When biblical women found power in poetry, their voices still speak to us today. [iStockphoto]
There are books I read because I must, and there are books I read because they make me think differently about life. The Bible has become the latter for me. I was first encouraged to read it afresh by the Rev Joseph Kisoi of Africa Nazarene University. As part of my LLB studies, I took a course in Biblical Studies. One of the requirements was for each student to choose a book of the Bible and study it closely, making daily reflections on the text. I chose Acts.
For an entire semester, I lived with the Acts of the Apostles. I read it and kept a journal in which I recorded my daily encounters with the text. Every week, I submitted the journal as part of the requirements of the course. But something happened to me that I think was hidden in the goals of the syllabus. By the end of the semester, I was hooked. I had become addicted to the Bible. Acts only provided the gateway to the Bible. It was not just another book I had to study for a university course. It had become something I wanted to return to. So, I decided to do something rather ambitious. I decided to read the whole Bible again, from Genesis to Revelation.
This time, however, I wanted to read it differently. I would read it as a believer and a literary scholar. That change of perspective opened another Bible to me. I began noticing things I had previously passed over: the plots of stories, the economy of language, the use of metaphor, irony, repetition, symbolism, and dramatic dialogue. I noticed how characters are introduced, how their voices are constructed, and how seemingly minor moments acquire enormous significance.
In the process, I stumbled upon something that intrigued me. I realised that women in the Bible often find their most powerful voices in poetry. I first noticed this with Hannah. Hannah's story is one of humiliation and longing. She is a woman whose deepest desire had remained unfulfilled. Her barrenness had become a private sorrow and a source of public humiliation. Yet when her circumstances changed, Hannah did something literary. She spontaneously composed and sang a song.
Her song, recorded in 1 Samuel 2, begins with her personal experience but quickly becomes much larger than Hannah herself. She speaks of the proud and the humble, the mighty and the weak, the hungry and the well-fed. She sings of a God who reverses the fortunes of human beings. This transformation fascinated me. Why? It helped me better illustrate the Narrative Transformation Model (NTM) that I have been advancing. Hannah's private pain becomes public poetry. The woman who had been humiliated becomes the woman who speaks about power. Her personal story becomes a meditation on how the world is ordered, or, more precisely, on how God overturns the world's order. Once I noticed Hannah, I began seeing other women.
There is Miriam, standing on the other side of the Red Sea. Israel has escaped from Egypt. The waters have closed over Pharaoh's army. The people have crossed from slavery into freedom. Miriam takes a tambourine and leads the women in song. “Sing to the Lord,” she says. Again, a great historical event becomes poetry. Miriam does not merely witness liberation. She gives liberation a voice.