Making Sense of Motherhood

Biblical and Theological Perspectives

Beth M. Stovell, Stovell

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781625646750
  9781498288248
• eBook ISBN:
  9781498273718
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

Motherhood provides a crucial place for exploring human life and its meaning. Within motherhood lies a deep tension between the pain, crisis, and association with death in motherhood and the joy, transformation, and life in motherhood. Few metaphors in Scripture (or in life) stand so firmly between life and death, love and loss, and joy and deep pain. After all, motherhood's meaning in part comes again and again at these crucial crossroads. Thus, motherhood has powerful implications for our biblical and theological understanding. Bringing together Jewish and ecumenical Christian scholars from North America, Oceania, and South America, this edited volume provides biblical and theological perspectives on understanding motherhood. The authors reflect upon a selection of biblical texts, systematic theologians, and Christian spiritual traditions to dialogue with the experience of maternity in its diverse manifestations. The purpose of the book is to provide essays that--through these biblical and theological lenses--engage the question of motherhood today, from the experience of pregnancy and birth, to raising children, to losing children and coping with grief. In this way, this volume helps to "make sense" of the complexity of motherhood.

Part I

The Hebrew Bible and Motherhood

1

Lot’s Daughters and Tamar

Mothers Positively Reimagined in Genesis Rabbah

Shayna Sheinfeld

Introduction

In Genesis, stories of deception by women are a fairly common trope: three separate times the wives of the patriarchs lie about their relationships with their husbands while sojourning in a foreign land in order to keep their husbands safe (Gen 12:10–20, 20:1–18, 26:1–17); Lot’s daughters use alcohol to impede Lot’s senses in order to gain offspring by him (Gen 19); Rebekah tricks Isaac into giving her favorite (younger) son, Jacob, the blessing intended for the firstborn Esau (Gen 27); Rachel steals her father’s teraphim, hiding them in her saddlebags and sitting upon them while feigning menstruation (Gen 31); and Tamar deceives Judah into having sex with her after he denies her his last son through a levirate marriage (Gen 38). Two of these instances—the Gen 19 account of Lot’s daughters and the Gen 28 story of Tamar—focus on the use of deceptive tactics to become pregnant and achieve motherhood. While the narratives as told in Genesis are neutral in terms of casting judgment upon these characters seeking motherhood, they are reimagined in midrashic interpretation with a decidedly positive spin.

This chapter examines the characterization of Lot’s daughters in Gen 19:30–37 and of Tamar in Gen 38, both of whom use deceptive means in order to become mothers. These women are re-characterized in the early midrashic collection known as Genesis Rabbah,1 where they are portrayed as righteous despite their wiles. This rabbinic corpus is sympathetic to the plights of these mothers-to-be, providing justification for their subversive actions because the end result is considered God’s will—the male offspring produced by both Lot’s oldest daughter and by Tamar eventually lead to the Davidic dynasty and therefore will also one day lead to the messiah.2 These narratives from Genesis and their reception in the midrash show how—even though these mothers’ choices are incongruent with what one might expect from women in the Torah—according to the midrash, the end result justifies the deceptive means by which each mother acts. Genesis Rabbah makes sense of the subversive way Lot’s daughters and Tamar reach motherhood by turning potentially negative stories of women into stories of motherhood that will ultimately lead to the messianic redemption of the Jewish people.

Lot’s Daughters (Gen 19:30–37)

Lot, the nephew of the patriarch Abraham, lived with his family in a city called Sodom. Along with Gomorrah, Sodom was to be destroyed by God on account of its wickedness (Gen 18:16–33). Lot is saved because he invites strangers into his home; these strangers are identified as the angels (malak) sent to destroy the city (19:1–11).3 At the angels’ urging, Lot and his family escape with the caveat that the family is not to look back toward the city (19:12–17). Once Lot and his family have left, God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah with sulfur and fire (19:24–25). Lot’s wife is turned into a pillar of salt after she looks back toward the destruction (19:26). Left with only his two daughters and frightened by the experience, Lot removes himself and his daughters to live in a cave in the hills, far away from any civilization. Lot’s daughters are concerned about their solitude and the possibility of preserving humanity, so they decide to get their father drunk and have intercourse with him with the goal of getting pregnant:

And the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the world. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring through our father.” So they made their father drink wine that night; and the firstborn went in, and lay with4 her father; he did not know when she lay down or when she rose. On the next day, the firstborn said to the younger, “Look, I lay last night with my father; let us make him drink wine tonight also; then you go in and lie with him, so that we may preserve offspring through our father.” So they made their father drink wine that night also; and the younger rose, and lay with him; and he did not know when she lay down or when she rose. Thus both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father (19:31–36).

The firstborn names her son Moab, a boy who is said to have become the ancestor of the Moabites (19:37), while the younger daughter bore a son named Ben-Ammi who is said to have become the ancestor to the Ammonites (19:38).

In later analyses of the women in this narrative, the daughters of Lot are given short shrift, since the emphasis is on their mother, who is turned into salt in Gen 19:26.5 However, it is with this particular portion of the story that our analysis begins. At issue in this discussion is the latter half of the narrative in which Lot removes himself and his daughters from society. The concerns of the elder daughter, who is the only one of the two daughters to speak, are twofold. First, she is concerned that their father is old and therefore that he may die soon. Second, she worries there are no other available men besides him, and thus with his death there will be no men at all with whom the daughters could possibly conceive.6 Tammi Schneider notes that although it is not initially clear whether the daughters think they are indeed the last three humans or whether they simply do not have access to other men, the use of the verb for giving the father wine also means to irrigate the ground. Thus, the daughters do not simply intend to pour their dad a glass of wine but to fully “saturate” him—that is, get him very drunk.7 While the narrative in Genesis does not lay specific blame on any party for this incestuous encounter, the description of the daughters inebriating their father in order to carry out their plan suggests that Lot plays a passive role in the events that transpire; the general sense of the narrative implies the same conclusion. However, the daughters seem to make the choice to get their father drunk not only to commit incest but specifically in order to propagate the human race. “The young women were concerned with the future of the race, and they were resolute enough to adopt the only desperate measure that appeared to be available.”8 Thus, their goal does not seem to be simply sex or revenge....

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Can We Really Make Sense of Motherhood?
• Part One: The Hebrew Bible and Motherhood
• Part Two: The New Testament and Motherhood
• Part Three: Christian Theology and Spirituality and Motherhood