Talk:Women in the Bible

Some gaps in content

Hannah should probably be included somewhere. Not sure the best way to do so, but she's important in regards to how the bible treats infertility, how she was contrasted with Peninnah, prayers (especially being mistaken for being drunk in her earnestness), being the mother of Samuel, etc. I'm sure there's stuff out there. Maybe I'll look into it more myself. I was honestly surprised to not see her mentioned anywhere here. She's like the first example I think of when I think of women in the bible, apart from Abigail, Sarah, Ruth, Esther, etc. I've always thought it interesting that she was the favoured wife when she hadn't given her husband any children which seemed like a huge deal for y'know, people living in a super patriarchal society.

There's also the description of an "ideal wife" that's in Proverbs 31. That seems like it'd be relevant to the overall topic of women in the bible. There should also be more than a brief reference to Lydia being an overseerer of a house church. She's perceived as the first documented Europeon convert to Christanity, she had more agency than some other women in the bible, she invited the apostles into her house without a man's consent, she had experience with making highly-valued purple dye, etc. Clovermoss (talk) 19:57, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree, these women should be mentioned. I also vote for this: Maybe I'll look into it more myself. Happy editing! Jenhawk777 (talk) 21:09, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

@Jenhawk777: I'm still looking into it, but haven't done much yet. So far I've only copied content (with attribution) from Hannah (biblical figure). I was wondering though how the list of these women is meant to be organized? Chronologically (by book?), alphabetical? I'm also not sure if there's a point between distinguishing the "Sex, marriage and family" and "Other women in the Hebrew Bible" subsections? There seems to be a lot of overlap between the two, but maybe I'm missing something. Clovermoss (talk) 14:08, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Clovermoss My advice is Be Bold. It sounds very much like this article would benefit from your input. Add content, delete repetitions, reorganize as you see fit. Give good explanations at reasons, and I am guessing the results will win nothing but approval. Jenhawk777 (talk) 04:00, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Okay. I have been trying to be a bit more bold in general lately but it doesn't come as easily to me I guess. I keep worrying that I'm messing things up in a sort of half-right sort of way. I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something that might seem obvious to someone else about why things are organized the way that they are. I'll make some changes in the upcoming future, but I need to go back to sleep. Waking up briefly in the middle of the night can be useful sometimes? But generally not the best idea to not not go back to sleep. Clovermoss (talk) 06:40, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Number of women / number of women's words in the Bible

Shouldn't the basic statistics be in the introduction? It seems strange to bury such key information down the page. Surely this paragraph should be the first or second?

Compared to the number of men, few women are mentioned in the Bible by name. The exact number of named and unnamed women in the Bible is somewhat uncertain because of a number of difficulties involved in calculating the total. For example, the Bible sometimes uses different names for the same woman, names in different languages can be translated differently, and some names can be used for either men or women. Professor Karla Bombach says one study produced a total of 3000–3100 names, 2900 of which are men with 170 of the total being women. However, the possibility of duplication produced the recalculation of a total of 1700 distinct personal names in the Bible with 137 of them being women. In yet another study of the Hebrew Bible only, there were a total of 1426 names with 1315 belonging to men and 111 to women. Seventy percent of the named and unnamed women in the Bible come from the Hebrew Bible. "Despite the disparities among these different calculations, ... [it remains true that] women or women's names represent between 5.5 and 8 percent of the total [names in the Bible], a stunning reflection of the androcentric character of the Bible." A study of women whose spoken words are recorded found 93, of which 49 women are named. PhilosopherReader (talk) 02:12, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Also: Freeman (2014) - mentioned in footnote 30 - tells us about 14,056 words or 1.1% of the total words in the Bible are spoken by women. These stats could be added onto the end of the above para. PhilosopherReader (talk) 02:20, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Sounds alright. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:15, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

The WP:LEAD is supposed to be a summary of the rest of the article, so moving that paragraph there is not good WP-writing. In an article as long as this, lots on info will be buried down the page. The lead currently says While women are not generally in the forefront of public life in the Bible and the common woman is largely, though not completely, unseen. which hints that there are not that many. Something like "Out of the people named in the Bible. less than 10% are women." may be an acceptable addition, but IMO, not that critical either. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:15, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Article is in dire need of a neutral rewrite

In its current form, the article seems to lean heavily towards the interpretation of progressive religious apologetics rather than how it's interpreted by most religious scholars and most Christians throughout history.

The section discussing contemporary societies should be bumped further down, or shortened significantly and summarized. It's important to give readers context, but this can be done with a significantly shorter section, or added further down.

Feel free to use this thread as a place for discussions for these edits. If nothing happens, I will begin the editing process. 84.215.26.170 (talk) 15:43, 1 November 2023 (UTC)