Shawna Atteberry

The Baker Who Also Writes and Teaches

The Image of God and Sexuality

There is a very disturbing thing going on to encourage abstinence among Christian teenagers and children. It started with Purity Balls “a memorable ceremony for daughters to pledge commitments to purity and their fathers to pledge commitments to protect their girls.” I could not find the pledge the daughters make on their website, but here is the pledge the fathers make:

I, [daughter’s name]’s father, choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity. I will be pure in my own life as a man, husband and father. I will be a man of integrity and accountability as I lead, guide and pray over my daughter and as the high priest in my home. This covering will be used by God to influence generations to come.

This year the same organization put on an Integrity Ball for mothers and sons. There was no mention of the mothers making a pledge to their sons, but here is the pledge the sons take:

I, _________________________, choose before God to remain pure in my lifestyle, as I grow toward the goal of manhood, and until such a time that I marry.

I will be a young man of integrity and accountability as I strive to be an example to those around me. I will be bold and courageous, no matter what.

Today, I choose to seek after the high calling of God in every area of my life.

During the Purity Balls girls and teenagers are told to keep themselves pure for their future husbands, and as seen in the pledge, fathers pledge to “cover” their daughters and protect their virginity. During the Integrity Balls boys are told that the every girl they will date is someone else’s daughter and potentially someone else’s future husband. Would these young men want another man messing around with their future wife? Boys pledge to take charge of their lives and body; fathers pledge that they will protect their daughter’s virginity. Exactly how does Generations of Light (the organization behind the balls) view women?

Generations of Light view women as objects to be managed by men: first by fathers then by husbands. Instead children and teenagers should be taught that they are created in the image of God, and for that reason alone they need to respect each other. Boys should have been told that every girl they date is made in the image of God, and he needs to respect her and treat her accordingly, and girls need to hear the same thing. Christian teenagers also need to realize that first and foremost they are brothers and sisters in Christ. They might date, and they might break up. They will eventually get married, but through all those transient relationships, they are still brothers and sisters in Christ.

Another thing that needs to be addressed is that girls and women have sexual drives and needs as well as boys and men. This assumption that men are aggressively sexual and women are to be passive resistors of temptation is a horrible patriarchal myth that needs to end. Both men and women have sex drives, and both men and women have access to the fruit of self-control that the Spirit gives us. We should be teaching our teenagers how to cultivate self-control and set boundaries that will help them keep these pledges they make. It goes with saying that girls should be making their own pledges to take control of their lives and bodies as do the boys.

When men and women view each other as made in the image of God, and as brothers and sisters in Christ, we can respect each other and cultivate the self-control that is necessary to resist sexual (and all other) temptations. When a woman is a person in her own right and a man respects that, then they can set biblical guidelines and boundaries to their relationships.

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Career Women of the Bible: The Samaritan Woman

In John’s Gospel the woman at the well is the first person Jesus openly reveals himself as Messiah. The pious Jewish leader, Nicodemus, did not hear the words that Jesus tells this foreign woman when she states her belief in the coming Messiah: “I am he, the one who is speaking to you” (John 4:26). This is also the longest private conservation Jesus had with anyone on record.

Verse 4 says that Jesus “had to go through Samaria.” The edei (had to) makes it clear that this is a divine appointment; it was not geographically necessary for Jesus to go through Samaria, and Jewish travelers normally traveled around Samaria. Jesus and his disciples entered a Samaritan village, and the disciples went to buy food while Jesus sat by well because he was tired. A woman from the village came for water. Jesus then did something that was a cultural taboo: he spoke to a woman in public, and not just a woman, but a Samaritan woman. She was twice an outcast in Jewish thought. Jesus asked her for a drink of water. She was understandably shocked: a Jewish man was speaking to her, a Samaritan woman? He also should not have wanted to share a vessel with her for drinking water since it would be considered unclean. She was right to be confused.

The conversation then turned to a discussion of living water versus the water in the well. At this point many commentators say that the woman did not have the ability to engage Jesus in serious theological conversation; because she was a woman she did not have the intelligence to keep up with the conversation (O’Day, 384). That is why she was confused about this living water Jesus offered. But the woman was no more confused over living water than Nicodemus was over being born again in the previous chapter. The woman was not confused because she was a woman, just as Nicodemus was not confused simply because he was a man. Both of them were confused because Jesus was introducing them to new spiritual truths. Whereas Nicodemus never quite gets what Jesus was telling him in John 3, the woman did come to understand who Jesus was and what he was telling her.

