Studia Antiqua Studia Antiqua
Volume 15 Number 1 Article 4
June 2016
Recovering Female Authors of the Bible Recovering Female Authors of the Bible
Sarah Palmer
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T
he assumption that ancient scripture was primarily written by men and
for men has been accepted by many and tested by few, especially as it
concerns the Hebrew Bible. Most feminist critics, historical critics, and liter-
ary critics would agree with the statement by Danna Nolan Fewell that “the
Bible, for the most part, is an alien text (to women), not written by women or
with women in mind.” Almost all biblical scholars can safely agree that male
prophets, scribes, and poets wrote the majority of the books of the Hebrew
Bible. However, there is that caveat: “for the most part.”
Although many sections of the Bible may seem alien to women, there
is evidence that a few of these texts were actually composed by women.
Surprisingly, literature on this theory is almost completely absent. ere have
been many articles and books published in the last few decades by both male
and female feminist critics that reevaluate stories about women in the Bible
and that analyze the tragic, violent, or ippant way that women are sometimes
discussed in the Bible. However, nding scholarly work discussing whether
certain texts were actually composed or even written down initially by women
is nearly impossible.
Proving that certain texts were actually written by women is impossible,
but providing evidence that some texts could have been written by women is
. Danna Nolan Fewell, “Reading the Bible Ideologically: Feminist Criticism,” in To
Each Its Own Meaning: An Introduction to Biblical Criticisms and eir Application, eds.
Stephen Haynes and Steven McKenzie (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, ), .
. Examples include stories like the concubine raped by Benjaminites, Tamar (both,
for dierent reasons), and the many allegories in which Israel or Judah is compared to a wife
who has prostituted herself out, aer which YHWH decides to expose her to rape, beatings,
and humiliation from “the nations.” is last category of biblical pericope has been the topic
of much discussion. See Linda Day, “Rhetoric and Domestic Violence in Ezekiel ,” Biblical
Interpreter , no. (): –.
RECOVERING FEMALE AUTHORS OF THE BIBLE
SARAH PALMER
Sarah Palmer recently graduated from Brigham Young University with a
bachelor’s degree in ancient Near Eastern studies and a minor in modern Hebrew.
P: R F A B
possible. Although no one can prove denitively who wrote the Bible, or even
the genders of individual authors, it is worthwhile to question the assumption
that all texts are masculine and to entertain the idea of a female author. ree
texts that are not only about women, but which are also explicitly attributed
to women in the text of the Bible, are the Song of Deborah, the Song of the
Mother of King Lemuel, and Hannah’s Prayer. ese texts all share a few sim-
ilarities that could indicate a “feminine genre”: the use of poetic verse, praise
of deity, interest in women and women’s concerns as their primary subject
matter, and sympathy towards women’s suering in situations such as war and
sexual violence. Considering the possibility that female authorship could exist
in the Bible opens the eld of feminist Biblical criticism to new possibilities
and areas of study.
Evidence of Female Authorship
How can scholars recognize when a biblical text has been written by a
woman? Outside of the texts themselves, there is not much authentic literature
about how the Bible was written and by whom. A narrative or song attributed
to a certain person in the text or by tradition by no means makes the author-
ship certain—something biblical scholars know well.
Most texts in the Hebrew Bible show a very negative view of the fairer sex
by male biblical authors. Within texts like the Adam and Eve narrative, the
story of the concubine raped and killed by the Benjaminites, and other “texts
of terror” for women, there are glimpses of women being blamed, raped, and
killed. e male authors of these texts typically show little or no compassion.
Women’s feelings are considered much less than that of their male counter-
parts. All of these texts lead us to the conclusion that women’s voices were
silenced and unwanted by this society.
However, other Hebrew Bible pericopes have a more positive view of
women and the importance of listening to women’s words. Chief among these
is the account of Josiah and Huldah. When Josiah nds the “Book of the Law”
in the temple, he asks his advisors (including Hilkiah the High Priest) to go
. “On that day Deborah and Barak son of Abinoam sang this song.” (Judg :)
. “e sayings of King Lemuel — a song with which his mother instructed him.”
