The female identity in the bible.

[Azvanna]

Today I was considering how the female identity is portrayed in the Bible. I couldn't think of an example of a sacred story where the female was presented in any other way apart from her attachment to a male. For example, Esther was championed as a hero of her generation among preachers when I was a teenager. They would talk about an "Esther generation" who were willing to take risks for the sake of the gospel, but even she was simply taking orders from her Uncle Mordecai. Ruth is another one, though the success of her story depends on her becoming the bride of Boaz. Can anyone think of any tales where the female is celebrated out of her own right? It might be a theme too out of context of the culture.

There may not be stories of particular individuals, but there might be attributes you can think of that are given a feminine pronoun. For example, Wisdom.

[Gleb]

I don't know about the Bible, Az, but in the Old Testament, women were very influential. In the good meaning of the word.
There are many examples. I don't remember accurately, but Yael helped Kind David when he was chosen and later on chased by king Shaul, later on with David the king there was some kind of story when a woman helped the military general capture a traitor that was hiding in the city and she saved the city from starvation. The general wanted the city to starve and make the traitor come out.

Plus, Tamar - king David's wife helped him escape when king Shaul came after him...

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Oh and the Old Testament treats women with a lot of respect, I must say.

[Tylluan Penry]

I always liked the story of Judith.

[Azvanna]

I don't know about the Bible, Az, but in the Old Testament, women were very influential. In the good meaning of the word.
There are many examples. I don't remember accurately, but Yael helped Kind David when he was chosen and later on chased by king Shaul, later on with David the king there was some kind of story when a woman helped the military general capture a traitor that was hiding in the city and she saved the city from starvation. The general wanted the city to starve and make the traitor come out.

Plus, Tamar - king David's wife helped him escape when king Shaul came after him...

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Oh and the Old Testament treats women with a lot of respect, I must say.

You have given me a few names to look up. I don't remember Tamar being married to King David. There might be two, but the Tamar I know of was King David's daughter and the victim of savage rape who was never granted justice by her father. I will read further into her story. When I looked up Yael, she is connected to Deborah who is the only recorded female Judge of Israel.

I always liked the story of Judith.

I'm not familiar with any books in the Apocrypha, but I'll read that book.

[Gleb]

Maybe it wasn't Tamar. But the name is similar. Maybe Michal?

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Yeah, I think it was Michal, the daughter of Shaul.

[Munin-Hugin]

From what I recall from a book called "The Bible As It Was", there was an interesting point made regarding various passages in Genesis. The book itself was an exploration into the centuries of word manipulation, mistranslation, and expungement of sections, and how if one were to go back and attempt to piece together from the most reliable sources, there would be quite a different set of stories. The one I'm referring to here is the passage that read "And we shall make man in our image". In later editions, the "we" and the "our" were eventually capitalized to indicate the Royal Plural, but in the original Hebrew, there were no instances of a plural used to indicate royalty. Therefore, it was actually meant to mean "we", as in more than one deity creating man.

This becomes more and more interesting as either through removed passages or changes in translation (I forget which at this time, it's been a while), there was reference to God separating from Himself his Wisdom, followed by a few references to that Wisdom as being female. Now, while it still begotten from the masculine and acts in accordance to that male power for the most part, there are numerous instances of mention of this Wisdom as a separate, influential, and very female divine entity. If you wanted to make a few great stretches, this duality can be applied to the veneration of the Virgin Mary in Roman Catholicism.

Also, one could cast Mary Magdalene as the strong, rebellious female figure in the Bible who has been later venerated as a saint. In fact Augustine gave her the honorific as the "Apostle to the Apostles", creating a prominent and powerful role of a woman in a male dominated world. She was also the first person to have seen Jesus after the Resurrection, and became the messenger of such.

That's about all I've got. I may be Northern Trad, but I was raised Roman Catholic and have always found religions in general fascinating and so did a lot of reading.

[Medusa]

Lilith was pretty cool.

[Wenny]

Shiprah and Puah in Exodus 15 saved baby boys from death by lying to the Pharaoh. .

[Nue]

Lilith was pretty cool.

I second this, though for some reason some verions take her out entirely

[Wenny]

Shiprah and Puah in Exodus 15 saved baby boys from death by lying to the Pharaoh. .

I am not sure of why it isn't showing up but Shiprah and Puah saved baby boys in Exodus .