Bibical Women Unbound: Counter-Tales

In a series of lively midrashic readings of selected biblical texts, novelist Rosen (At the Center) captures the voices of a number of biblical women who are often silenced in the traditional biblical tales in which they appear. For example, in the Genesis tale of Sarah, Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22), Sarah knows nothing of Abraham's intention to sacrifice Isaac in an act of obedience to God, and she is consigned to a role of silence in the story. However, in Rosen's retelling, Sarah witnesses Abraham's near-sacrifice of her son Isaac, returns home to die, never to see Isaac again and questions God's purpose in so testing her faith that God requires the sacrifice of her firstborn son. Rosen's midrash on Eve and her life after expulsion from Eden finds Eve pondering her exile and writing letters to ""rabbis, reverends, and electronic ministers"" to say that ""moving is hard on the nerves."" In a sublimely funny moment, Eve declares in her letter to Job that ""Adam was hopeless. Never shook the clay from his feet or the dust from his brain or the gravel from his throat."" Other women who gain new voices in this collection include Pharaoh's daughter, Miriam, Hagar and Ruth. Each chapter opens with a brief scriptural passage upon which Rosen offers a short commentary culled from traditional midrash of the rabbis. She then follows each commentary with her own midrash on the biblical passage. In prose that is moving and eloquent, Rosen, who is a participant in Bill Moyers's PBS Genesis special, offers compelling portraits of biblical women in these ""counter-tales."" (Nov.)