#Metoo and Memorials: Making Sense of the Bible’s Traumatic Narratives

Some people view the Bible as an instrument of oppression, particularly for women. Case in point, The Freedom from Religion Foundation asserts,

…the bible is a handbook for the subjugation of women. The bible establishes woman’s inferior status, her “uncleanliness,” her transgressions, and God-ordained master/servant relationship to man.…there are more than 200 bible verses that specifically belittle and demean women.¹

Admittedly, a good number of those 200 verses that “belittle and demean,” if or when taken out of context, can sound alarming. However, most of the 200 references, read in context and understood in light of their cultural milieu, actually intend to liberate women from oppression, including the bonds of patriarchy—the human hierarchy found among almost every people group in every era and knit into the fabric of the Bible’s cultural background.²With proper exegesis, rather than subjugate women, the very verses being assaulted seek to provide care for the vulnerable, acknowledge women’s ontological equality with men, validate women who were significant leaders in Israel’s history and in church history, and open doors once closed for women based on gender alone.

Despite this good news, among the verses listed, there exist some troublesome stories: horrific accounts of injustices endured by women, stories of rape, murder, and exploitation. What do we make of Lot’s willingness to give an angry mob of would-be-rapists his virgin daughters (Gen. 19), or the rape, murder, and dismemberment of a Levite’s concubine (Judg. 19), or King David’s abuse of power in which he takes Bathsheba, impregnates her, and then murders her husband to cover it up (2 Sam. 11)? How do Christians handle these heinous stories?

Each horrific account of injustice perpetrated against a woman falls into the genre of historical narrative. A key rule in reading historical narrative is to remember that historical narratives report events, and that reporting an event does not equate to an endorsement of that event.³ Therefore, I argue the Bible’s inclusion of these accounts actually benefit women. They act as #metoo messages and as memorials of God’s intent for women’s biblical equality alongside men.

How the Bible Tells Its Story

First, between the pages of Genesis 1 and Revelation 22, the Bible tells a cohesive story. To recount a story that unfolds over more than 1,400 years in an estimated 1,200 pages,⁴ writers (including those who contributed to the biblical corpus) must carefully choose its contents. The people and events documented must illuminate critical moments, move the story’s plotline forward, paint a picture of everyday life for people in the story, and support the author’s purpose for telling the story.⁵ In other words, not every event can be retold, and not every character can be recalled. So, which stories and people should be recorded?”

Second, ancient literature “is not value neutral. It reflects the ideas of its own time, and its voice belongs to the people of its time.”⁶ Furthermore, ancient literature tends to suppress the parts of history that reflect poorly on its protagonists and its agenda.⁷ As mentioned, the Bible unfolds in a patriarchal world where men typically held the power, made the rules, and played the central roles. Thus, in records of events unfolding in patriarchal cultures, it stands to reason that most of the stories would revolve around men—written by men, for men, about men, casting these male characters in a positive light—while omitting altogether their atrocities and failures. But in a counterculture move, the Bible tells stories of men and women entrusted with power and position, playing crucial roles in the historical narrative of redemptive history. Furthermore, the Bible neither hides nor explains away the ugly and broken parts, including those that have deeply harmed women.

How the Bible Redeems Traumatic Stories

What does the Bible’s method of storytelling have to do with those horrific stories of women suffering injustice? How is the reporting of these events good news for women seeking positive acknowledgment and biblical equality alongside men? Enter the #Metoo movement.

Community activist Tarana Burke coined the phrase “me too” in 2007.⁸As a victim of abuse herself, Tarana employed the phrase to reassure others that they were not alone in their pain and trauma. In 2017, actress Alyssa Milano tweeted #metoo in response to reports of sexual abuse. #Metoo then flooded social media platforms and became part of the American household vernacular.⁹This use of the phrase raised awareness to the pandemic of sexual abuse, gave abuse survivors an opportunity to use their voices, and became a catalyst for change. Sharing stories of trauma removed stigma, shame, and isolation among survivors, supporting each one as she made sense of what had happened to her and what healing could look like.

Just as these #metoo narratives of injustice exist as a tool for liberation each of the 200 verses can do the same. Sharing these traumas does not condone them. Rather, by acknowledging these horrific injustices they suffered, women like Tarana Burke, Alyssa Milano, and Emily Joy Allison (who started the #churchtoo movement) provided support where it was needed. Likewise, the authors of the Bible give each woman a voice, validating them in every generation and across the globe, by telling their stories. Each one matters. Her suffering matters; her story matters. Like the message of #metoo, the presence of these stories within the biblical narrative brings awareness to the pandemic of the mistreatment of women, demonstrating that God will not sweep injustices under the rug or leave them as skeletons in the proverbial closet. These injustices are symptomatic of what went wrong with God’s good creation, part of what is broken, and just the sort of terrible things Jesus came to heal and put right.

