Tamar's Courage

A few months ago I was so impressed with Esther and her courage that I wrote several posts about her. I saw her as a valiant woman who was so brave that she risked her life in the fight to save her people. I’m still impressed with her, but the more I read and ponder the women of the bible, the more I realize that she wasn’t the only courageous one. Tonight I’m thinking about Tamar, Judah’s daughter-in-law, the one he conveniently forgot about and sent back to her father’s house. It was sort of a “don’t call me, I’ll call you” arrangement.

But first a little background.Her first husband, Judah’s son Er, was dead. After Er died, Judah instructed his second son, Onan, to sleep with Tamar in order to provide her with a male offspring. It seems weird to us in this day and time, but it was part of the levirate marriage agreement, sort of a security net for young widows. A child would provide Tamar with someone who would take care of her in old age. Although Onan seemed to comply, he practiced coitus interruptus. After all, if Tamar had conceived, Onan’s share of the inheritance would be reduced.

With two sons dead, Judah has only one son left, and this is where the plot thickens. He promises Tamar that when young Shelah matures, he will send for her so that Shelah can perform his brotherly duty. Time passes, and when Judah reneges on his promise, Tamar realizes that she has to do something. If not, her fate as a powerless, penniless widow seems certain.

What does she do? She takes off her widow’s weeds and goes to Timnah, a town where Judah is heading to shear sheep. Tamar disguises herself as a harlot and sits waiting for him to arrive, hoping to entice him to engage her services. Now a widower, Judah notices Tamar, and they are intimate with each other. To make this story seem even more bizarre (to me anyway), he doesn’t even recognize his daughter-in-law. While it’s true that Judah probably never saw her face, you’d think that perhaps he’d have recognized her voice when she spoke to him of the signet, bracelets, and staff that he was to leave with her.

You know how this story ends. Tamar conceives, and when Judah hears that Tamar is pregnant from playing the harlot, he sentences her to death without even seeing her. When he learns that he’s the father of her unborn children (actually two of them), he states that she is more righteous than he. Judah knows that not only has he not lived up to his end of the bargain but also that he was as guilty as Tamar when it comes to “whoredoms.”

Whether the story has a happy ending is a matter of perspective. There was no happy-ever-after marriage, and yet Judah “steps up to the plate,” and Tamar secures her rightful place in the family. She gives birth to twins, one of whom (Pharez) is an ancestor of Boaz. Tamar is in the genealogy of Christ.
To me, that’s a remarkable story, even more so when I ponder Tamar’s courage. Her choices were to stay forever in her father’s house, not free to remarry, or to take matters into her own hands. Still, it was risky. What if Judah had recognized her and punished her on the spot? What if she hadn’t conceived? What if Judah said the bracelets, signet, and staff weren’t his? Not to mention the fact that she had to be intimate with her father-in-law!

How courageous are you? How far would you go to secure your future? Would you risk everything?

Fact or Interpretation?

Here’s the quote of the day that popped up on the computer this morning, one that perfectly sums up some thoughts I had earlier in the day: “There are no facts, only interpretations.” Friedrich Nietzsche

I’ve been reading a book about flawed families in the Bible, and after reading a chapter about Dinah’s “rape” this morning, I started thinking, “Who really knows what happened?” Really, who does? Who knows whether Jacob and Leah’s daughter was raped or whether she willingly submitted to Shechem? Who knows whether she should have stayed home instead of going into the city? Who knows whether she was dressed in a provocative manner, or whether Shechem, accustomed to having his way as a princely sort of guy, just liked what he saw and “took” her?

The book I read this morning made it seem that while Dinah probably deserves our compassion, she should have stayed in the family compound where it was safe. Plus, the author makes Jacob appear uncaring, conniving, and self-centered. Perhaps he was all of those things. I don’t know. When I read The Red Tent a few years ago, I was convinced that Dinah and Shechem were madly in love with each other. Some well-meaning friends and fellow bloggers might direct me to the source: the Bible. Yet, how many times has that sacred text been interpreted and re-interpreted? How many things have been left out? How likely is it that words in good old English mean the same as those in Hebrew?

I have no answers, only questions…and a basic curiosity. I’m inclined to agree with Nietzsche that there are more interpretations than there are facts. What about you?

Eve, Rachel, or Sarah???

This is going to be a short one. Really, it is. I'm not sharp enough to go on and on with a lengthy post tonight. I simply want to say that as much as I admire the women of the Bible, I KNOW that Heavenly Father knew what He was doing when He sent me to live in this particular dispensation of time on the American continent. I like air conditioning, cars, iced lemonade, computers, and microwaves. And even though I'm not a classic feminist, I do like knowing that I don't have to go and do whatever my man tells me to do. I wouldn't have made a very good Sarah (a.k.a. Sarai) who followed Abraham all over creation and even lived in a couple of harems because her husband told her to. I wouldn't have made a very good Hagar either. I want to be #1 Wife, not a surrogate mother banished from the household. And Eve...even now people berate her for her "foolish" choice. Personally speaking, I'm glad she ate of the tree of knowledge. Otherwise she and Adam might never have left Eden and started a family: our family. I was thinking of the beautiful Rachel earlier today. Although Jacob loved her dearly, there was Leah always just ahead of her as first wife and mother of six sons. And speaking of childbearing, it's not easy in the best of situations, but in the desert without medication or official doctors...I can't even imagine it. Dont want to either.

As I think of the other women, at the moment I can't single out even one that I'd rather trade places with. How about you?