Which biblical woman do you identify with most?
The biblical woman I identify with the most is not Deborah, but Pninah, one of the two heroines of my first novel, The Song of Hannah
Why Pninah?
Here, in a nutshell, is the biblical tale on which it is based: There was a man, who had two wives. One, Pninah, had children. The other, Hannah, was barren, but he loved Hannah. So Pninah provoked her rival to make her angry. Hence Hannah cried and would not eat. Eventually she went to the Temple to pray for a son. Her petition was granted, and she gave birth to Samuel, who became a great prophet, judge and leader.
Each time I read the story, I found it deeply troubling. What disturbed me was that the Scripture shows much sympathy for Hannah, the barren woman, but no sympathy at all for Pninah, the unloved woman. Hannah is presented as the saintly, aggrieved one, Pninah as the one who aggrieves her. Surely, I said to myself, the unloved one must also have been deeply aggrieved.
It is the sense of Pninah’s deep anguish and injury that led me to identify with her, and prompted me to take up her cause in a novel. Only after I began writing did I realize that I could not give voice only to Pninah, but had to give voice to both women.
Due to the subject of your books, they could be classified as religious and inspirational. Is that your intention?
My novels are written in a light style, with suspense and twisting plots, with sensuous scenes in them, but they are also very religious novels.
Some people have asked me, how is it possible that you, a religious woman, are writing novels with sensuous scenes, based on the Bible? My reply is that some parts of the Bible have quite a few sensuous scenes in them. First and foremost, of course, is The Song of Songs, which, when you read some of its verses and ponder on what they really mean, they may make you blush. There are also other racy scenes, such as that of Judah and Tamar, Ruth and Boaz, David and Bath Sheba and more.
To my mind the beauty of the Bible is that it describes real people with real strengths and weaknesses, some of which stem from their sexuality, and that the women, too, are described as sexual persons.
So I believe that my novels are totally faithful to the spirit of the Bible. Despite having those scenes in them, they are deeply religious. I was hoping that through them I could bring the Bible alive for modern readers.
Whether they are inspirational, or not, is in the eyes of the beholder. Quite a few people have told me, that having read my novels they went back to read the Bible, of which I am very proud.
What relevance do the stories of these Biblical women have to contemporary readers?
Deborah is a prime example. Despite the difficult conditions for women prevailing at the time, she “cracked the glass ceiling” over three thousand years ago, without losing her femininity.
What contemporary readers and particularly women can learn from biblical women, especially Deborah, is that no matter what the field in which they choose to realize their potential, no matter what is right for them, they can draw on their inner strength to achieve their goals.
Who will you be writing about next?
I am now writing a novel about Tamar (the second Tamar in the Bible), the daughter of King David, who was the victim of incestuous rape by her brother. I want to show her trauma and how she rebuilt her life afterward, but I am still struggling with this and it is still far from publication.
Pages: 1 2
{ 1 trackback }
{ 0 comments… add one now }