Articles

The Daughters of Lot's Wife: A Story Retold, is a story that retells the events of Genesis 19, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the story of Lot and his daughters. It is written with an allegorical twist and published under the column title, "In Memory of Her", in Making Waves, Women's Inter-Church Council of Canada, (Jan. 2003, Toronto, Ontario). It is a first in a series of articles that Regina will publish in keeping with the Council magazine's theme, ‘voices of younger women'.

In her preface, Regina says:

The women in the story remain unnamed, a scar I was unable to remove. It seemed wrong for me to assign names arbitrarily and borrowing them from other women felt like misappropriation. However, unlike their names, their story is not lost. It is multi-layered and laced with hope, like the women themselves. The eldest daughter, who eventually becomes the grandmother of the Moabites, the tribe that produced Ruth, tells the story.

Elisabeth Fiorenza, author of In Memory of Her, urges us to approach the biblical text with an "hermeneutic of suspicion". Stories of women, she tells us, are delivered through the lips of men, and so we need to ask questions about why they appear as they do. Reclaiming women in our tradition requires more than making the biblical accounts of their contributions accessible; it means exposing the misogynous content of the stories themselves.

While the voices of ancient women may have been silenced, we need not remain quiet. By peeling away the patriarchal trappings of our religious heritage we can uncover and recover their stories. Engaging our imagination, we can reconnect with our roots and draw strength for our future. If we hope to avoid repeating the mistakes of our past, it is our responsibility to reshape our inheritance for the next generation. The women of our past can help us do this.

The document is available here as a pdf, with permission to reprint from the publisher. (Requires Adobe Acrobat
Click here to download..)