But the Bible doesn’t stop there. Its authors brilliantly employ these same narratives strategically in ways that demonstrate God’s care for women and their equal status as his image bearers. Consider the book of Judges and its cast of women. “The theme of the book is the Canaanization of the Israelite society during the period of settlement.”¹⁰God planted Israel in his land to proselytize the surrounding nations to his ways; instead, the Canaanite remnant in the land converted the Israelites to their ways. “As the book of Judges proceeds, increasing injustice results in moral confusion and social chaos, a primary indication of which is the abuse of women.”¹¹ The first women mentioned, Deborah and Jael, take the stage. Their story presents respected and capable women, fierce partners with God and Barak in rescuing Israel from her oppressor (chapters 4–5). But by chapter 11 the abuse of women rears its ugly head with the senseless sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter followed by the abasement of Samson’s wife as an object of desire and a pawn in male quests for power (chapters 15–16). The epilogue (chapters 17–21), which really is the climax of the presentation, leaves readers stunned with the story of a Levite and his concubine (chapters 19), with sobering echoes of the ancient Canaanite cities, Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19). The author of Judges so esteems women and their place in God’s story that their condition in society becomes a barometer of the moral health of the Israelite community, and the evidence of injustices against women during the settlement period condemns them.

The Gospel of Matthew’s opening pericope, a genealogy of Jesus, offers another look at ways the Bible memorializes women and their importance in God’s story. Ancient genealogies are typically androcentric, intended to present continuity and relationship (usually for purposes of power and prestige) and are often formatted to suit a literary purpose.¹² A person’s name brings up his story, particularly in relationship to the larger story, stressing the author’s intentionality of each mention. Matthew includes five women in his genealogy—four of whom are not even Israelites—and each caught in a scandal’s shadow! Each woman in the genealogy represents a crucial moment in Israel’s history, confirming how God chooses women “to initiate critical junctures in Old Testament narratives.”¹³ With her shrewd actions, Tamar rescues the messianic line and provides the impetus for Judah’s much-needed character reform (Gen. 38). Erase Rahab’s covert actions and bold declaration, and the Israelite conquest hangs in the balance. Dismiss Ruth’s loyalty and lose King David (the Book of Ruth). Underestimate Uriah’s wife (Bathsheba) and Adonijah supplants Solomon as king (1 Kgs. 1). But for Mary’s willingness to trust God and embrace cultural shame, from whom would Jesus have come (Luke 1–2)?

When news media outlets report egregious events, they describe how life is, not how life should be—another mass shooting, a hunt for a serial rapist, wars breaking out across the globe, an abusive husband murders his wife and child, sex traffickers arrested. The best intentions assumed, reporters bring these events into the light to mourn what is broken, to rally for justice, to validate the suffering, and to be a catalyst for change. So, too, the Bible reports life as it is, not as God intended it be when it reports traumatic narratives. And each story becomes a #metoo message amplifying voices too often ignored, and a memorial serving to express God’s value for women and their equality with men.

Notes

“Why Women Need Freedom From Religion,” Nontract #10, Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc. https://ffrf.org/component/k2/item/18512-why-women-need-freedom-from-religion.
A number of the 200 verses cited by Freedom from Religion Foundation come from Israelite Law. Old Testament scholar Dr. Sandra Ritcher has written about, and spoken extensively on, the question, “Does the Old Testament Dehumanize women? By a thorough look at culture and language, Ritcher demonstrates the liberating and protective intent of Old Testament Law. One helpful article can be found at The Biblical Mind, “Does God Really Command Women to Marry Their Rapists? A Study of Deuteronomic Law,” https://thebiblicalmind.org/article/deuteronomic-law-women-marry-rapists/. Podcast interviews with Richter have been hosted by seminaries (such as, Dallas Theological Seminary and Beeson Divinity School at Samford University), pastors and Bible teachers (such as, Preston Sprinkle and Sandra Glahn), and podcasts that take special interest in topics effecting women (such as The Alabaster Jar).
For more information on the literary genres of the Bible and how to read them, see Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2014).
The average length of a Protestant-English-translated Bible.
No historical writing captures every moment, every event, every dialogue. That would be both logistically impossible and a boring read. Imagine writing a documentary that covers the six years of World War II, 1939–1945. The challenge would be to condense six years of conflict into a manageable and cohesive whole by strategically choosing the material that truthfully reports the event, while conveying the author’s purpose for telling the story. In the Bible’s case, the authors tell a story that plays out over 1,400+ years of human history.
Hanna K. Tervanotko, Denying Her Voice: The Figure of Miriam in Ancient Jewish Literature (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2016), 21–22.
John H. Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament (Ada: Baker Academics, 2006), 202-203.
Kerri Lee Alexander, “Tarana Burke,” National Women’s History Museum, https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/tarana-burke.
Mary Pflum,”#METOO Reckoning,” NBC News, October 15, 2018 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/year-ago-alyssa-milano-started-conversation-about-metoo-these-women-n920246.
Daniel J. Block, Judges, Ruth: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (Volume 6) (The New American Commentary), Edited by Kenneth A. Matthews and David S. Dockery, (Nashville: TN, B&H Publishing Group, 1999), 47.
Katerina Koci, “Whose Story? Which Sacrifice? On the Story of Jephthah’s Daughter,” Open Theology, no, 7 (2021): 3e. https://doi.org/10.1515/opth-2020-0167 (emphasis mine).
John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, and Mark W. Chavalas, IVP Background Commentary, Old Testament (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2000), 35.
Ingrid Faro, Online course, Women in Old Testament, Northern Seminary, Lisle, IL, October 3, 2024, lecture.