(Prov :)
. “en Hannah prayed and said . . . ” ( Sam :)
. Richard Elliot Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (New York: Harpercollins, ).
. See Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, ).
. Compare David’s concerns in the case of Tamar and Amnon.
., S
and “inquire of YHWH.” Oddly, instead of praying directly to YHWH (aer
all, the High Priest of YHWH is among them), they turn to the Prophetess
Huldah in order to inquire of YHWH. Huldah is one of several women re-
ferred to in the Hebrew Bible as a prophetess. e Deuteronomistic author
of the text, as well as King Josiah, the High Priest Hilkiah, and three other
important aristocratic men, obviously believed Huldah spoke for YHWH, and
they not only sought out her counsel, but recorded it aerwards. is peri-
cope provides evidence that the words of “wise women” and prophetesses were
sought out and recorded.
Female Authorship in the Ancient Near East
In order to recognize markers of female authorship we may need to look
outside of the Bible, at texts known to be authored by women anciently and
in similar areas and cultures. Here, we will look at the poetry of Enheduanna,
High Priestess of the moon god Nanna at Ur in Sumeria during the third mil-
lennium BCE.
Enheduanna was the daughter of the Akkadian King Sargon, and she
was appointed by her father to be the En-Priestess of Ur as he conquered
Mesopotamia. She is the rst author in history of either sex whose name we
know and whose works are attributed to her. She lived during a time of great
cultural change in Sumeria, and she was instrumental in uniting the culturally
diverse kingdom her father created. Archaeologist Leonard Wooley rediscov-
ered Enheduanna in when he found an alabaster disk bearing her name
and image in the Early Dynastic Level of the giparu at Ur.
On this disk, which was originally found broken in several pieces and has
been heavily reconstructed, we see Enheduanna in a ounced dress and a tra-
ditional Sumerian rolled-brim cap, though the cap is a restoration and what her
original headdress looked like is unclear. She is anked by three people, all of
which are likely male temple attendants, and the man in front of Enheduanna
. Kgs :. For Hebrew Bible translations, I use the New International Version
with a few of my own variations—for example, I always substitute “the L” for “YHWH”.
is will make more sense in the context of the poetry of Enheduanna, who was praising a
single Goddess with a name, as Hannah was praising her named God.
. Others are Miriam, Deborah, Isaiah’s wife, Noadiah, and a few false prophetesses
(Ezek :).
. Kgs .
. Irene Winter, “Women in Public: e Disk of Enheduanna, e Beginning of the
Oce of En-Priestess, and the Weight of Visual Evidence,” RAI (): .
P: R F A B
is making an oering on an altar before a Ziggurat. On the reverse of the disk
is the name Enheduanna, “true lady of Nanna, wife of Nanna.”
Since this discovery, several Babylonian clay tablets have been found bear-
ing copies of poems attributed to Enheduanna. Her known anthology consists
of three long poems to Inanna, three poems to Nanna, and forty-two temple
hymns celebrating each of the several temples throughout Sargon’s kingdom.
Because of these discoveries and others, scholars now have access to a wealth
of female literature from the ancient Near East. We know that at least noble-
women in Mesopotamia could have been educated, literate, and artistically
expressive, composing poetry within only a few hundred years of the inven-
tion of writing. Despite the very patriarchal society of her time, Enheduanna
was well known, well read, well respected, and a talented poet. She was a re-
ligious leader in her community, whom men respected and followed, very
. e restoration of this Ziggurat is debated and considered improper by some.
Winter, “Women in Public,” .
. Betty De Shong Meador, Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart: Poems of the Sumerian
High Priestess Enheduanna (Austin: University of Texas Press, ), .
. Some other examples of female authorship in the ancient Near East are the ac-
count written on two paving stones in Harran by Adad-guppi (Marc Van de Mieroop, A
History of the Ancient Near East [Malden: Blackwell Publishing, ], ) and the Wadi
Daliyeh papyri, which contain legal texts written by the Samaritan woman, Babatha (Eric
M. Meyers and Sean Burt, “Exile and Return: From the Babylonian Destruction to the
Beginnings of Hellenism,” in Ancient Israel: From Abraham to the Roman Destruction of the
Temple, ed. Hershel Shanks [Washington DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, ], –).
