Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bill Rea <cctr114 AT it.canterbury.ac.nz>]

Christine wrote:-

>Are you implying that WOMEN did not write the Hebrew Scriptures???
>
>Do you realize how insulting this is to females!!!.
>What about the book of Ruth???? Or Esther?

Okay, what evidence do you have that these were not written by
men?

>
>Now, those two  are romance novels if I ever saw one----
>no MEN could have written them!!!!

My, my, what a stereotype. The reason virtually all Mills and Boons
style romance novels appear to be written by women is that the
publishers know that women won't buy them if the author appears
to be a man. So men write under a female pen name and very successfully
too I might add. This modern practice does not tell us anything about the 
authorship of ancient books most of which are anonymous.

There are a few places where the words of women are recorded such
as Miriam's song and the words of King Lemuel which his mother 
taught him. But these seem to me to be more similar to oral tradition
and composition like skaldic poetry than to writing in the present
day sense. 

>Really, I think the whole Tanach shows far too much creativity and
>sensitivity
>to have been written by......mere MEN.

I've asked this question before and not recieved an answer but is there
any evidence that women wrote at all in those times? That the first
step, not trotting out some tired stereotyping of males and females.



Bill Rea, Information Technology Dept., Canterbury  University  \_ 
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