Woman in the Bible

It seems to me that references to women in the Bible are few and far between and when they appear they seem to be entirely unpleasant or almost saintlike in their actions. Even when referring to God the adjectives all seem very masculine, for example: Lord, Everlasting Father, Strength, Prince of Peace etc. In the Gospels God is called 'Father' 170 times and 11 in the Old Testament. He is never called Mother.

When presented with women in the bible we seem to get one of two extremes; they are either practically perfect in every way or entirely sinful, disgraceful beings. One example of a good girl is the Virgin Mary. She follows God's will without question and is even grateful. After Mary's told she will give birth to Jesus she sings a song called 'The Magnificat' (Luke 1:46-55) in it she says: "my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour; Because He has regarded the lowliness of His handmaid."  This shows hoe she feels blessed by the fact that God has bothered to do this for her as she is nothing but a servant to him.

Another example of a 'good' girl from the Bible is Ruth. When Ruth's husband dies she stays with her mother-in-law Naomi, and wehn Naomi suggests she sleep with (and therefore marry) Boaz, a rich land owner, in order to protect the both of them from poverty and hunger she does so without question. Ruth is good because she shows compassion and loyalty towards Naomi: "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God." - Ruth 1:16.

There are many not so good girls, however, one of them being Eve. Eve is weak allows herself to be tempted to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit. As if this wasn't bad enough she then goes on to temp Adam into doing the same thus resulting in the original Sin and the human inheritance of concupiscence. The role of the serpant is often overlooked as Eve should not have allowed herself to be tempted in the way that she was.

Potiphar's wife is another example of a 'bad girl'. Potiphar is a rich man with many slaves and his wife falls in love with one named Joseph, she tries to tempt him into sleeping with her but when he refuses and runs away she accuses him of rape. In this story Potipher's wife tries to use her power as a woman and also her social status to dominate Joseph, a man. Not only does she try this but when she does not succeed she relies on her Husband's power to punish him.

Personally, I think that this story is told from an incredubly biased perspective. Never once do you hear it from the point of view of Potipher's Wife. The fact that she is not even granted her own name seems to make her even more of a piece in this story to show how bad a woman can be. There are many refrences in the story to show that prehaps she was unhappy with a husband who did not care about her for example the description of Potipher: "he had no concern for anything but the food he ate." These details, however, are ignored and once Joseph is unfairly punished and the woman showed to be an eveil temptress she is not mentioned again.

Overall I think that there are many more stories of women being sinful and evil than there are of them being 'good'. And when they are showed in a positive light they are shown to be pure and perfect, never once stepping a foot out of line. To me this dies not seem fair, nor realistic.