A woman would have been very glad to have men on the scene who would take care of her.
Because without them, you know, it's either a life of prostitution or you're on your own.
It's almost a death sentence.
Could the fact that the Bible was written by a male-dominated ancient world
have influenced how God revealed himself?
How would a female God have come across to ancient Israel?
That's a worthwhile question. I mean, revelation involves condescension.
So, God is condescending to us to reveal himself to us and to the biblical writers.
And it might make sense, and it probably does, for God to present himself this way.
How biblical writers would have reacted to something different?
Again, we don't know, because we're not told.
Again, we're not just speculating here and calling it teaching.
We have no idea because we're not told.
Chances are, I think they still would have paid attention,
especially if the deity would have done something spectacular or threatening.
They're still quite capable of getting attention and showing superiority.
But again, we don't have any examples, so we wouldn't know.
Yeah, I mean, it makes sense that God presented himself as a king, as a father, as a patriarch.
Look at the metaphors that are used, you know, king, father, priest, prophet.
I mean, some of these, you know, you have female prophetesses.
Some of the metaphors aren't as good as others, but you know, you get these,
God is a warrior, you know, these military metaphors or the kingly metaphors.
They're going to conform and do conform to your typical male roles in Israelite society.
By the way, if you're a woman in this society, who takes care of you and who's your protector?
Male figures. This isn't like an inherent threat either.
An Israelite woman would be thankful to be surrounded by Israelite men,
because they are her protectors, they're her providers.
This is just the way that that culture worked.
It's male-dominated, which, you know, we look at and we can pick at,
because our culture doesn't operate the same way.
But in Israel a woman would have been very glad
to have men on the scene who would take care of her.
That's what they're supposed to do. That's their natural role.
Because without them it's either a life of prostitution or you're on your own.
It's almost a death sentence to not be part of the home.
By the way, in the Awakening School of Theology,
which there's my hat for the Awakening School,
in second year, in the second year apologetics course,
in the Old Testament apologetics course for the second year there
there's really quite a good treatment by Carol Meyers,
who's a very famous woman, biblical scholar and archaeologist,
who really questions a lot of this feminized hermeneutics
in biblical thinking and biblical scholarship.
And it's because, again, her main argument is that, look,
women of the day would have understood this.
They wouldn't have run around critiquing it.
And she's right. She's absolutely right.
And, you know, I think we kind of lose sight of that.