The Red Tent Redux

I commented on the novel The Red Tent here, but since then I've had the good sense to actually read the whole novel in order to draw conclusions.

If, as my copy of the book states, this novel presents a new view of women in biblical times, I guess I'll assume that it's a new view based on historical evidence of some kind.  Or, is it just a new view as in a made-up view loosely based on some historical evidence.  I don't know.  But having a tendency toward the literal and the practical, I can get myself hung up on questions like 'Could this really have happened?' or 'Was there actually a tent that was red?'  Thus, I felt unsettled reading about the wonderfully supportive bonding between all the women in Jacob's tribe. Were women of that time really so dedicated to celebrating their femininity, their fertility, their womanhood and  lavishing attentions on one another when they gave birth or started to menstruate?   Or, is this  21st century A.D. feminism overlaid on second millenium B.C. women.  

I also found the injection of romantic love into the picture a little disconcerting.  In the novel, Shechem and Dinah are a case of a head-over-heels-nothing-can-stop-us-now kind of romance.  All rose petals and gardenias, dreamy and lush, but why?  True, the account of their liaison or marriage in Genesis is ambiguous; Shechem does insist that he wants to marry Dinah which is in part I guess what makes the account of Dinah intriguing for a novelist to speculate upon.  But. . . .

There's more 21st century-style romance when Dinah re-marries later on. She finds the perfect guy in Benia the carpenter!  Benia has a sense of humor, he's sensitive, he loves Dinah, they have a wonderful sex life and Dinah is completely fulfilled as a woman. And it's 3,000 years ago in the Middle East. 

Rebekah is given a role in the novel that she doesn't have in the Bible.  The author makes her into a kind of elder stateswoman,  a seer and/or healer.  Again, I'll assume this is a role  that might have accrued to a woman of Rebekah's status.  Then again, perhaps there's no historical accuracy here but just the author's fantasy.  I don't know.  I did poke around and look for interviews with the author and some reviews of the book.

In the final analysis, I guess this type of novel just isn't my cup of tea. 

Samson

As my study guides point out, Samson is a familiar figure to us from popular culture, and, sure enough, I know something about him because of a song,  "If I Had My Way," on a Peter, Paul and Mary album.  The song, also titled "Samson and Delilah," was written by a blind Baptist minister and guitar player, Rev. Gary Davis, one of those blues and gospel "originals" who enjoyed a rediscovery during the folk music craze of the 60s.    The version of the song that I know is all rhythm and harmonizing and communicates some of the intensity of Samson's story.  Naturally, the account in the Bible is quite a bit more  raw and arresting than the song.

Like Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel, Samson's mother is barren and Samson's birth is special, overseen by the intervention of an angel who instructs Samson's mother not to cut the boy's hair, that he will be a Nazirite (see Numbers 6, 1-21).   Again we have a prefiguring of the angel's visit to Mary and Jesus' birth as well as a reminder that each new life is known to God and is part of his plan.

Samson has his share of adventures with women and riddles.  He first marries a Philistine woman whom he rather unceremoniously dumps when she discloses to her people the answer to the riddle that Samson poses.  Later, the pattern is repeated with Delilah.  Both women are portrayed as coquettish vixens playing on Samson's emotions by telling him that if he really loved them, he'd tell his secret.  (Everything old is new again!) 


I understand that Samson's herculean strength and his defeat of the Philistines comes from God, but Samson himself never acknowledges that until the very end of his life, Ch. 16,  v.28.  Furthermore, Samson seems indifferent where the Lord is concerned.  When he reveals his secret to Delilah, it's not clear whether he really believes his strength comes from God --that is from his hair as a result of  his consecration to God from birth---or whether he regards the Nazirite vow as empty and takes his overpowering strength for granted.   In contrast to Moses or Joshua or to another of the judges, Deborah, Samson is a bit of a brute.  In the Garrison study guide, the author asks, "Do you find it difficult to focus your reading so that you rise above the sordid in Samson's brief biography?"  Answer, yes.

Just A Matter of Geography?

The Old Testament readings for this week have been from the Book of Genesis and caused me to go back and re-read some of the chapters.   God brings Abram out of Haran (which is roughly in present-day Iraq) and into Canaan and tells Abraham that this is the land he will possess.  Remembering Moses bringing everyone into Canaan and having just recently  read about Joshua's battle, I started wondering why in the world Abraham just didn't stay in Canaan and possess the land.  I don't know how,  but during the time it's taken me to read from Genesis to Deuteronomy, I seem to have forgotten about all the wandering,  exile and tribal conflicts in the Old Testament. 

The footnotes in my study Bible speak of the dual promise of land and progeny which I take to mean that God's promise to Abraham is of a kingdom, a certain way of living, not just the promise of a tract of earth.  So, while it might be easy to hold on to a piece of land, it's not so easy to hold on to this idea of being God's chosen people.  The study notes  sketch out an elaborate chart on the Abraham Cycle, a chart I neatly skipped over before, which in turn reminded me that there was a migration from Haran (when Abram's family left) and a migration to Haran (I presume when Abraham's servant returned there to find a wife for Isaac).   

Jacob also returns to the homeland (Paddan-aram in the region of Haran) to find a wife, Genesis 28, 1-7 and lives there "in exile"  (Ch. 31) for what was about 20 years!    Later, God instructs Jacob to go to Bethel, Ch. 35 and by Ch. 36 we're back to Canaan where Jacob settles.  We're reminded that his father Isaac lived there as "an alien."   The story of Jacob's favorite son, Joseph, then of course takes us to Egypt.  References to Egypt are also a tad confusing;  my Bible's map of the ancient world shows the Egyptian Empire, 1300 B.C.,  covering roughly the area of the southern portion of the Levant. 