. Although archaeologists have not discovered any texts mentioning Enheduanna
outside of her own poems and the inscription on the Enheduanna Disk, a careful reading
of her own work describes how she was able to function in a masculine way in a patriarchal
society—to the point where she is told by a man to castrate herself (Meador, Inanna, ).
Limestone Disk of Enheduanna, University of Pennsylvania Museum
., S
similar to the description we have of Deborah in Judges . e very existence
of Enheduanna and her writings is evidence that female authorship was not
only possible, but plausible in Israel. However, a stronger argument is made by
comparing Enheduanna’s poetry with female-attributed texts in the Hebrew
Bible.
Hannah’s Prayer and Lady of Largest Heart
e poem “In-nin-sa-gur-ra,” or “Lady of Largest Heart,” is a collection of
praise hymns to Inanna following a long period of suering by Enheduanna.
In this poem, Enheduanna attempts to convince Inanna to ease her suering
by praising Inanna’s many wonderful qualities and testifying of how faithful
she is in worshipping her goddess.
Lady of Largest Heart
Keen-for-battle Queen
Joy of the Annuna
Eldest daughter of the Moon
In all lands supreme
Tower among great rulers
…
Who dares defy her
Queen of lied head
She is greater than the mountain
e rst few lines of this poem praise Inanna and establish her as the
greatest among all gods and kings alike. is introduction of praise and ven-
eration is echoed in Hannah’s Prayer:
. In the introduction to Judges , Deborah is described using typically mascu-
line phraseology: “leading Israel at that time,” deciding disputes, acting as a judge in the
Ephraimite hill country, and ultimately leading an army into battle.
. e cause of this pain is never expressed, although the eects are explained
clearly: “my Lady/what day will you have mercy/how long will I cry a moaning prayer/I am
yours/why do you slay me?” (Meador, Lady of Largest Heart, .)
. For translations of Enheduanna’s poetry, I used Betty De Shong Meador’s transla-
tions in Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart: Poems of the Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna
(Austin: University of Texas Press, ). Although Meador is not a Sumerian scholar, she
worked closely with several, such as Daniel Foxvog, while creating these translations. I have
found her volume to be the most complete translation of Enheduanna’s poems to Inanna.
P: R F A B
My heart rejoices in YHWH
In YHWH my horn is lied high
…
ere is no one holy like YHWH
ere is no one besides you
ere is no rock like our God
Hannah’s prayer in Samuel :– is a short but profound poem attrib-
uted to Hannah. is poem appears, according to the text, to have been sung
by Hannah in the courtyard of the Temple in Shiloh aer she weaned her son,
Samuel, whom she had promised to YHWH in a previous year. e impe-
tus for Hannah’s promise with YHWH came from the continual provocation
by “her rival,” Elkanah’s other wife, Peninnah. According to the account in
Samuel :–, Peninnah regularly drove Hannah to tears by ridiculing her
for her barrenness. is prayer is a song of triumph, praising YHWH who has
the power to make “the barren [bear] seven” and cause “she that hath many
children [to] wax feeble.” Hannah pined for a child for years, and aer being
blessed with a child, placed him into the service of YHWH as promised. In this
prayer, she continues her praise of YHWH for taking away her “shame.”
e underlying theme of this text, jealousy between two women brought
about by diculty in conceiving, is exclusively feminine. In the Bible, bar-
renness is never attributed to men, but is attributed to women many times.
In ancient Near Eastern contexts, childlessness is almost always considered a
defect in a wife, and not in a husband. Because of this, it was very shame-
ful for ancient women to not bear children, especially when another of her
husband’s wives was bearing children. is song is then mainly about the tri-
umph over shame that Hannah experienced aer the birth of her son; shame
that was placed on her because of the expectations of her culture. In both this
prayer and in “Lady of the Largest Heart,” these poets praise the power of their
deity to bring shame on their enemies and bring ruin on the strong.
. Sam :–.
