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Newsletter : 9fax0122.txt
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>JN Jan. 22, 1999, Vol. 7, No. 15
Yassin: Israel Will be Destroyed by 2026
By IsraelWire
The founder and religious leader of the Hamas terrorist organization, Sheik Achmed Yassin, announced that according to teachings in the Koran, Israel will be destroyed by 2026. "According to my calculation, there are only 27 years left until Israel's destruction," stated Yassin in an Arabic publication published in London.
The Bible and Women
By Zlatica Hoke (VOA-Washington)
Until recently, the Bible was studied and interpreted mostly by
men. The original Scriptures and their subsequent copies were most
likely all written by men. So, no wonder both the Scriptures and
most of their interpretations reflect a very patriarchal view of
the world. And many people today find that view unfair to women.
But a growing number of female Bible scholars in the United States
say the old text on the whole can serve as a great source of
inspiration to women.
In the opening pages of the Book of Genesis, there are two accounts
of the creation of human beings. In the first, God created humans
"in his image -- male and female," and in the second "the man" is
alone and God creates a female companion for him from one of his
ribs. This second account has been used for many centuries to
imply that women are secondary to men and must be subordinate to
men. Many other passages in the Bible reinforce this patriarchal
viewpoint. But Deborah Hinkel, who teaches women at Lancaster Bible
College in Pennsylvania, emphasizes the first account of human
creation in Genesis.
"I believe that you have to look at the whole of Scripture and what
it says toward women -- that by looking at Genesis, where God
created male and female, he created them equally in the image of
God and I believe that's our starting point."
Amy-Jill Levine, professor of New Testament studies at Vanderbilt
University in Tennessee, says many women in the Bible, especially
in the Old Testament, serve as models to contemporary independent
females.
These include Esther, who was chosen by the Persian King Ahasuerus [Ey-hah-soo-erus] to be his new wife and thus was able to save her Jewish tribe from a plotted massacre; Judith, the widow who saved her city by killing the enemy leader; and Deborah, a prophetess and judge of Israel.
"The benefit of the biblical story is that if the woman wants to find a mother, you can find mothers. If you want to find, say, a woman -- independent business woman in the clothing industry, we have a really good example from the Book of Acts where (St.) Paul meets a woman named Lydia who is involved in the trade of purple cloth. In the Old Testament Apocrypha or the Deutero-Canonical collection -- wonderful women like Judith or Tobit's wife who are described as bringing in income by doing weaving and selling it."
But Levine says that because the Bible was written at a time when
men ruled the world, adhering to the Scriptures without any sense
of its historical or cultural setting can be harmful. She cites
passages that suggest women should always submit to their husbands.
Levine says the basic message of the Bible is love and peace and
people should read the Scriptures with that in mind.
But skeptics say if people have to make choices as to which messages from the Bible to accept or emphasize, then the text cannot be the Divine word. Ron Barrier is the national spokesman for American Atheists Incorporated, a civil-rights advocacy group that supports separation of state and church.
"I find it inconsistent that someone would take the position that
the Bible is the word of God and then seek to de-emphasize certain
parts while emphasizing other parts, as if somehow they have an
inside track to understanding what's in the mind of the Divinity.
This is what I call the Chinese-menu approach to the Bible
where you pick what you like and you discard what you don't."
Barrier says American atheists consider the Bible messages to be
generally undemocratic and destructive to women. In spite of the
criticisms, millions of Jews and Christians around the world do
believe the Bible was written under God's guidance, and for them,
it remains the basis of belief and conduct. A growing number of
female Bible scholars generally agree the Bible can be a great
source of inspiration to contemporary women, as long as they look
at it from the proper historical and cultural perspective.
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