Mormon Identity Women in the Scriptures, part 2

Episode 24 Mormon Identity Women in the Scriptures, part 2 INTRODUCTION: The views and opinions expressed here are those of the guests and are not the official position of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. [BEGIN MUSIC] INTRODUCTION: Welcome to Mormon Identity, a thirty minute talk radio program that addresses church topics important to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Our host is Robert L. Millet, Professor of Religious Education at Brigham Young University. [END MUSIC] We welcome you to Mormon Identity. I m Bob Millet, your host, and with me today is my friend and colleague, Camille Fronk Olsen, who is a professor of Ancient scripture at BYU. Welcome Camille. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: Thank-you. In our last segment, we talked about women of the Old Testament and of course we didn t make a whole lot of progress, as far as moving forward in time, but we want to continue a discussion of women in the Old Testament. Camille, let me kick us off with the women, Miriam; a very important name in both Old and New Testament. All the Mary s in the Old Testament are really Miriam s. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: That s right, that s right. Well, let s take Miriam, the sister of Moses, Moses older sister, what, tell us about, what do you find fascinating with Miriam? CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: Well, I d like to, if we could step back, because one of her titles that comes through in Exodus 15, is that she is a prophetess, and it doesn t seem that her prophetic powers, or that that title doesn t come to her because of what she does as a little girl when she saves or helps her brother be saved in the Nile river. But that s actually what most people know her for. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: That s exactly, well, let s just put that in context to remember. Exodus 2, pharaohs has given the edict, for all the boy babies to be killed by the midwives, as soon as they are born. The midwives just flat out ignore pharaoh s edict, and 1

save the babies, but then there is a problem, that when those babies are discovered, the Pharaoh now has an edict to destroy them even after they are, when they are discovered. So, little Moses has been born, and fearing that he will be discovered, Jochebed, his mother, puts him in a basket in the river, but, I think in a wonderful way, recognizes her daughter, a child can do something she could not do, she sends young Miriam, to watch what happens to that basket, and young Miriam watches, until the daughter of Pharaoh sees the basket, discovers the child, instantly falls in love with the child. Miriam comes up with this plan it seems like, little Miriam, runs up to her and says, I know someone who could nurse that baby for you. I think the daughter of Pharaoh knew exactly what was happening, but needed someone to nurse the baby, so eagerly invited the baby s mother without calling her such, into the palace to nurse young Moses, and in that way, we see Miriam, take a very active role, a risky role, in saving her brother, but years go by, Moses has now become the great deliverer, and is now leading the children of Israel out of Egypt, they go through the red sea. As they finish through the red sea, and the sea swallows up the Egyptian army, Miriam leads the women in a song that is recorded in Exodus 15. They play timbrels, which are a drum like instrument. We see that more in art from the past, artifacts that depict women playing them. It seems that was one of the roles almost exclusively had was the music and the instruments, and the dancing. The men would go to battle, and come home victorious and the women would sing of it. So it s interesting to see the very beginning of Exodus 15, that this long song is attributed to Moses. Many of the legends and other scholarly reports suggest that that was probably Miriam. Instead we just have a couple of verses with her song, but whatever the case it s in that context that Miriam is called a prophetess, and everything I know about prophets and prophetesses as that terminology is used in the Old Testament, and in that case Book of Mormon, a seer is greater than a prophet suggests that prophets and prophetess were men and women who had testimonies of Jesus Christ, that they had gained through the spirit, and they profess or bear witness of him, by that same spirit. That entire song that s recorded in Exodus 15, is a song of giving the Lord the credit of the great victory of the Egyptian army. and we re talking here about Jehovah. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: That s right. Giving to the Lord, Jehovah. Now, clearly Miriam a great woman, a dynamic woman, is not a perfect woman, we have an episode in numbers of Miriam and Aaron sort of backbiting Moses. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: Saying, Haven t we received revelation? The idea I think you see, they ve had some remarkable opportunities where they ve been so close with the Lord, and 2