Although the woman still wasn’t sure what this living water was, she wanted it. When Jesus told her to go get her husband we find out that this woman has had five husbands, and was now living with a man who was not her husband. Many commentators have jumped to the conclusion that she was an immoral woman who had been divorced five times (ibid). There are at least two other reasons why this woman has had five husbands (John 4 never says she was divorced).

If five men had divorced her, the reason could be is because she was barren. They married, found out she couldn’t have children, and divorced her to marry more fertile women. She could also be trapped by the Levirate marriage law. Her five husbands could have been brothers she was supposed to produce an heir for. Either the family ran out of sons or the next son could have refused to marry her. That she was living with a man now could have been the less of two evils: her only other choice after husband number five died or divorced her could have been prostitution. Regardless of why the woman had had five husbands, the implication is still she is a woman who cannot keep a man.

After Jesus told the woman about her life, she knew that he was a prophet. Again many commentators downplay the woman’s theological ability by saying her next question concerning the proper place of worship is a ploy to draw attention away from her supposed immoral life (ibid). What they don’t acknowledge is the woman asked what is probably the most pressing theological question of the Samaritans in the first century: where is the proper place of worship?

The Samaritans were descended from the Judean people who had not been deported in the exile and the other peoples who were imported to the region. They continued to worship Yahweh. Alexander the Great allowed the Samaritans to build a temple on Mt. Gerizim, which became a point of contention when the Jews returned and rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem. Tensions continued to degrade until the temple on Mt. Gerizim was destroyed by the Jews in 128 B.C. (The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 726-7). Both groups believed that they were worshiping Yahweh, and both believed that they had the right place to worship Yahweh. The woman had met a prophet–someone who knew what had happened in her life, and one she was sure could answer the most pressing theological question of her heart and of the time.

Jesus did not accuse her of changing the subject; he answered her question. It did not matter where one worshiped God–it was how God was worshiped. There would no longer be limitations of geography in worshiping God for God is spirit, and he will be worshiped in spirit and truth. The woman stated her belief in the coming Messiah who would reveal all things to them. Jesus then revealed something to this unnamed, foreign woman that he did not reveal to Nicodemus, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you” (John 4:26). The Samaritan woman was the first person that Jesus revealed himself as Messiah to in the Gospel of John, and this is the first “I amâ” statement in the gospel as well (Cunningham and Hamilton, 122).

Why did Jesus reveal himself to this woman and not to Nicodemus? The woman was not expecting a political Messiah. The Samaritans were looking for the ta’eb or “restorer” (Sloyan, 54). The Samaritans were not looking for a political Messiah from the line of David; they were looking for a prophet like Moses who would restore the observance of the law of Moses as it should be (ibid). Jesus could reveal himself as Messiah to her without worrying about political misunderstandings that would have arisen in Judah.

The disciples returned with food scratching their heads and wondering why Jesus is speaking to a foreign woman in public. Then the woman went to her people and said, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” (v. 28). She became the first evangelist in the gospel of John. She went and told her people about Jesus and brought them to him, so they could see and hear for themselves. Jesus never approached people “randomly or casually but as possible bearers of witness to him to whole populations” (ibid). A foreign, single woman who had had five husbands, and was now living with a man was the one Jesus chose to bring a town in Samaria to him so that they could say, “We have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world” (v. 42).

Sources

Shawna Renee Bound, Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: A Biblical Theology of Single Women in Ministry, unpublished thesis, (© by Shawna Renee Bound 2002), “Women in the Gospels.”

Loren Cunningham and David Joel Hamilton, Why Not Women? A Fresh Look at Scripture on Women in Mission, Ministry, and Leadership (Seattle: YWAM Publishing, 2000).

Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992).

Gail R. O’Day, “John,” Women’s Bible Commentary, exp. ed., eds. Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998).

Gerard Sloyan, John, (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1988).