The Red Tent

I've been aware of this work of historical fiction for several years.  Several family members have read it and talked about it;  I confess to only having skimmed it.  Without consulting the Cliff Notes, I'm assuming that the author found it intriguing to reflect upon Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah, who seems lost to history after her story is told in Chapter 34 of Genesis.  Even my study Bible comments that "sadly" Dinah is not mentioned further except for a passing reference in Genesis 46.15 when Jacob's family is re-united with Joseph in Egypt.

 
I'm also assuming that this is a woman-affirming book, a feminist novel.   No harm in that except that it's not of especial interest to me (I have previously dis-avowed any allegiance to feminism!).  It is curious, though, that while Dinah's brothers were central to the life of Israel, she, the biological daughter of Jacob and Leah (a real wife, not just one of the maids) is only a footnote.   Of course, as in the case of my comment about Cain and Abel, God's ways are not our ways, and if Dinah had been more essential to the life of Israel, we would certainly have heard about her. 


In Genesis, Dinah's encounter with Shechem is straightforwardly characterized as rape or "defilement" while in the novel more is made of the love and devotion of Shechem towards Dinah.  (I'd have to read the book more carefully to determine if rape is mentioned at all.)   This seems an attempt on the author's part to tweak historical reality a bit by making Dinah the object of romantic love whereas women in pre-Christian times were usually characterized as just there for the taking. (Well, Jacob did apparently fall for Rachel so things weren't all bad.)  In the novel,  Dinah becomes a mid-wife, far more palatable than had the author made her a priestess or warrior.  As a midwife, Dinah eventually delivers her own nephew, one of Joseph's sons, a neat sort of Dickensian twist.  

Genesis

Book written:  10th century B.C.,  editing 6th century B.C. some attribute to Moses

Time Period/Setting:  time immemorial to about 1700 B.C.

Title:  Genesis means 'beginning'

Familiar Bible Stories:  I hope I'll finally remember that all the old, familiar children's Bible stories are told in the book of Genesis:  Creation, Adam and Eve, Cain (the murdering one who was a farmer ) and Abel (the shepherd), Noah and the Ark (and his sons Shem, Ham and Japheth who are constantly memorialized in crossword puzzles), The Tower of Babel, Jacob's Ladder (a favorite Bible School song, too) and Joseph and his coat of many colors.   Jacob wrestles with God in the book of Genesis, and here, conveniently, is Pope Benedict's reflection on the matter.   And, back to Cain and Abel for a moment, why was God  unhappy with Cain's offering.  Maybe I didn't read carefully enough, but that stymies me.

Patriarchs and Wives:  The challenge I had in reading the book of Genesis was keeping the patriarchs and their wives and children straight and trying to place them all correctly in time and space.
 
Abraham and Sarah (formerly Abram and Sarai) started out in Haran which is present day northern Iraq in the year ?  , but at God's instruction worked their way down past Bethel to the Negeb and Egypt.  Seems like an awful lot of territory to cover.   The tale of Sodom and Gomorrah includes the astonishing manner in which Lot offered up his virgin daughters to the mob of angry men at his door.  Something similar happens later on in Judges (19.22  Gibeah's crime).  Let me make clear that I'm not a feminist by any stretch of the imagination, but the status of women in Biblical times makes my hair stand on end.  Talk about an oppressed, sub-par existence.  

Then, through God's power, follows Sarah's pregnancy and she gives birth to Isaac. 

Isaac marries Rebekah, who like Sarah must await God's touch in order to bear their twin sons, Jacob and Esau.  Rebekah was an agreeable figure at first, but proves to be nasty and calculating.  Why?  Are we to learn something from this mean mother (or mean wife)?

Jacob of course wants to marry Rachel, but is tricked into marrying Leah.  When he does get Rachel she, like Sarah and Rebekah, is barren.  God again intervenes.  Each of these births,  Isaac's, Jacob's (and Esau's) and Joseph's is an event set apart just as Christ's birth will be set apart, just as, I can't help but think we are being instructed here, every birth is a special event touched by God.  Marriage, pregnancy, procreation are not hum-drum, every day acts governed by human whimsy.  Nobody is an accident of nature.  Each of us is a distinct intention of God, created for a purpose.

Because God chose these women to be wives and mothers of Israel's patriarchs, I would have expected them to be, well, nicer, more refined, exemplary in their behavior.  But these women are awful.  Sarah is cynical and bitter.  Rebekah, sort of a Lady MacBeth, plots and schemes behind her husband's back.  Leah and Rachel compete with each other over who has had more children.  I would ask, what's their problem, but I think I know.  They have to share a husband and not only with each other!  How about the matter of the sisters "giving" Jacob their maids!  He has two sons with Bilhah and two sons with Zilpah.   And these sons count as his legitimate sons, heads of the twelve tribes along with their brothers.  

Rachel's sons seem to occupy pride of place, especially Joseph, and Rachel's death and burial are given some mention.  Interestingly, she was buried on the road to Bethlehem and  Jacob even puts up a stone at her gravesite.  I believe her tomb is mentioned again somewhere in Exodus or Numbers as the Israelites pass through.  Not sure about that.

Where:  As for where all this takes place, it seems that Jacob is sometimes in Paddan-aram which is near Haran, Abraham's point of origin, and at other times he's in Canaan and maybe other times he's elsewhere.  

Twelve Tribes: Jacob's sons, the twelve tribes, in alpha order:  Asher, Benjamin, Dan, Gad, Issachar, Joseph, Judah, Levi, Naphtali, Reuben, Simeon and Zebulun.