the Lord has spoken through them, but Moses is the leader, and somehow they seem to be a little bit jealous, because Miriam is the one specifically struck with leprosy in that context, it seems that she is the ring leader of the criticizing against Moses. Mhmm. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: I think there is a warning there, that we need to remember that just because the Lord speaks to us, that we can receive personal revelation, does not mean that we elevate ourselves above, the one that the Lord has chosen, as his mouthpiece to guide the entire church, or his representative on earth. You know, there is a principle that someone taught me years ago that was awfully simple, and yet I ve realized how profound it is. He taught me, he said, The Lord knows where you are, if he needs you, he ll call. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: (laugh) I think that s great. Again, a woman, of prophetic stature, of whom we know little, but is known as the prophetess. Let s take another, we ll just get started, and we ll have to take a quick break, but start us off with Deborah. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: Ya, when you talk about prophetesses, there are a number of them mentioned in the Old Testament, Deborah being one, Hulda, being one, Isaiah s wife being one. I could argue that Hannah was one, but Deborah is clearly one that you just have to stand back and say a remarkable role she had, she s called judge, prophetess, and mother in Israel. In a sense of judge, not judges we would normally see, but a judge in the sense of kind of a military leader. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: Military leader, but she also, she judged under the palm tree, actually taking cases, where people needed a mediator in their conflicts, that she was seen as a wise women that could help them. Much like Moses had done. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: Exactly. So, she had that role, and therefore. This is in Judges 4. At this time, the children of Israel were living in the Promised Land by tribe, and the Canaanites had conquered much of the Israelite people, they were in bondage, so to speak to them. Deborah knows this is not what the Lord had planned. So, she goes to the military captain, whose name is Barack, and calls him to say, Get your men together, we re going to go up against the Canaanites. His response is they have 900 chariots, who are we to go against them? Deborah with her testimony of 3

Christ helps them to see, it doesn t matter how many chariots, no matter how many soldiers they have, with the Lord with them, they will be victorious. Camille, we ve been talking about Women in the Old Testament. Let s continue our discussion of Deborah for a moment. What else do you know about Deborah? That s significant? CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: She is in this way a prophetess, she gets the army ready to go, and I love when Barack the military captain says, Well Deborah, if you go then I ll go too. Its kind like I ll get this army going, but you have to go along, we never see Deborah fight, but she is in a sense a Joan of Arc that inspires them. She makes a prophecy. She said Sisera, the Canaanite captain of the army will fall, but he will fall by the hand of a women. I think you anticipate it must be Deborah, but it isn t Deborah. We later meet a woman named Jael, wife of Heber, the Canaanite, and Sisera runs away from the army as they are being destroyed by the Israelite army, and he thinks he s finding refuge in this little tent of Jael. Jael gets him to calm right down, and she takes a nail, and nails his head right down to the ground, I mean when you talk about a different type of woman, Jael surprise us, she is ruthless, and you don t know what other kind of background. Sisera did fall by the hand of a woman. Wow. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: Now, one more thing about Deborah. She is called Mother in Israel. As all that we know about her, and there is two chapters 4 and 5 that talk about Deborah, never is there any mention of her having children. She is called Mother in Israel because she is a mother to the tribes of Israel. It s a mission that she has for the family of God, and she leads them in a remarkable way. Reminiscent of Eve. The mother of all living before she had any children. How about Hulda? CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: Hulda is another prophetess, lives in Jerusalem, about the time of Lehi and Sariah in the Book of Mormon times. King Josiah, the king of the southern kingdom, a righteous king, came to the throne when he was age eight, and turns his heart to God, wants to clean up the temple, after his father, and grandfather had desecrated it. In the midst of cleaning up the temple, they find a scroll, which seems to be what we understand probably parts or the entire scroll of Deuteronomy. Mhm. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: As the king has it read to him, he s very anxious to know whether this is truth or not, does this really come from God, he talks to his scribes, and say, Go find out, without any explanation they simply go to the home of Hulda the prophetess 4