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Dear Mary

Dear Mary,

What was it like? What was it like when Gabriel appeared and told you that God had chosen you to carry and bear the Messiah–to give birth to the divine; to birth the holy? What was it like to fear losing everything you loved, the only life you’d known, when you chose to obey God? Were you called crazy when you said God made you pregnant? Did you hear whispered “insane,” “not quite right” behind your back?

What was it like when Joseph decided to divorce you? He was a good man and didn’t want to shame you, but what was it like knowing you’d never marry? You’d always be considered an adulteress? Is that when you went to Elizabeth’s? When did you know Joseph changed his mind? When did he tell you about the dream? Before or after that trip?

You made the long journey to Elizabeth’s. Did you somehow know she would understand because Gabriel told you, she too was pregnant by divine means–like Sarah and Hannah?

What was it like to embody theology? To have The Magnificat rise from your womb and out of your lips? Some say other people put those words in your mouth, but I don’t believe it. Women are in the perfect place to proclaim the justice and mercy of God. We know those injustices in our bodies. And still we are the ones to extend mercy. Yes–The Magnificat is yours–you who bore the injustices of people shaming and maligning you. You were the perfect person to proclaim the justice of God that was coming into the world through your body.

Did you have any idea how your life would change when you heard the words: “Hail Mary, full of grace. Blessed are you among women”? Did you think you were blessed and full of grace?

Did it freak you out to think you would have to raise the Son of God? I bet you and Joseph talked about that–a lot. And Joseph–God gave him a dream and told him everything: he immediately obeyed. He married you, and you raised Jesus together. Did your heart sing when he told you of his dream? Were you relieved to know you wouldn’t be bearing the holy and raising the Messiah alone?

I wish we knew more about you. Your hopes, dreams, and fears. I wish we knew the things you pondered and stored up in your heart. God asked incredible things of you. Difficult things. Impossible things. And you said yes. Yes, Mary–you are blessed–not only among women, but blessed among the world.

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Standing Between Life and Death, Part 2

In Standing Between Life and Death we looked at Miriam’s ministry as prophet, worship leader, and forgiven usurper. But Miriam was not the only strong woman whom God called to stand between life and death in the life of Moses. Zipporah, the daughter of a priest, also acts in a cultic role. Like, Miriam she also looks over Moses and saves the lives of her family.

“On the way, at a place where they spent the night, the LORD met him and tried to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ feet with it, and said, ‘Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!’ So he let him alone. It was then she said, ‘A bridegroom of blood by circumcision'” (Exodus 4:24-26). These are three of the most mythic and problematic verses in the Bible. Commentators have spilled gallons of ink in describing how these verses should be read and interpreted.

Zipporah was the wife of Moses. She, Moses, and their sons have just left Midian and are on their way to Egypt in obedience to what God had told Moses to do. Then Yahweh comes against either Moses or one of their sons to try to kill him. Quick thinking and quick acting Zipporah circumcises either her husband or her son, applies the bloody foreskin to one of their feet or genitals (feet are an euphemism for genitals in the Hebrew Scriptures), and the wrath of Yahweh is averted. Zipporah is the only human named, and the only human to act in this account.

In the verses right before this incident, Yahweh tells Moses what he is to say to Pharaoh: he is to let Yahweh’s people go, and if he does not let Yahweh’s firstborn son go then Pharaoh’s son shall die. In light of the context, these verses foreshadow the Passover.

But why should Yahweh come against Moses or one of his sons to try to kill him? Bernard Robinson thinks the reason is Moses’ reluctance earlier in chapter 4 to obey God’s calling to go and demand Pharaoh to release his people. He seems to think that either Moses or his son not being circumcised would not warrant this action on Yahweh’s part. Terrence Fretheim thinks it is a combination of both: “Moses’ continued resistance to the divine call, occasioning God’s wrath (Exodus 4:14), and his failure concerning circumcision are signs that do not bode well for the future” (p. 81). Is Moses still having reprehensions? Is Yahweh growing tired of his excuses? We will never know.

What we do know is how Yahweh’s wrath was adverted, and Moses (or his son) was spared. Zipporah quickly circumcises either Moses or her son and touches the bloody foreskin to the feet or genitals of one of them. She acts as a mediator between Yahweh and her family. She also acts as a priest. In a salvific moment that will foreshadow the Passover, she circumcises one of the men in her life and applies the blood to save one or both. This is the only written record we have of a woman performing an act of blood sacrifice in the Bible or in Near Eastern religion.

