The Bible as the Woman's Story

Alice C. Linsley


In many ways, the Bible is The Woman's Story. Reading some commentaries one gets the impression that the Bible is about men and the experiences of men. Exposition of the biblical text on the basis of the male experience alone does not render a full picture of God’s work in the world. The masculine perspective may be the louder voice heard in the narrative, but there is also a softer voice speaking under the dominant voice.

The relationship of the male and female is much like the conscious and subconscious. During the waking hours the conscious is dominant and during the sleeping hours the subconscious rules the mind. The individual is the sum (and more) of the conscious and subconscious.

Likewise, to understand the Bible, we must pay equal attention to the quiet voice of female experience and the dominant voice of male experience. This enables us to keep focus on God made flesh through the Virgin Mary. He is the fulfillment of the ancient expectation of the Righteous Ruler, the Son of God, who overcomes death and leads his people to immortality. She is the one to whom God made the first Messianic promise that her Seed would crush the serpent's head (Gen. 3:15). This is the over-arching hope of the biblical writers.

John 3:16 states that belief in the Son of God is necessary for salvation.  There is the Martha's testimony "I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” (John 11:27) There is also the Woman's urging of the servants at the wedding in Cana: "Do whatever he tells you." (John 2:5)

When we listen to the quieter voice we hear proclamation that the promise made to “the Woman’ in Eden has been fulfilled (Gen. 3:15). Behold a virgin conceived and brought forth the Seed who crushes the serpent's head and restores paradise. Jesus claimed to be the fulfillment of this promise. He explained to his disciples that he was going to Jerusalem to die: unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it cannot give life to the world. (John 12).

Abraham’s ancestors expected the Seed to be born of their priestly bloodlines, which is why the Horite Hebrew ruler-priests practiced endogamy within and between their clans, that is, they intermarried exclusively. This also explains their strict moral code. Many of the rulers attempted to live into the expectation of the Righteous Ruler. Some went so far as to claim that their mothers miraculously conceived while in the temple. One of these was Sargon whose title means King of Kings or Most High King.

The female experience as it is presented in the Bible is not well represented. The commentaries written by women tend to be feminist critiques of the patriarchal world in which the women lived. Feminists largely portray the women of the Bible as victims of systematic oppression when, in fact, few are victims and few are oppressed. Many women of the Bible are shown to exercise considerable influence, some for good and some for bad. Most of the women named in the Old Testament are the wives, daughters and daughters-in-law of rulers and priests. This means that they were upper class and rather protected, though not often pampered. The women of the Bible were prophets, judges, witches, queens, wise women, harlots, merchants, seamstresses, and servants of the Most High God. Their stories round out our understanding of the Bible and of the received tradition concerning the Son of God that comes to us from Eden, born of the "Woman" Mary, the daughter of the shepherd priest Joachim. [1]

To understand the received tradition concerning the Son of God we must pay attention to the women in the Bible because among Abraham’s people, as with Jews today, bloodline was traced through the mothers. We see how this is true when we trace Jesus’ ancestry through key women. Consider this telescopic line of descent from A to K. Telescopic means that not all the generations of mothers are listed. If we begin with B – Cain’s wife – we have a depth of 10 mothers, which is the usual number in telescopic lines of descent.[2]

A. The “Woman” of Eden (Gen. 3:15) is not Eve since Eve is not named until verse 20. This woman is the mother of the Son of God. She conceived, according to Horite expectation, by divine overshadowing.

B. The wives of Cain (Gen. 4) and Seth (Gen. 5), daughters of Enoch/Anak. The lines of Cain and Seth intermarried.

C. Naamah, cousin wife of Methuselah (Gen. 4 and 5)and the mother of Lamech the Younger, who she named after her father, Lamech the Elder.

D. Wives of Shem and Ham. We know little about these women. They may have been sisters. The lines of Shem and Ham intermarried, so Abraham is a descendant of both men.

E. Mother of Abraham (Horite wife of Terah)

F. Sarah, Abraham’s half-sister, daughter of Terah. (Terah/Tera means priest.)

G. Rebekah, daughter of a priest

H. Leah, wife of Jacob

I. Tamar, daughter of a priest (She is cast as more righteous than Judah because she made sure the levirate law was fulfilled. The Deuteronomist defines righteousness as the fulfillment of the Law. Faith does not enter into the definition, so justification by faith is not expressed by the Deuteronomist Historian.)

J. Rahab of Jericho, wife of Salmon the Horite (She is cast as a "whore" by the Deuteronomist's shouting voice.)

K. Ruth, descendant of Terah by Lot (Lot is cast as a drunken incestuous father by the Deuteronomist Historian who wanted the Jews to think of the Moabites as their enemies, rather than their kinsmen.)


