Biblical View of Women and the Socially Disadvantaged Israel

In the Bible’s Old Testament we are able to see a connection between the individual stories and the deeper overall  meaning. Frequently the stories can be seen as pointing to a broader, deeper teaching that the author wants us to understand.

In her book, Reading the Women of the Bible (2002), Frymer-Kensky related the socially disadvantaged and subordinate position that women found themselves in, to the powerless position that Israel found itself in, while both maintain equality and worth.  The Bible describes the created male and female in a way that denotes human equality and does not give any justification of maltreatment or prejudice related to sex. Not to say that men are not different than women but, for example, they were never described, in the Biblical text, in a way that was derogatory or demeaning, when compared to the descriptions of men.

The women in the Bible did not…