Ironically the priesthood that would later go on to minimalize Miriam’s role in the wilderness traditions as a cultic leader begins with a woman, and not even an Israelite woman. A foreign woman is the first person in Exodus to offer a blood sacrifice that averts the wrath of God and once again saves Moses.

The first female prophet named in the Hebrew Scriptures is Miriam, and the last female prophet is Huldah. Huldah was a prophet in Jerusalem during the reign of Josiah, and her story is found in 2 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 34. Although there are noteworthy male prophets in Jerusalem at the time (Jeremiah, Zephaniah, and Nahum), Josiah sends the high priest to inquire of Huldah after a scroll is found in the temple. Huldah verifies that the scroll is the word of God, and that it’s words would come to pass, but Josiah would be spared since his heart was grieved over the sin of his people (Huldah’s prophecy would happen within 35 years). After he hears her words, Josiah steps up his reforms and leads the people in celebrating the first Passover that included all of the people since before the time of the judges (2 Kings 23:22).

Huldah was the first prophet to declare written words to be the word of God–Scripture. She is the first whose “words of judgment are centered on a written document as no others have been before her.” She is the first to authenticate Scripture. Manuscripts had been accumulating for years, if not centuries, but for the first time a prophet proclaims the writing to be God’s word, and this prophet is a woman–the last female prophet before Judah falls to the Babylonians. She started the process that would eventually give us canonized Scripture.

Huldah was married to Shallum who was the “keeper of the wardrobe” (2 Kings 22:14). But when Hilkiah, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah come to her home, they do not ask for her husband, and there is no embarrassment over inquiring God’s will of a woman. The high priest does not have an issue with a woman prophet. In fact, her gender is irrelevant in the text as is her marital status.

As Miriam frames the Exodus narrative so Deborah and Huldah frame Deuteronomistic history. Deborah appears at the beginning in Judges and Huldah at the end in Kings. Both women declare God’s word to leaders who respond. Unfortunately by Huldah’s time the nation had gone so far into idolatry that exile was inevitable, so there would be no songs of victory as in the days of Deborah. Although her words did compel the king to continue in his reforms and may be held the tide for a few more years.

Two women with ties to the cult; one as a priest and the other as a prophet. They are both married, but it is Zipporah who saves her husband and family as priest. King Josiah immediately inquired of Huldah on finding the scroll in the Temple. Both women knew what God wanted them to do and did it. As Miriam, Zipporah and Huldah are mediators and intercessors standing between life and death. Zipporah is successful, but Huldah must face the reality that her people have sinned too much for too long and confirm that God would send his people into exile.

Once again the traditions of Zipporah and Huldah remind us that as women we stand between life and death for our families, our communities, and even those who consider us to be outsiders. They were called, not because of who their husbands were or what their husbands did, but because they were available and open to God’s calling in their life.

Sources:

Shawna Renee Bound, Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: A Biblical Theology of Single Women in Ministry, unpublished thesis, (© by Shawna Renee Bound 2002).

Athalya Brenner and Fokkelien Van Dihk-Hemmes, On Gendering Texts: Female and Male Voices in the Hebrew Bible (New York: E.J. Brill, 1993).

Claudia V. Camp, “1 and 2 Kings” in Women’s Bible Commentary, expanded ed., eds. Carol A. Newsome and Sharon H. Ringe (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998).

Claudia V. Camp, Wise, Strange and Holy: The Strange Woman and the Making of the Bible (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000).

Terrence E. Fretheim, Exodus (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1991).

William E. Phipps, “A Woman Was the First to Declare Scripture Holy,” Bible Review (vol. 6, no. 2, April 1990), p. 14.

Bernard P. Robinson, “Zipporah to the Rescue: A Contextual Study of Exodus 4:24-6,” Vetus Testamentum 36 (October 1986): 452-3.

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Viewpoint of a female minister

I just posted this letter on Salon.com:

I am Rev. Shawna Atteberry, and I am an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene–an evangelical denomination. The Nazarene church has ordained women since its beginning in 1903. We are part of the American Holiness Movement that ordained their first woman pastor in 1859. Another evangelical denomination, The Salvation Army, has ordained women since its beginning in the 1860s. In fact, Catherine Booth would not marry William until he “saw the light” that women could preach. Their daughter, Evangeline, was the third general of the Army (i. e. leader of the entire denomination). Coming from a tradition that has ordained women for 150 years, I find Mark Driscoll’s view of women medieval to say the least.