to find out, it oftentimes surprises people, because it s likely that Jeremiah, the prophet, is around at the time. Ya, why not go to Jeremiah? CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: A lot of people have worked overtime to try to give some explanation in saying, Well, a woman would probably be, they would anticipate being nicer. In her explanation, and God will be patient with you, than a man. Whatever, I think interesting to recognize that Hulda was literate. She read the scroll, and after reading the scroll, she answers in very strong terms, Thus saith the Lord, and said this is the truth, it will come to pass, Judah will be destroyed, and even prophesies that Josiah will die before it happens. Because of his righteousness the Lord will protect him from seeing destruction of the southern kingdom. It motivates Josiah to call his people to the temple to make a covenant together, and for a brief time there is a Zion feeling in Jerusalem, and you see that Hulda s part in that. I have an article that entitled A Woman is the first one to call scripture holy. It s a scholarly article looking at Hulda, I love it! It s beautiful. How about Hannah? She s always been one of my favorites. I find that that first chapter in what, 1 Samuel? CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: 1 Samuel. To be so tender, so appealing. Camille, help us understand a little bit about the time, why was it such a big thing for a woman to have children then? CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: That seemed to be, the role, perceived as the role for women, and until a woman had children, or a child she was not making her contribution to society. I think of women crying out, give me children, lest I die! CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: lest I die! That was Rachel who literally died in child birth. It does seem, they found a lot of tombs, groups in archeology burial grounds where they have found large groups of people from this ancient time period buried there together, and as they explore that find, that there were probably more women who died in child birth, then even men who died in military action, which is phenomenal! When a woman chose to be a mother, she risked giving her life to do that. ¼ women probably died in child birth. It was remarkable, but it was the right of passage for a woman. So here was Hannah, who has a wonderful husband, but can bear no children. He has another wife who has no problem bearing children, and it just seems.hannah is miserable; she has some pretty strong preconceived expectations that she should be able to have children. Real quick, in 1 Samuel 1it says that her adversary provoked her sorely, and from Hebrew it seems very clear 5

that means Peninnah, the other wife. We in some ways love to see that, here is the woman with all the children, who s making fun of the one who isn t. But I love the Septuagint that has no mention whatsoever, Septuagint (interruption) Septuagint, the Greek translation of Hebrew. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: The Greek translation of the Old Testament, no mention of Peninnah being hard on her. It is Hannah s own preconceived ideas that make her so miserable. There came a time in her life, where she chose to change her perspective and maybe her expectation. It s the day she goes back to the sanctuary. Professor Camille Fronk Olsen and I discussing women in the Old Testament. Camille, we were talking about Hannah, let s rehearse that scene for our listeners again, and what you think her prophetic role was? CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: There is something that changes in Hannah, when she still has that desire to have a child but one year when she goes back to the tabernacle there in Shiloh, with her husband, which they do every year, and she prays at the sanctuary, she asks for a child, but this time she offers to give the child back to the Lord, if he will grant her one. There is something about her being willing to let go, I think even recognizing that all is the Lord s, and we are merely stewards. She s ready to give him whatever he asks. But if she can have this blessing, and it is after that, mmmm, maybe no surprise that she conceives a child, and a wonderful little piece that again comes up in both the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and the dead sea scroll version of 1 Samuel 1. After Hannah gives birth to Samuel her husband Elkanah says, in the King James Version, May the Lord s word be established. In the Septuagint, and the dead sea scroll it has Elkanah say, May the Lord establish every word that comes from thy mouth. Wow... CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: Which is now, suddenly a much more of that position of a prophetess, where she is going to say those things of witness for the Lord. And it is after she takes her child back to the sanctuary, and gives him to the high priest, Eli, to raise as a leader of the Priesthood. She comes home, and I love this, chapter 2 of 1 Samuel that she now rejoices, that seems so counter intuitive, but it s very much, I think mothers today who drop their sons and daughters off at the MCT, giving them to the Lord for 18 months or two years, having raised them to be servants of the Lord, hard, but they would not chose it to be any other way, and it s and you read her Psalm, that she offers there in those first verses of chapter 2 of 1 Samuel. It is beautiful as she bears witness of Christ, who gives and takes away and helps us to recognize that it s through him and only him, that we have all that we have. In the 6

