Old Testament women: Were they "Quakers?"

How do we get "religion"--ritual, rules, the doctrines and dogmas that subtly twist the faith into something it's not meant to be--out of the way without losing our moorings? This is, of course, near and dear to the Quaker heart, perhaps always running in the back of our minds, but now forefronted for me.

In the early books of the Old Testament, several women take matters into their own hands and do the right thing without--according to the text--being explicitly told to do so.

In one example, when the Israelites are enslaved in Egypt, Pharaoh tells the midwives Shiphrah and Puah to kill the sons born to Hebrew women. They decide not to--and don't. (Moses, in contrast, has to hear explicitly from God in the burning bush about freeing his people. Why do you think people like Moses had to receive explicit instructions from God?)

Earlier on, Rebekah too, makes independent decisions. She's caught in a system of primogeniture which will give headship and the wealth of the clan arbitrarily to the firstborn of her twin sons, whether or not he is the most fit for the task. Esau, the firstborn, hotheaded and impulsive, doesn't necessarily put the needs of the community ahead of his own. Jacob, however, is thoughtful and deliberate.

It has always bothered me that Rebekah used trickery to gain the blessing and birthright for Jacob. It betrayed her oldest child. It seemed cruel to interfere and favor one child over the other. I wondered what it must have done to Esau to know his mother thought so little of him.

On the other hand, the system of inheritance that gave all the spoils to the oldest son was also potentially--inherently-- cruel. It penalized Jacob for the accident of being born a few minutes after Esau. (It hit me for the first time that it's probably not incidental that Esau and Jacob were twins: it underscores the arbitrariness of primogeniture: In this instance, you can't make a case that the older son's age makes a difference). But even this is not the real issue.

I'm now seeing Rebekah as a wise woman, with little power in her social structure, using what power she had not to promote a favored son, but to help safeguard the clan as a whole. This was not just a domestic matter but a higher stakes situation in which the entire group would suffer if the wrong person ended up in charge. Rebekah acted to benefit the community as a whole. Jacob was more fit to lead, and Rebekah, rather than stand by helplessly, used her wits to subvert an arbitrary system. Primogeniture was a form, not a thing to be idolized for itself, but a means for preserving the community intact rather than dividing and subdividing its wealth into ever small parcels. Rebekah, in acting as she did, preserved the intention, if not the letter, of that law.

These stories are hopeful and address the need to challenge systems that are not working for the benefit of the community. They teach that one compelling way to speak truth to power is simply to do the right thing.

But what does this have to do with getting religion out of the way? These women had such a close relationship with God that they didn't let arbitrary structures of authority get in the way of doing the humane/human/image of Godlike thing. They obeyed the inner light. They didn't get confused by doctrine or custom. In the end, the Bible affirmed their choices.

Postmodern theology: Israel's Gospel, part 1

Understanding the Bible as story rather than as a set formulas and accepting that our own understanding of the Bible is limited by the culture in which we live are key parts of postmodern theology.

In chapter 1 of "Old Testament Theology," John Goldingay, a postmodern theologian, discusses Old (or what he calls "First") Testament theology as narrative. He notes that the narrative--or story--of the First Testament is much longer than it needs to be if it were merely concerned to get the facts down. On the contrary, it is discursive, sprawling and uneven. He says that there are several reasons for this:

1. God takes humanity seriously. He works through humans, rather than forcing his will on humans. However, this is a slow approach, with a lot of backwards and forwards action that can be best understood through specific stories.

2. The Bible portrays the specificity of life with God. By hearing specific stories about specific people with specific challenges, demands, successes, failures, questions etc, we are encouraged to reflect on equivalent specificities in our own lives. Mostly, but not entirely, the narratives avoid proclaiming a set of unambiguous rules. Such "universal principle-based" proclamations can not offer the breath and nuance of narrative we need to help us to understand how God interacts with humans. Narrative is a way to capture these complex truths on many levels and from many perspectives.

3. The writers of the First Testament don't claim to know everything about their subjects, which reminds us that our own knowledge is fragmentary, be it about Abraham or about ourselves.

What do you think of this approach?