|
|
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
|
Extra Websites
Bible Women:
Major Events
Bible
Art: Tamar & Judah
Bible
People: Tamar
Bible
Archaeology: Cities
|
Sacred prostitution was part of Canaanite religious practice, and Canaanites were the dominant social group at the time of Tamar and Judah. The Canaanites saw sexuality, either human or in Nature, as a divine force. According to Herodotus, a Greek historian writing in about 450BC, a Babylonian woman would undertake the following ritual:
she would disguise herself at least once during her life, covering her face with a veil. In this way she discarded her own personal identity. She would then go to the temple and receive a man who was a stranger to her (Herodotus 1.199). This man, in this particular act, represented the incarnate god. Their sexual act was meant, by what is called ‘sympathetic magic’, to reflect and encourage fertility in the Great Mother, Nature. Herodotus emphasized that, once a woman had fulfilled this obligation, she was virtuous and loyal to her husband for the rest of her life. This of course was in Babylon, not Canaan, but the Canaanites seem to have followed a similar practice. The Law of Moses ruled that when brothers lived together in a clan and one of them died leaving a widow but no children, the woman had to marry one of his surviving brothers.
The purpose of this law was to provide for the widow, to carry on the name of the dead husband, and to keep family property intact. The father of the dead man had the responsibility of seeing that this was carried out. He had to marry his second son to the widow, and see that she was given the rights and privileges of a wife within the tribe. Judah did not do this. He married Tamar to Onan, his second son, but he did not prevent Onan practising contraception. There may have been any number of reasons for this, but the fact remained that Tamar was not given the opportunity of bearing a son who would inherit his father's property. Instead, Onan would receive his older brother's share of the family possession. According to the Levirate Law, when Onan died Judah should have married Tamar to Shelah, his third son. He did not, and Tamar's story, told over and over by the Hebrew tribespeople, emphasised the legal rights of widowed women. Women in the early biblical period It was probably in this period that women enjoyed greatest freedom and prestige. Stories in Genesis and Exodus show them as independent, strong, smart and tough. They displayed leadership and initiative. The
women
almost always got their way when they wanted something. This was probably because women were necessary for the survival of the tribe, and they knew it. Women did a wide range of tasks, without which the clan or family simply could not have
managed - see the second section of Bible
Archaeology: Work
for the range of these tasks. Their contribution to the culture of the time was significant. The stories as we have them in the Bible were edited much later by male priests, but there are hints that women had a thriving cultural tradition of their own - most of which was unfortunately lost because it was never recorded, as men's stories were. These stories dealt with women who were famous at the time, with families, children, food supplies, security/safety and home-places. Some scholars suggest that many of the stories of Genesis were originally women’s stories, preserved by women in the clan and later written down by the male scribes.
As well, women played an active role in religious matters. The concept of monotheism was just beginning to develop, but many women probably worshipped a fertility goddess, the Great Mother, source of plant, animal and human life. Ancient Near Eastern religions certainly had fertility of the soil and animal life as one of their main focuses, with priestesses who served the forces of Nature - the power of river and rain water, abundance of crops and animals, etc. The laws of Hammurabi, a famous law-maker and king of Babylonia, provide insights into the lives of women in this period. There were laws to
For additional information on the lives of women in the Bible, see the links to Family, work and religion: the tribe, the family, slaves, women's tasks, beliefs Milestones in a woman's life: Puberty, menstruation, marriage, childbirth, death, burials Clothing and housing : ancient fabric, weaving, different styles for rich and poor |
|||||||