bible dictionary, under prayer, it speaks of Hannah s Psalm, in that case as a model for prayer for us. Wow. That s beautiful. Let s talk about something, for the benefit of this news Camille, what if people who are just a little nervous about a woman having the gift of Prophecy? CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: I think it s confusing our current definition of what we see a prophet seer, and revelator to be. I remember hearing president Hinckley talk about mothers who have an intuition for their children, and recognizing that all of us in our various stewardships have opportunities of receiving warning and direction from the Lord and for those we have stewardship over. It is the right and privilege that he has blessed us with. And that is given to all of his children, who will follow his word. I m reminded of that story back in Numbers of the spirit of prophecy being poured out upon, the spirit being poured out upon the 70 elders of Israel. And Joshua, some of the men begin to prophesy, Eldad, and Medad, I think it was. And Joshua went rushing back to Moses and said, Eldad and Medad prophesy. Essentially, what should we do, should I do something? And Moses comment is so visionary. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: It is, especially in the idea, that he s feeling overwhelmed with an incredible responsibility that he has at the time. and so what does a spiritual leader want most for her or his charge, the people under his charge? You want them to begin to take responsibility including spiritually responsibility, and so his answer is powerful, he says, Envious thou for my sake? Are you worried about my job or something? Would God that all the Lord s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit in them. It says it all for me. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: Yeah, it does, sons and daughters. Sons and daughters. Or the prophecy in Joel, the spirit of prophecy upon sons and daughters, at all times. Get us started, if you will, in another direction. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: All right. Let me bring up someone that I think for the most part, very very very few people know about. Five young women in the book of numbers collectively called the daughters of Zelophehad, and yet we know their names; Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Noa, and Milcah. We ought to know about them, especially women, because, it is because of these five young women, that the Law of Moses was altered, with the Lord s blessing, so that today s women inherit, in Judeo- Christian societies. 7

Wow, tell us more about that story. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: These five young women were born during the 40 years that Moses and the Children of Israel were in the Wilderness. That s all they knew were days in the wilderness, their father, Zelophehad, was one of the righteous men, in the group that came out of Egypt, and died before they came into the land of Israel, or the promised land, and if you recall, under the Law of Moses, Moses learned that when they came into the Promised land, the land inheritances were to be assigned based on tribe, and within the tribe it would be, in the name of these righteous men, who had come out of Egypt, and had now died, they would assign the property to their sons, in the name of their fathers, in a way that within each tribe, these righteous priesthood leaders, these righteous patriarchs would be remembered. Well, in the case of the daughters of Zelophehad, their father died, and they had no brothers, therefore, they did not anticipate any property being assigned to their family for their father s name would be remembered. They could have sat back, and just complained, saying This law discriminates against girls who have no brothers and whose father dies in the wilderness but instead, I call them young because none of them has married yet, and the fact there is five sisters, knowing the tragedy of deaths in childbirth, it really is quite remarkable, but they come together to Moses, and ask him What about us? What about our father s name? and there is one little verse in Numbers 27, verse 5 that reads: And Moses took their cause before the Lord. Oh, I love Moses for that verse! And the next verse reads, And the Lord answered Moses saying, the daughters of Zelophehad speak right, they shalt surly receive an inheritance in their father s name. Wow. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: K. that s chapter 27, and then you go to chapter 36, the last chapter of numbers, at the very end of the whole book of Numbers, there at the part of the tribe of Manasseh. And now it s the men in the tribe of Manasseh, who have seen a potential problem here. Under the Law of Moses these young women could marry in the covenant in any of the twelve tribes, but what s going to happen to the inheritance that they received in the tribe of Manasseh in the name of their father if they marry into one of the other tribes? That land, that property will now switch over and become part of the property husband s family as well. So, the men of Manasseh come to Moses and explain this problem. Moses takes the cause before the Lord, the Lord gives the answer. The daughters of Zelophehad should marry whom they choose; only in the tribe of their father shall they marry. So, in that case, these young women were given an added responsibility or commandment, they could only marry within their tribe. But the end of numbers reports that all that the Lord told the daughters of Zelophehad, so they did, and they marry in 8