. Or, at least, it was exclusively feminine in this cultural context. Today, with our
better understanding of how conception works, we know that men can just as easily be
the cause of barrenness, and it is entirely possible for jealousy to arise between two men
because one is fertile and the other is not.
. John Byron, “Infertility and the Bible : e Defective Wife,” e Biblical World:
Dedicated to the Study of All ings Biblical (blog), Jan , http://thebiblicalworld.
blogspot.com///childlessness-and-bible--defective.html?m=.
. Hennie J. Marsman, Women in Ugarit and Israel: eir Social and Religious
Position in the Context of the Ancient Near East, OtSt (Leiden: Brill, ), .
. Similar situations arise in other biblical passages, such as the fallout between
Sarah and Hagar (Gen :–) and Rachel and Leah (Gen :–).
., S
e one who disobeys
She does chase, twist
aict with jumbled eyes
…
Greatest of the great rulers
A pit trap for the headstrong
a rope snare for the evil
…
What she has crushed to powder
Never will rise up
e scent of fear stains her robe
She wears
e carved-out ground plan
Of Heaven and Earth
…
Inanna
You draw men into unending strife
Or crown with fame
A favored person’s life
Do not keep talking so proudly
Or let your mouth speak such arrogance
For YHWH is a God who knows
And by him deeds are weighed
…
For the foundations of the earth are
YHWH’s
On them he has set the world
He will guard the feet of his faithful
servants
But the wicked will be silenced in the
place of darkness
Because it is not by strength that a man
prevails
ose who oppose YHWH will be
broken
e Most High will thunder from
heaven
YHWH will judge the ends of the earth.
He will give strength to his king
and exalt the horn of his annointed
Especially striking is the explicit assertion, in both texts, that the deity has
control over heaven and earth. Enheduanna writes that Inanna wears upon her
“the carved-out ground plan of heaven and earth,” while Hannah remarks that
“the foundations of the earth are YHWH’s.” Here we see two very similar com-
positions: both glorify each woman’s deity, both extoll YHWH and Inanna’s
role in architecturally creating and shaping the earth, and both rejoice in
. Meador, Inanna, –.
. Sam :.
. Sam :b–.
. It is interesting to note that in the etiological narrative of Mesopotamia, Inanna
was not actually the deity that created and shaped the earth, rather it was Apsu and Tiamat.
Enheduanna, through her poetry, raises Inanna to a position among the Mesopotamian
Pantheon that she had not hitherto enjoyed, that of ruler over all other gods. is was a the-
ology that persisted for the next few hundred years in Mesopotamia. See Stephanie Dalley,
Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, ).
P: R F A B
their respective deity’s power to destroy enemies and the wicked. Keeping in
mind that worship is not an exclusively male experience, but is a shared ex-
perience between both genders, these similarities could point to a “woman’s
genre” in the ancient Near East. ere are masculine texts laid out in a similar
manner, which could indicate instead a more general pattern of praise hymn
utilized by both male and female authors. However, the emphasis on female
characters and experiences in the texts discussed here mark them as feminine
rather than masculine.
e Song of Deborah and the Exaltation of Inanna
Another of Enheduanna’s long poems to Inanna is Nin-me-šar-ra, or “e
Exaltation of Inanna.” is piece, unlike the majority of Enheduanna’s earlier
works, is not simply a hymn of praise to her goddess, but an autobiographi-
cal story of the time when Enheduanna was driven away from her post as
En-Priestess of Ur by Lugalanne, a man who took part in the rebellion in Ur
against Naram-Sin (Enheduanna’s nephew). In this poem, Enheduanna de-
scribes all of the pain and humiliation this man has brought upon her and
pleads with Inanna to open her heart to her again and help her. By the end of
the poem, Enheduanna is reinstated as En-Priestess of Nanna.
