Girly Blogger
I have just received a girly blogger award from Talmida. Thank you, Talmida, I love it. Some may not know that I do read some pink blogs, and I don't mind being a pink author, in the gender sense, of course.However, I am going to have some difficulty passing this award on because I restrict my consistent blog reading to our sidebar. Tricky. My main reason for not wanting to expand my blogreading is that I like to spend most of my time reading books, and at least half of those are books written by women and recommended to me by women.
Who are these women? There are my many sisters, nieces and aunt, who are both friends and mentors. Also a very real presence in my life are the women I work with, the teachers who recommend books to me, and who are models of leadership and loving care towards children.
I have many librarians in my close circle of family and friends. If I ever were to run out of book recommendations I would start reading women librarian blogs. But knowing my family and friends, I will never run out of books to read. (I am currently reading The Swallows of Kabul.)
So I would like to dedicate this award to the many women, family and friends, who read my bookshelf blog and who recommend the books I read there. They are the unseen part of my blogging world. Then there are the women who comment here, whose sermons I listen to, or whose book recommendations I try to follow. (I should also mention anonymous, the chameleon blogger, who has recommended and provided many books for my enlightenment.)
On a related note, I would like to note a few trends in this little corner of the blogging world. In the last year some of our bloggers and commenters have started their own blogs. Peter, Wayne, and Iyov are all blogging elsewhere on related topics. I read their blogs regularly and explore the blogs mentioned in their sidebars extensively. I recommend them to you.
Back to Talmida, a Christian Hebraist, who has written some interesting posts recently on translation and other topics. I enjoyed reading Anthony Esolen's Anguish. It offers another angle on the archaic versus modern debate.
For those who want a basic, no frills translation post, here is Chris Heard on a nuance in Gen. 2:18-19.
I should also mention that I will be switching topics soon as I start a course next week with Bruce Waltke, followed by Gordon Fee in two weeks.
posted by Suzanne McCarthy at 12:12 PM
2 Comments:
I was wondering when you'd get to the point... :-)
But it's ironic, isn't it? Many men seek out women lacking cha-yil, but after they marry such women, they despise them for that very lack! In fact, they think all women lack cha-yil, which justifies in their minds the subjugation of women across the board.
And even more ironically, any woman who does exhibit cha-yil is rebuked for being "manly" or "opinionated"-- as if only men can have opinions or noble character. Yet, as you pointed out, these very qualities are what God values in a woman-- or a man.
It should go without saying that sexual purity was never supposed to be only applied to women, while excellence of character was never supposed to be only applied to men. Yet this is sad reality and it is perpetuated in the churches, of all places. Women who exhibit cha-yil are called "feminists" (!) and "rebellious" and sometimes even "Jezebel".
One nice thing about the anonymity of the internet is that women can now be heard in Christian theological discussions. There have been many times when, after a long debate, my opponent would express great shock and horror at learning he had been debating a woman all that time. Which, of course, only proves that there is no exclusively "male" or "female" way of thinking.
That being proven, there is no excuse for anyone thinking God made woman as an inferior sub-species or perpetual child. In spite of objections of such men that they don't think this at all, I can find no difference between how they treat women who are simply following "roles" than women who are intrinsically inferior. There isn't any discernible difference between the two.
And how can anyone defend the notion that even if women indeed can have cha-yil, that they must suppress it by acting the part of a weak and fearful child? In other words, the qualities held by such men as being "virtuous" are the opposite of the Bible's teaching about cha-yil.
And now maybe I'll get to the point...
This word cha-yil, like "baptize" and who knows how many others, shatters our trust in the motives of the translators. Unlike views on the divinity of Christ, his virgin birth and resurrection, there are no denominational checks and balances to keep bias against women out of Bible translation. It has been the universal sin of Christianity.
Perhaps Bushnell was right; it may be that only by women doing the research will the complete and untainted Word of God be brought to light.
(sorry, posted comment under wrong post)
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