their father s tribe, and they preserve their inheritance. We know their names, Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Noa, and Milcah, but they are more frequently known as daughters of Zelophehad. Their father s name has never been forgotten. It s a great one! And because of them, we inherit today, as women. That s terrific! That is terrific. Talk about the midwives for a little bit. That is for example, in Exodus, the early staged there, but perhaps throughout the culture. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: We know that at the very first chapter of Exodus, Pharaoh, a pharaoh who knew not Joseph is concerned about the incredible growth of these Hebrew people, and he has the idea that if you can curtail the numbers of the boys that are being born, you will be able to curtail the power of this people. It seems that their most concerned about those who have the potential to become warriors, more than those who can reproduce, so they put the onus of responsibility on midwives, and the two that we read about in Exodus 1 are Shifrah and Puah. It isn t clear whether they are Hebrew or Egyptian. There is interesting arguments from various historical records of the ancient world that argue both sides, but whatever the case Pharaoh said when those, when you help a Hebrew woman give birth if it s a boy, you kill them immediately, knowing all we know about midwives, and that incredible miracle of giving birth, it doesn t surprise us that the midwives disregard pharaoh s command, and when the Pharaoh sees all these little boys, I don t know how, I guess a couple years later, there is too many Hebrew boys around, the midwives are not obeying. He calls Shifrah and Puah back to him, pretty frightening situation for them, I mean; their lives are literally on the line. He asks what the explanation is, and this is, oh Shifrah and Puah are great, they say Hebrew women are so quick that before we even get to them, they ve already given birth. I think it plays on Pharaoh s desire to think that Hebrew people being different from anyone else, almost like different creatures, and therefore, he believed it. And the blessings that Shifrah and Puah receive is that the Lord gives them houses, is what the King James Version of the Bible said, houses, I think it means that they have their own posterity as well, that when they give birth there will be midwives to assist them, who will preserve their children. I love to think of Shifrah and Puah, going out with the Moses and the rest of the children of Israel and inspiring countless Israelites to similar faith. It s marvelous Camille. Let s draw this to a close, just asking ourselves. What do you see in the Old Testament that s really worth us understanding better in our day, in terms of the relationships with men and women in the kingdom of God? What do you see Camille? What does all this teach us about proper patriarchal order? 9

CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: It seems right from the very beginning, which I think we can get the clearest idea of what the Lord had as a plan for us, is what we see in Adam and Eve as they leave the garden, Moses chapter 5, and she did work with him, Eve is not working for him, or under him, or over him, they are working together. They pray together. They heard the voice of the Lord. CAMILLE FRONK OLSEN: They receive revelation together, and they teach the children together. There is something really powerful about this true partnership where they each contribute their God given gifts to bring about a family that loves the Lord. I think it s interesting that there is no evidence, and it s important to see no evidence of an organize church in all that time period, it seems that the church was given to us to support and help strengthen families, but initially the strength was in the family, and husband and wife were patriarch and matriarch in bringing up another generation to love the Lord, and they shared that responsibility. There was not a city center, the home the family, the farm if you will was the center, and women s responsibilities, and contributions there for survival were every bit of as important as the men would give, as they took care of the children, as well as the food, as well as the livestock, the budget so many times, servants. I mean, you see Abraham and Sarah works so remarkably together. It s not a surprise that Peter used them as an example of that unity in his epistle in the New Testament. Or that Paul, the great apostle in the New Testament, which would say, Neither is the man without the women, nor the woman without the man in the Lord. You ve been listening to Mormon Identity, thanks for joining in; we hope you join us next time! 10