Driscoll’s view is not biblical either. The Hebrew phrase in Genesis 2:18 that is mistranslated at “helper” actually means “a power equal to.” Woman was created to be a help or power equal to man–to be his eqaul in life, work, ministry, and marriage. There are several women leaders in the Bible: Deborah was a judge, prophet, and military leader (Judges 4–5); Miriam, the sister of Moses was a prophet (Exodus 15:20); and in the New Testament Priscilla and Aquila were co-pastors as well as made tents for a living together, and Junia was an apostle (Romans 16:7). In Romans 16:1 we find Paul sent the letter with Phoebe who was the pastor of the church in Cenchreae. Normally “pastor” is mistranslated as “helper,” but this is the same word that Paul uses to describe Timothy and Titus in their pastoral ministries.

Driscoll’s view of the roles of men and women are not biblical, and I believe harmful for both sexes. Biblically, both men and women are called to minister, work, and take care of their families together. Their highest priority is to obey God, and show Christlike love to each other and the world, not confine themselves into impossible gender roles.

Sincerely,
Rev. Shawna R. B. Atteberry

Update: My letter has been posted on Salon.com.

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The Spiritual June Cleaver

Salon has an article on Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church (Hat tip to the The Reclusive Leftist). I was so sad after reading this article. In short they’ve taken the post-WW2 culture, and they are trying to make it biblical.

Following Driscoll’s biblical reading of prescribed gender roles, women quit their jobs and try to have as many babies as possible. And these are no mere women who fear independence, who are looking to live by the simple tenets of fundamentalist credo, enforced by a commanding husband: many of the women of Mars Hill reluctantly abandon successful lives lived on their own terms to serve their husbands and their Lord.

So if Deborah went to Mars Hill, she would have had to resign from being a prophet and judge, and who would have led Israelite troops to victory over Sisera? I guess Isreal would not have had that 40 years of peace under her rule. I guess Phoebe would not have been a deacon in the church at Cenchreae (Romans 16:1). The word that describes Phoebe as a “deacon” is the same word Paul uses when speaking of Timothy and Titus in their pastoral duties. At Mars Hill Phoebe would not have been allowed to pastor the church at Cenchreae, and she sure wouldn’t have been allowed to take Paul’s letter to Rome. Priscilla would not have been a tentmaker and copastor with her husband. Junia would not have been an apostle (Romans 16:7).

The online screening process that is used in Driscoll’s Acts 29 church planting application “begins with a lengthy doctrinal assertion that every word of the Bible is literal truth; the application plucks out the examples of creationism and male headship of home and church to clarify this doctrine.”

I have dealt with biblical literalism in Truth vs. Fact. In Does It Really Mean Helpmate? I looked at the creation account and showed that the Hebrew phrase ezer cenedgo means a help or power equal to, and that there is nothing submissive about the term. Woman was created equal with man to be partners with him in life, marriage, and ministry.

In other conversations I have pointed out that I am from rural Oklahoma. On the farm or ranch everyone worked. There was no man’s work and woman’s work–husband, wife, children, and who ever else lived there worked to bring in the crop and cows. If they didn’t they starved. The division of the family between separate jobs and home is a fairly new phenomenon within human history. I also come from a poor, working class family–my mom worked; she had to. I have always looked at the stay-at-home mother as a middle class luxury. In many places around the world both men and women work hard to keep their families from starving. Not everyone has the luxury of one person staying home. In fact, few people do. That’s why I call this the post-WW2 mentality–society has to be at a certain economic level within an industrialized or technological society to afford the luxury of the stay at home mom.

The bottom line is it’s not biblical. As my Career Woman of the Bible series shows God called women to be prophets, judges, and other leaders to obey him and lead his people. Women have the right to work: in Genesis 1:26 care and dominion of creation is given to both man and woman before the command to procreate in verse 28. Women are called to work in the world, work in ministry, and be ordained as pastors and ministers, because God has called us as the full witness of the Bible affirms.

Things like this used to make mad. Now I grieve. I grieve over the bondage that this lie puts on both men and women, and it is not God’s will.