Truly for your gain
You drew me toward
My holy quarters
I, the High Priestess
I, Enheduanna
ere I raised the ritual basket
ere I sang the shout of joy
is poem shares a few similarities with the Song of Deborah, a mix of
praise and storytelling in the genre of a poem told in the rst person. In ,
W. F. Albright made the claim that “Nearly all competent biblical scholars be-
lieve that the Song (of Deborah) is the oldest document which the Bible has
. To clarify, I am only arguing that the poetic Prayer of Hannah in Samuel :–
could have been written by a woman, not the narrative surrounding the poem. Although
this narrative draws on the same feminine themes as the poem, it seems more likely that the
author of the greater Samuel narrative wrote it. e author may have used Hannah’s account
as a primary source, while the poem itself seems to be a direct quote.
. Meador, Inanna, .
., S
preserved in approximately its original form.” is passage begins with the
phrase, “And Deborah and Barak son of Abinoam sang on this day.” Here we
have a clear attribution to a woman as the composer and singer of this song,
although it is doubled with an attribution to a man. It is dicult to tell which
verses can be safely attributed to Deborah. Verses – can condently be at-
tributed to her because she refers to herself in the rst person: “Villagers in
Israel would not ght, they held back until I, Deborah, arose, I arose a mother
in Israel.” With an attribution and a rst-person reference to a female author,
it is obvious that, at least traditionally, this text was considered to be composed
in part by a female author.
A striking similarity between these two song-stories is displayed in the
following passages:
e Woman will dash his fate
at Lugalanne
e mountains, the biggest oods
Lie at Her feet
e Woman is as great as he
She will break the city from him
Most blessed of women be Jael
the wife of Heber the Kenite
most blessed of tent-dwelling women
…
Her hand reached for the tent peg
Her right hand for the workman’s
hammer
She struck Sisera, she crushed his head
She shattered and pierced his temple
At her feet he sank, he fell; there he
lay
In both of these works, the poet emphasizes the fact that woman ulti-
mately triumphs over man, and that women are just as capable as men at win-
ning battles and carrying out the work of their deity. is is an aspect that is
hardly, if ever, found in literature written by men, especially in the ancient
Near East. It is also one of the most compelling reasons to attribute the Song
to a woman.
e Song of Deborah and e Exaltation of Inanna are both beautiful,
long poems that glorify the poets’ deities, but that also dwell on human women
in the story. Deborah herself is a major gure in the Song, who rose up and
. W.F. Albright, “e Song of Deborah in the Light of Archaeology,” BASOR
(): –.
. Judg :.
. Judg :.
. Meador, Inanna, .
. Judg :, –.
P: R F A B
led the tribes of Israel into battle against her enemies. Jael is the ultimate victor
in the battle. e fact that these traditionally masculine roles of leader and
victor in war are given to women could be another indication that the Song of
Deborah was actually composed by a woman. Female characters in masculine-
attributed texts of the Bible are generally treated as the victims of violence
rather than the instigators, or are resigned to the position of mother or wife
and their actions are not expounded upon outside of those roles.
In the Exaltation of Inanna as well, the poet remarks on her own role in
carrying out the work of Inanna:
I have heaped up coals in the brazier
I have washed in the sacred basin
I have readied your room
in the tavern
(may your heart be cooled for me)
Suering bitter pangs
I gave birth to this exaltation
For you my Queen
Enheduanna describes here her role in actually giving birth to Inanna’s
exaltation. is seems to be a reference to her religious innovations in Ur,
which exalted Inanna to a position above all other gods in the Mesopotamian
Pantheon, even exalting her above Nanna whom Enheduanna explicitly
served. is account parallels the accounts of Deborah and Jael, in which
women are used to exalt YHWH as the fulllment of prophecies.
However, not only are stories of “righteous” women allied with Israel
given a place in this poem; the very end of the Song of Deborah reects on the
usual situation of women when their men go to war.
. Jael is also “masculinized” in this pericope by the inversion of the traditionally
female roles of lover, mother, and rape victim. e scene of Sisera eeing to Jael’s tent is
ironically full of sexual and maternal imagery. e repeated action of Jael “covering” Sisera
(והסכתו) is suggestive of a sexual encounter. ere is also maternal imagery in the action
of covering him with a blanket and bringing him milk. All of these roles are reversed with
Jael’s betrayal.
. Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of biblical Narratives
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, ).
. Meador, Inanna, .
