Article October 22, 2007 ISSUE

Women IN THE Bible AND today—A SPIRITUAL LINK

BY ELAINE FOLLIS

COUNTLESS BOOKS have been written about women in Bible times. And most people know how the story goes: Ancient Hebrews, like their neighbors, were intensely misogynistic; women had legal status somewhere at or below the level of cattle; and only a few of them rose above their station to gain even name recognition in Scripture. "And that's the way it was in ancient Israel. ..."

But over the centuries, things have changed. Well, sort of. While some cultures in the world do hold to old traditions relegating women to second-class citizenship or even according them no citizenship at all, many other cultures have undergone an attitude adjustment fueled by the phenomenon called feminism. I decided to look up the word, remembering how, in the 1970s, it used to be "fighting language," certain to arouse strong feelings, fury, and tears—and that was just around the dinner table at my house. According to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia—hardly an intellectual resource, but a pretty good mirror of contemporary culture—feminism is defined simply as "an ideology focusing on the equality of both sexes." Nobody argues with that very much anymore. Today, it's a "given."

About the author

Contributing editor Elaine Follis is a Christian Science practitioner as well as the executive manager of The Mary Baker Eddy Library. She lives in Quincy, Massachusetts.

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