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The 12th Century, B. C. E., Career Woman

In my imagination I see her under her palm tree, sitting and listening to the people who came to her for justice and peace. Her head nodding as she listens. In my mind’s eye I see her standing, veil blowing in the wind, eyes flashing, as she commands Barak to gather his men and fight Sisera at Yahweh’s command. I also see her resolutely lead Israel’s armies into battle, her chin set, her eyes never wavering from their forward stare. After the battle I see her dancing around the fire, tambourine in hand, singing of the victory in what would become one of the oldest songs recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures. But I also see her in her home, feeding her family, singing stories to her children, going to bed with her husband. Deborah: the first career woman mentioned in the Bible. She is judge, prophet, military leader, and worship leader. But she is also wife, mother, sister, and daughter. It’s no wonder that those who advocate that the “bibilical” place for women is in the home and not the workforce, skip right over Deborah and her story.

During the time of the Judges, Deborah arose as a judge and prophet to lead the people of Israel against an enemy that had cruelly oppressed them for 20 years: King Jabin of Canaan and his general Sisera. Judges 5 is one of the oldest texts of the Bible believed to have been composed as early as the late twelfth century B.C.E. It predates Judges 4 by several centuries. It is Deborah’s song of victory over the forces of Jabin and Sisera, which climaxed in Sisera’s death.

In “Awake! Awake! Utter a Song!” Susan Ackerman shows how Hebrew parallelism is used to show that Deborah and Yahweh work together to win this victory. Verses 1-2 set the tone, ”the people are waiting for Yahweh, they are ready to obey what he says. Deborah calls to the kings and princes to listen to her song for Yahweh has spoken to her. In verses 3-4 Deborah sings of Yahweh’s coming. Yahweh comes from Seir and Edom; from the place where God met Israel at Sinai and made a covenant with them. God is shown as marching north to fight for and defend the people. It is a cosmic event: the earth trembles, the heavens and clouds pour water, the mountains quake when Yahweh comes.

Verses 6-7 then show us what is happening on earth: people cannot travel safely and caravans stopped until Deborah arose as “a mother in Israel,” then the people, even peasants, prospered on the plunder that was taken. This poetic feature shows that this is a holy war: God is coming to fight for his people, and it doesn’t take place on the cosmic level alone–it takes place on the earth to deliver his people. The song also shows that Deborah is Yahweh’s counterpart on earth; she is the one God is speaking through and working through to accomplish God’s purposes on earth.

In verse 7 Deborah is referred to as “a mother in Israel.” Judges 5 does not mention Deborah being married, so it is unlikely we are to take this phrase to literally mean that Deborah had children. The only other place “mother in Israel” is used is 2 Samuel 20:19 to describe the city of Abel of Beth-maacah where Sheba hides after he has instigated a rebellion against King David. When Joab besieges the city a wise woman appears at the wall wanting to know why he is attacking a city that is “a mother in Israel.” Abel is a city that is known for its wisdom in settling matters between conflicting parties. In the past it had been said, “Let them inquire at Abel” (2 Sam. 20:18). Abel was renown for its ability to resolve conflicts. It is a peaceful city, faithful in Israel, which could be a reference to its support of David. The wise woman also calls Abel “the heritage of the Lord” (v. 22). Earlier in 1 Samuel when the mother of Tekoa pleads her case to David she calls her son “the heritage of the Lord” (14:16). The heritage of Yahweh is something that Yahweh has given to his people whether it be children or land, and it is viewed as worth fighting for. “A mother in Israel” is a city that is renown for its wisdom and negotiating skills. It is able to bring about resolutions that protect the heritage of Yahweh.

By extension the wise woman herself is “a mother in Israel.” She shows all of the characteristics of her city: wisdom, negotiating skills, and she is a leader. She wants to protect her city, which is the heritage of Yahweh, and she will have a man killed in order to secure the well-being of her city. This is seen in the fact that Joab speaks to her and doesn’t demand to see someone else. This woman is the elder, and in all likelihood, the military commander of Abel, and that is why Joab negotiates with her: she is his equal.