Explanation

A. The “Woman” of Gen. 3:15 is recognized by the Church Fathers as the Theotokos, or God-Bearer. She is at the beginning of the Messiah’s line as prophesy and she is at the end of Messiah’s line as his virgin mother. She is foreseen in the same way that Levi is said to have existed in the “loins” of Abraham. Hebrews 7:9-10 explains: “And, so to speak, through Abraham even Levi, who received tithes, paid tithes, for he was still in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him.” Levi, yet unborn is said to have paid the tithe while still in the loins of his "father" Abraham when Abraham paid the tithe to the priest Melchizedek (Gen. 14:20).

B. Cain and his brother Seth married sisters, the daughters of the African chief Nok. We must trace Jesus' ancestry through Cain's descendant Naamah who married Methuselah and was the grandmother of Noah.

C. Naamah is the daughter of Lamech the Elder and the mother of Lamech the Younger. She was Methusaleh’s cousin bride.

D. Shem’s wife is not named. She was likely his half-sister. Shem and Ham’s lines intermarried according to the pattern of the ruler-priests. So Jesus is descended from both Shem and Ham.

E. Abraham’s mother is not named in the Bible, but according to tradition she was the daughter of a priest associated with the Egyptian shrine of Karnak (Karnevo in the Babylonian Talmud). This shrine was dedicated to Horus, called the “son of God”. The genealogical information indicates that her father was Na’Hor. She named her first-born son Na'Hor, according to the cousin bride's naming prerogative.

F. Sarah and Abraham had the same father, Terah, but different mothers. As a ruler-priest, Terah had two wives. One was a half-sister and the other was a patrilineal cousin.

G. Rebekah was Isaac’s cousin wife. His half-sister wife was the daughter of Abraham by Keturah who dwelt in Beersheba. This explains why Eliezar brought Rebekah to marry Isaac in Beersheba, and not to Hebron.

H. Leah is the mother of Judah. The Son of God would come from Judah by Tamar.

I. Tamar, the Righteous, tricked Judah into impregnating her. When Judah discovered that Tamar was pregnant, he ordered that she be stoned to death. This was the sentence for daughters of priests who committed adultery or harlotry.

J. Rahab was visited by Hebrew spies. She helped them to escape and as a reward her family was spared when the Hebrews attacked Jericho. The sign of her protection was a scarlet cord hanging from her window, a symbol of the Blood of Lamb. This is like the blood on the doorposts in Goshen, and Rahab’s story is a second Passover, a narrative that stresses the heroine. The Exodus story lifts up the hero Moses. Rahab married Salmon, the Son of Hur (Hor). Salmon is called the "father of Bethlehem" in 1 Chronicles 2:54.  Rahab became the grandmother of Boaz who married Ruth. Salmon (also Salma or Solomon) is a Horite name and is associated with Bethlehem (1 Chronicles 2:51).

K. Ruth is the celebrated great grandmother of King David. With Ruth the bloodlines descending from Terah converge. Ruth is the celebrated great grandmother of King David.


NOTES

1. Genesis 2:10-14 says that Eden was watered by four rivers: the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Pishon and the Gihon. Two are in Mesopotamia and two are in Africa. This is the heart of the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion. This is the place of origin of the ruler-priests and of "him that holds the scepter from the house of Eden" (Amos 1:5). So Eden is not a mythical garden, but a vast well-watered region and the point of origin of Abraham’s ancestors.

The description of Eden as a well-watered region is supported by climate and geological studies. Around 12,000 years ago the Nile river system filled with waters from the Angolan Highlands. Geological uplift tilted the region to create Lake Victoria and direct its excess flow north into the White Nile which provides most of the Nile's water during the dry season. Essentially the entire Albertine Rift was a vast flood plain extending 3,700 miles from Syria to central Mozambique.

The Ethiopians identify the Gihon with the Abay River, which encircles the former African kingdom of Gojjam (where Ge'ez was spoken, the language of the Ethiopian Orthodox church). The Pishon "flows through the whole land of Havilah" (Gen. 2:11). Havilah is a son of Kush (Gen. 10:7) and the "Kushites" lived in the upper Nile region and the Sudan. Kushite kings also ruled in Egypt. These four rivers encompass the heart of the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion which was ruled by a network of ruler-priests. They controlled the major water systems and built shrines along the rivers. The Kushite expansion out of the Nile Valley continued into the Indus Valley, Bactria, and southern China where they are called the Kushan.

2. One theory holds that the genealogical segments were in groups of 10 because to facilitate the memory of the tribal story teller. While this is certainly possible, it seems more likely that 10 represents the beginning of a new cycle, since the counting system of Abraham’s people used 9 as the base. This would mean that Ruth, descendant of Terah, begins the new cycle and this cycle traces the Son of God through David. This is significant since David’s city was Bethlehem and the “father of Bethlehem” was a Horite chief. I Chronicles 4:4 lists Hur (Hor) as the "father of Bethlehem". The author of I Chronicles knew that Bethlehem was originally a Horite settlement, less than 10 miles from Mt. Hor.

Related reading:  The Daughters of Priests; Mother and Son Pierced: An image of intimacy; The Virgin Mary's Horite Ancestry; The Question of Patriarchy; The Paradox of Feminism; Rethinking "Biblical Equality"