Week 3 Reading Diary, continued: Bible Women

For the end of the week, I wanted to finish up reading the section on Bible Women! A few of the sections were about one of my favorite Bible characters when I was young, Esther. I was especially excited to get a fresh look at her story! There is also a story about a woman that I did not previously remember, Susannah, that caught my attention. It has always been amazing to me how one book can be highlighted, interpreted, and valued in so many different ways!

Esther:
My first realization came while reading over the notes on Esther.Sunday school did not teach me that Esther became the king's wife after her sent away her first wife, Vashti! That detail could be really interesting to explore more. How did these women relate to one another? What did that mean for how women in Jewish society later related to one another?

I had also forgotten that Mordecai instructed Esther to hide her heritage. What was that insistence based on?

Ah, now I remember! Evil Haman. Of course, this part of the story was also made more sensible for children when I first read it. In this perspective, it truly highlights just how brave Esther was, as a woman and a minority, to stand up to the kind against Haman's objective.

Susannah:
As Susannah's story begins to unfold, I remember just how angry I get at some of the King James Bible's choice of words in translation. While the text say that the potential abusers are "inflamed" with lust, it also says that they are "wounded with her love." No. It's no wonder that we still have modern discourse about how men have a right to women's bodies -- a wrong, yet ancient idea.

The men's testimony is also sadly not a foreign notion in modern times. How many times have similar accusations been slung out on modern social media platforms out of scorn?

Thankfully, Daniel comes in to refute the men's statements. Although I know it isn't realistic for the time, I wish that Susannah's word alone could have disputed the false claims.

Susannah and the attempted attackers