For Judges 5 to call Deborah “a mother in Israel” is to show that she was known for her wisdom and ability to negotiate peace. It also shows her passionate commitment to bring peace to Israel and well-being to the heritage of Yahweh. She will insure that her people have peace and can prosper, and so she is willing to go to war with Jabin and Sisera at the command of Yahweh to accomplish this goal. She is “the perfect human counterpart of Yahweh, who as ‘the God of Israel’ likewise displays a passionate commitment to the Israelite community” (Ackerman, 43). In the past Yahweh has fought for his people and delivered them out of slavery and oppression, and Deborah boldly announces that he is about to act to free Israel again, and Deborah will obey all he commands of her to see his will done.

The next place we see the cosmic/earth and divine/human intersection is in verse 12: “Awake, awake, Deborah! Awake, awake, utter a song!” Normally the cry to “awake” is cried out by the people to God. They are calling for him to awake and come to their aid. This pattern is seen in both the Psalms and the Prophets. Here we see that it is Deborah who is called to “awake.” This call can come to Deborah because she is Yahweh’s human representative on earth.

In Judges 5 Deborah’s marital status is never mentioned. She is also clearly the military leader with Barak as her second-in-command. This is seen in the following ways: first her name is mentioned more often. Second Barak’s name never appears independent of Deborah’s, and her name is always first. The text also says that the oppression happening in Israel did not stop until Deborah arose in Israel; Barak is not mentioned. The verb arose also implies that it was Deborah who arose to lead Israel’s troops against Sisera and his army.

This changes in Judges 4. Chapter 4 is part of the Deuteronomistic history, which was written and complied during Josiah’s reign in the seventh century B.C.E. Deborah is now identified as a prophet and judge. She is the only female judge in the Hebrew Scriptures, and one of the few named female prophets (Miriam, Huldah, and Noadiah are the other three). She is also married: she is the wife of Lappidoth.

Her role as military leader has been considerably minimized. Yahweh’s role in the battle and the defeat is also curtailed. In chapter 5 Yahweh marched north to Israel causing cosmic upheavel in order to free his people. The only mention of Yahweh’s participation in chapter 4 is in verse 15 where Yahweh throws Sisera’s troops into a panic so that Barak and his men can come and win. Barak now leads the troops although he would not go into battle unless Deborah accompanied him. His reticence to believe that Yahweh was speaking through Deborah would cost him the glory of killing Sisera himself: that honor would go to a woman.

During the premonarchic period before the monarchy and the cult were institutionalized in Jerusalem, a woman could be portrayed as a military leader leading troops into battle to execute Yahweh’s holy war on earth. Due to the mythic nature of the poem, Israel could look beyond gendered roles for women to accept a female military leader. This has changed in the seventh century. Both the monarchy and the temple cult are set in place and acceptable gender roles are established. A female military leader is unacceptable. Therefore Deborah fades into the background and Barak takes the lead. Barak also takes the glory in the rest of the canon (1 Samuel 12:11; Hebrews 11:32). In the lists of judges who are commended, Barak is always mentioned; Deborah is forgotten.

There have also been efforts to insure that Deborah is portrayed as a ‘good, little wife.” This is seen in the tag that she is the wife of Lappidoth. This is also seen in commentators who have tried to marry her off to Barak to explain why they go into battle together. The text does not support a marriage between the two. And Lappidoth does not seem to play a part in Deborah’s calling as a leader. According to the text he didn’t even have anything to say about his wife going off to war. He could have been one of the warriors who went into battle, but apparently he supported his wife’s ministry, and had no trouble with Deborah being a judge over Israel and a prophet.

Deborah, wife of Lappidoth, mother not only to her own children, but to Isreal; prophet, judge, and leader, shows us that women juggling their callings as wife, mother, and leader have existed from the beginning. She is also shows us that family and career can be juggled successfully.

Sources

Susan Ackerman, Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel (New York: Doubleday, 1998), “Awake! Awake! Utter a Song!” 27-88.

Shawna Renee Bound, Your Daughters Shall Prophesy: A Biblical Theology of Single Women in Ministry, unpublished thesis, (© by Shawna Renee Bound 2002), “Judge and Prophets,” 23-34.

E. John Hamlin, Judges: At Risk in the Promised Land (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1990).

The IVP Women’s Bible Commentary (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), “Judges,” 133-5.

All biblical quotations are taken from the Revised Standard Version unless otherwise noted.

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