. is is referred to earlier in the poem, when Enheduanna writes, “I shall not/pay
tribute to Nanna/it is of you/I proclaim” (Meador, Inanna, ).
. “YHWH will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman.” (Judg :)
., S
rough the window peered Siser’s mother
Behind the lattice she cried out
“Why is his chariot so long in coming?
Why is the clatter of his chariots delayed?
e situation described here is a caricature of the “woman at the window”
motif. e use of this image appears to be meant to appeal especially to other
women, mothers, wives, and daughters, who have been in that position before.
However, the initial attempt of the author to invoke sorrow for this bereaved
mother on the part of the reader is dramatically reversed with the following
verses.
e wisest of her ladies answer her
Indeed, she keeps saying to herself
“Are they not nding and dividing the spoils?
A womb or two for each man
Colorful garments as plunder for Sisera
Colorful garments embroidered
Highly embroidered garments for my neck
All this as plunder?”
So may all your enemies perish, YHWH!
e mothers and wives of Israel’s enemies stand gleefully contemplating
the rape of Israelite women by their sons, and the plunder that they will bring
back to them. Once again, this condemnation of the formerly pitiable mother
of Sisera is especially eective when used before a female audience, who were
more likely to become rape victims than men in this context because of ac-
cepted war practices. In fact, some believe that the repeated sexual language
in the Jael/Sisera section of the poem may be an allusion to a rape of Jael by
Sisera, although her invitation for him to enter the tent makes this less likely.
However, even this traditional view of women as easy victims of rape is turned
on its head as Jael drives the tent peg into Sisera’s mouth and then the ground.
. Judg :.
. D. N. Pienaar, “Symbolism in the Samaria Ivories and Architecture,” AcT ():
–.
. Judg :–.
. Susan Brooks istlewaite, “You May Enjoy the Spoil of Your Enemies: Rape as a
Biblical Metaphor for War,” Semeia (): –.
. Fewell and Gunn argue that the word usually translated as “his temple/side of his
head” (ותקר) should instead be translated as mouth because of the other uses of the word in
Psalms and Song of Solomon. “In Songs, both the sequence of description and the (sexually
P: R F A B
is transforms the woman, who would predictably be the rape victim in this
scenario, into a gurative rapist.
is sheds light on a possible reason for Jael’s actions: she was married to
a man who had allied himself with the losing side of the war. As a civilian who
lived in the war zone, she knew what was coming her way. By killing Sisera
and presenting his body to Barak, she became a hero instead of a victim in the
aermath of this battle. Similar to the characters of Deborah and Enheduanna,
Jael takes charge of her own position in society, rather than having her actions
dictated by men. is account of Jael has inverted every patriarchal notion
of women; it is truly unique within the biblical cannon. All of these factors
combine to suggest that this song was in fact composed by a woman. If not
Deborah herself, then perhaps a contemporary woman or a woman who lived
shortly aer her time.
Another text in the Hebrew Bible that is both about women and attributed
to a woman is the well-quoted passage in Proverbs on the qualities of a vir-
tuous woman. is passage has historically been interpreted as a man’s ideal-
ized notion of what a good wife should be, and it may be just that. However,
the introduction of this poem oers us another option: what if this is actually
a woman’s idealized notion of what a good wife should be?
e sayings of King Lemuel – a song with which his
mother instructed him:
“Listen, my son! Listen, son of my womb!
Listen, my son, the answer to my prayers!”
e attribution of this saying is a bit confusing; is King Lemuel the com-
poser, or his mother? However, the rst stanza of the poem makes it clear who
is speaking: it is told from the rst-person perspective of Lemuel’s mother.
From the text, it seems that this song could either be an exact transcription of
a song sung by King Lemuel’s mother, or King Lemuel’s rendition of the song,
in which case it could have been heavily edited and changed to the point where
the poem was no longer truly the composition of a woman.
charged) comparison to a ‘split pomegranate’ strongly suggest ‘mouth’ rather than ‘temple.’”
(Danna Nolan Fewell and D.M. Gunn, “Controlling Perspectives: Women, Men, and the
Authority of Violence in Judges and ,” JAAR : []: –.)
