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In A Year of Biblical Womanhood, Rachel Held Evans examines what the Bible says about women and does her best to take everything it says literally throughout her year of living Biblically, with each month focus on a different virtue found in the Bible.
This was a fascinating read. Rachel really digs into all that the Bible says about being a woman, and chronicles her successes and failures of living as a "Biblical woman". I really appreciate that Rachel acknowledged the complicated nature of doing so. The Bible is a complicated book. It may have been inspired by God, but it was written by men - men who added their own biases and cultural contexts to their writings. Thus, the Bible needs to be read with historical and cultural context in mind. And even doing so, you still find "stories of horror," as Rachel calls them, that need to be remembered - stories of women who were abused and neglected, who suffered at the hands of patriarchal society. The Bible is messy and complicated, and Rachel sits in this mess in her quest to find God and figure out what it means to be a Godly woman.
As Rachel examines the various virtues, she acknowledges that so much of what people consider to be "Biblical womanhood" are not found in the Bible, or not found up in the Bible in the ways people think. As she says, "More often than not, we wind up committed to what we want the Bible to say rather than what it actually says." She also talks about Biblical literalism and how so often the people who tout Biblical literalism practice selective literalism - taking the parts of the Bible that serve their agenda literally, but ignoring other parts.
Ultimately, Rachel comes to the conclusion that there is no such thing as Biblical womanhood. The Bible simply doesn't present a single model for womanhood. Instead, all sorts of very different woman are praised in scripture.
Overall, this was a very interesting read. It really made me think about the Bible and what it says about women in new ways. Rachel's journey is definitely worth reading and engaging with. My only real complaint is that I listened to the audiobook and didn't love the narrator. I found her to be rather monotone in her reading.
This was a fascinating read. Rachel really digs into all that the Bible says about being a woman, and chronicles her successes and failures of living as a "Biblical woman". I really appreciate that Rachel acknowledged the complicated nature of doing so. The Bible is a complicated book. It may have been inspired by God, but it was written by men - men who added their own biases and cultural contexts to their writings. Thus, the Bible needs to be read with historical and cultural context in mind. And even doing so, you still find "stories of horror," as Rachel calls them, that need to be remembered - stories of women who were abused and neglected, who suffered at the hands of patriarchal society. The Bible is messy and complicated, and Rachel sits in this mess in her quest to find God and figure out what it means to be a Godly woman.
As Rachel examines the various virtues, she acknowledges that so much of what people consider to be "Biblical womanhood" are not found in the Bible, or not found up in the Bible in the ways people think. As she says, "More often than not, we wind up committed to what we want the Bible to say rather than what it actually says." She also talks about Biblical literalism and how so often the people who tout Biblical literalism practice selective literalism - taking the parts of the Bible that serve their agenda literally, but ignoring other parts.
Ultimately, Rachel comes to the conclusion that there is no such thing as Biblical womanhood. The Bible simply doesn't present a single model for womanhood. Instead, all sorts of very different woman are praised in scripture.
Overall, this was a very interesting read. It really made me think about the Bible and what it says about women in new ways. Rachel's journey is definitely worth reading and engaging with. My only real complaint is that I listened to the audiobook and didn't love the narrator. I found her to be rather monotone in her reading.