
Resources:
Here’s a list of all the named women in the Bible: https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/all-women-bible/Chapter-2-Alphabetical
Here’s a list of all the unnamed women in the Bible, including Paul’s sister. Uh, Paul, that’s so rude to not even mention her name!! https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/all-women-bible/Chapter-3-Nameless-Bible-Women
Episode of VeggieTales that Anna mentioned: King George and the Ducky (based on the story of David and Bathsheba...obviously watered down a whole lot)
To hear about the story of Rizpah in the Bible, listen to episode two of the Evolving Faith Podcast, "Climbing the Mountain of Injustice with Austin Channing Brown." She tells the story better than either of us ever could.
The way that Rachel Held Evans writes about the story of Esther and Queen Vashti is really good, both in her blog posts and in her book Inspired.
Our social media: @reclaimingthegarden on Insta, @RtGardenPodcast on Twitter. Our personal accounts: @thatpunchabletheaternerd, @April_TheWriter (April is on Twitter and Insta). Also, our podcast account follows a bunch of awesome folks + podcasts in the exvangelical/deconstruction world and progressive Christian world, so if you’re looking for more resources, that’s a great place to start!