. Johann Christian Konrad von Hofmann, Schribeweis (Nördlingen: C. H.
Bed’schen, ), .
. Prov :–. is translation is my own.
., S
In this song, Lemuel’s mother oers him advice and chastisement. She
advises him to not “spend [his] strength on women,” to avoid beer and be-
coming drunk, to speak up for the destitute, and in general to be a good, righ-
teous, and fair judge and king. Following this, there is an abrupt shi to the
discussion of a virtuous woman; so abrupt, in fact, that most scholars think
that Proverbs :– is a separate text entirely from Proverbs :–. e
recipient of this song, King Lemuel, is only mentioned in this proverb, and
is otherwise unknown in the Bible or extrabiblical Jewish literature. ere
are several theories about who Lemuel was. According to rabbinic tradition,
Lemuel was another name for Solomon, which would make the composer of
this proverb Bathsheba. However, this tradition was most likely an attempt
to conform to the idea that Solomon is the author of the Book of Proverbs.
is song is dierent in many ways from the previous feminine texts we
have surveyed thus far. ere is almost nothing theological about it. It is not
written as a praise of YHWH or another god, but is rather a song of advice
from a mother to her son. However, it does maintain a few of the genre char-
acteristics described thus far. Namely, it is in verse form rather than prose, it is
told from a rst-person perspective, and it specically discusses women. e
secular, human material is also dierent from Enheduanna’s texts. Despite the
dierence in genre, its feminine attribution makes it possible that verses –,
or perhaps even the whole proverb, were written by a woman.
Markers of a Feminine Genre
From the examples listed above—and assuming that most biblical texts
attributed to women in the Bible actually were composed by women—we can
see a few dening features of this genre:
. Women always used poetic verse when writing; this could have been
either written or sung from memory.
. eir poetry usually consisted of praise to YHWH, although secular
ideas may be addressed instead.
. Prov :.
. Claudia V. Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book of Proverbs (Sheeld:
JSOT Press, ).
. Moncure Daniel Conway, Solomon and Solomonic Literature (Charleston:
BiblioBazaar, ), .
. For some interesting insights on the discussion of the feminine, and especially the
female “Wisdom” in Proverbs, see Claudia V. Camp, Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book
of Proverbs (Sheeld: JSOT Press, ) and Wise, Strange, and Holy: e Strange Woman
and the Making of the Bible (Sheeld: Sheeld Academic Press, ).
P: R F A B
. ese compositions usually included women and women’s concerns
as their subject matter, such as a woman’s place in society, pregnancy
and barrenness, rape, children, and marriage.
. e tone of the poetry is usually sympathetic towards the plight of
women.
ere may never be a way to denitively prove who the authors of indi-
vidual biblical texts really were. Even the authorship of the prophetic books
of the Hebrew Bible or the Epistles of the New Testament, all attributed to
certain men, are disputed in scholarly circles. It is a popular thing to discuss
the Deuteronomist, Proto-Isaiah, Deutero-Isaiah, etc., and stay away from
suggesting that any book of the Bible was actually written by who it says it
was written by. However, in many of these arguments, an alternative author is
not suggested; it is simply fashionable to question everything the Bible claims.
is seems to be the case with feminine texts as well. We tend to shy away
from attributing anything directly to Deborah, Hannah, Bathsheba, etc., even
though—as is the case with the Song of Deborah—the text seems relatively
unchanged and dates back to the period in which the historical events were
claimed to have happened. I am not suggesting that scholars begin to exercise
a hermeneutic of faith. However, an extreme hermeneutic of suspicion is just
as subjective in most situations. Unless there is another explanation that makes
better sense, to me it seems natural to assume that certain biblical texts were
indeed written by the person to whom they are attributed. is holds true for
texts attributed to women. ere is much stronger evidence for female literacy
in the ancient Near East than many think, and it is a disservice to everyone to
assume, in the face of all this evidence, that there is no female composition in
the Bible. ese feminine texts help women relate to the Bible in a way that
other texts do not allow, and they give us an intimate glimpse into the lives,
feelings, and art of ancient Israelite women.
