Does the bible support the oppression of women?
In continuation from Part One.
The definition of the term "oppression":
Oppression is:
(according to dictionary.com, 10/02/2018)
The exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel or unjust manner.
The feeling of being heavily burdened, mentally or physically, by troubles, adverse conditions, anxiety etc
Oppression is synonymous with:
(according to thesaurus.com)
abuse, brutality, coercion, despotism, dictatorship, domination, injustice, maltreatment, persecution and suffering (as well as many more words).
Oppression is antonymous with:
(according to thesaurus.com)
help, kindness and niceness (amongst others)
Lot's Wife and Daughters
(Read the story for yourself: Genesis 19)
Lot was the nephew of Abraham who was unfortunate enough to be living in Sodom just prior to it's destruction. He had two unmarried but engaged daughters and a wife. When two angels came to Sodom to investigate reports that the people of the city were evil, a gang of men turned out with plans to rape them. To defend his guests Lot offered up his virgin daughters instead:
"No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof." (Genesis 19:7-8 NIV)
When this didn't work Lot and his family were forced to escape the city with the supernatural aid of the angels. They were warned not to look back at the destruction but to flee for their lives. When they reached the safe haven of Zoar ,Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. Still fearful Lot took his daughters up into the mountains and they settled there in a cave. Eventually the elder daughter decided that it was time for them to have children:
Our father is old, and there is no man round here to give us children - as is the custom all over the earth. Let's get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father. (Genesis 19:31-32 NIV)
So the daughters got their father drunk and that night the oldest daughter raped him. The next day she convinced her younger sister to do the same thing:
"Last night I slept with my father. Let's get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him so we can preserve our family line through our father." (Genesis 19:34)
And that's just what they did. They got their father drunk and the younger daughter raped him. After each incident of rape the bible records that Lot "was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up." and in that way he fathered his own grandchildren.
Were Lot's daughter's oppressed?
Rebekah
(Read about her here: Genesis 24, 26-27)
Rebekah
was the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob and Esau, a relative of Abraham's
through his brother Nahor.
After Sarah’s death when Abraham felt that his
son Isaac was ready to be married he instructed his head servant to go and find
Isaac a wife from amongst their kinfolk in Aram
Naharaim.
The
servant eventually found his way to the city of Nahor where he crossed paths
with a beautiful young woman who was fetching water from a well. The servant
prayed for a sign to help him know when had met the right woman for Isaac to
marry and the beautiful young woman fulfilled the sign. The servant was pleasantly
surprised to learn that this young woman was none other than Rebekah, Abraham’s
great-niece.
Rebekah
offered the servant accommodation at her father’s house and that night the
servant informed his hosts of his mission and the fulfilment of the signs he
had asked for. Rebekah’s family agreed to the marriage and accepted the
beautiful and expensive gifts which the servant gave then but in the morning when
the servant wanted to get underway, they begged him to allow Rebekah to say
with them for 10 more days. To break the deadlock Rebekah was called in and she
was asked:
“Will you go with this man?”“I will go.” She said " Genesis 24:58 NIV
Rebekah’s
family immediately relented and sent her off with a blessing:
“Our sister, may you increase to thousands upon thousands; may your offspring possess the cities of their enemies.” Genesis 24:60 NIV
So
Rebekah left with the servant and went to meet her future husband who was only
told of what was going on when the servant arrived back with his son to be
wife. Isaac took Rebekah and installed her in his mother’s tent (the tent of
the lady of the house) and he married and loved her.
Just like
Isaac’s parents Rebekah and Isaac had trouble conceiving so:
“Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord.
The Lord said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.”
When the children were born, Rebekah preferred the younger child Jacob and she eventually helped him to steal the birth-right from her own elder son:
“Look, I overheard your father say to your brother Esau, ‘Bring me some game and prepare me some tasty food to eat, so that I may give you my blessing in the presence of the Lord before I die.’ Now, my son, listen carefully and do what I tell you: Go out to the flock and bring me two choice young goats, so I can prepare some tasty food for your father, just the way he likes it. Then take it to your father to eat, so that he may give you his blessing before he dies.” Genesis 27:6-10 NIV
Afterwards Rebekah helped Jacob to escape from his brother’s understandable wrath by complaining about Esau’s
Hittite wives:
“Now then, my son, do what I say: Flee at once to my brother Laban in Harran. Stay with him for a while until your brother’s fury subsides. When your brother is no longer angry with you and forgets what you did to him, I’ll send word for you to come back from there. Why should I lose both of you in one day?”
Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I’m disgusted with living because of these Hittite women. If Jacob takes a wife from among the women of this land, from Hittite women like these, my life will not be worth living.”
So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him. Then he commanded him: “Do not marry a Canaanite woman. Go at once to Paddan Aram, to the house of your mother’s father Bethuel. Take a wife for yourself there, from among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham,so that you may take possession of the land where you now reside as a foreigner, the land God gave to Abraham.”” Genesis 27:43- 28:4 NIV
Does Rebekah
sound oppressed to you?
In the
early part of her story Rebekah had a choice about whether to go off to be married or not. She chose to go with Abraham's servant and her family blessed her and
hoped for her happiness and increase. On the other hand as far as the bible is
concerned there’s no reference to whether Isaac was given any choice in the
matter. For all the reader knows, the first time Isaac heard anything about his
marriage was when the servant returned with a bride for him from amongst the
people that Abraham had chosen. Isaac was 40 years old at the time but he didn’t
have a choice whilst Rebekah a “young woman” did.
In the
middle of Rebekah’s life in a section not mentioned here to reduce the length of
this piece, Rebekah’s beauty caused similar consequences for a King called
Abimelek that her mother-in-law Sarah’s beauty had caused for Pharaoh in the
land of Egypt so many years before. Genesis 26
Later in
her life Rebekah took it upon herself to take the birthright away from one son
to give it to another and then she helped her son to escape merely by telling
her husband that she hated her Hittite daughters-in-law.
Where is
the oppression?
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