After Abel and Other Stories
Michal Lemberger, teacher of Bible as Literature at the American University in Los Angeles, collects nine short stories of women in the Bible (Old Testament), often the lesser-known characters, and often in first person. I’m going to count the afterword as number ten because although it is more a dissertation than story, it has a very interesting perspective on the Book of Ruth. The other focus characters begin with Eve in a heart-wrenching discussion of how she had no one to teach her what it means to lose a child: “To be the mother of the living is also to be mother to all the dead.” Then follows Lot’s wife (her role in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah will surprise and delight you); Miriam, Moses’s sister; and Hagar the slave who sees that “here, her master’s god broke all the rules for his benefit.” I did not care so much for the next story, told by Zeresh. Who? Zeresh, wife to Haman (boo, hiss). It could have been great, as could the tale of Yael, which had some inconsistencies and missteps to my mind. Then follows Penina the fruitful, less-loved wife of Elkanah, father of Samuel; a beautiful rendition of Michal, Saul’s daughter; and Achsah, the less memorable daughter of Caleb the spy.
