Lehi’s daughters

I find the most disturbing thing that we don’t even know their names…

I do think it’s interesting that although the B of M has passed through far fewer cultural/linguistic filters than the Bible, there are way fewer female characters in the B of M. Like, almost none. Now obviously this wasn’t a culture where women had anywhere near equal standing as men, but it’s weird that they have disappeared entirely from the narrative.

This is another thing that tears at Book of Mormon historicity for me – not even their names when every hill and town gets one. I’m interested in hearing thoughts about why it doesn’t for others. I guess you could wonder if women were filtered back into the Bible as things went along. Annnnd, I suppose others would take the inclusion of women as a strike against its authenticity.

It would shock me if there were quite a few women mentioned in the Book of Mormon, if it is a representative record of its time.

It is a dynastic record. The time period in which it is set included women by name in such records only when they had an impact on the dynastic narrative. We would no nothing of Esther (a disturbingly sexist story, btw) – or Ruth and Naomi – etc. if they didn’t play a distinct role in the dynastic story. Even the wives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are merely role players in their narratives, with their roles defined almost exclusively by distinctive aspects of their lives related to dynastic succession.

That is terribly sad, from a modern perspective (and to me), but it doesn’t shock or surprise me one bit. It is an accurate view of the way women were treated in those times and, even more so, in their historical records.

Ray – good point. It still seems quite an extreme though. Things as trivial as passing valley’s were named after men, but we know the name of a female servant, a harlot, and a prophet’s wife (that is often known as a complainer – good framing Joni on that one – I like that)

I have decided that I am going to re-read and study the BOM. It will probably have to wait until later this summer once huge project at work is done. I also am procrastinating as I do really fear it will be something that pushes me away from the church / increases my cognitive dissonance. I want to give it a fair shake and pray about it, but when I read things like the review over in Rational Faiths I just don’t know how I can get “balanced” before I read it. I have always felt much of the BOM to feel odd – not resonating with me. On my mission I gave up the last 3 or 4 months trying to get an answer. I felt like a failure for not getting an answer to Moroni’s promise. I don’t know how I can force myself to start from a neutral mental/emotional place.

One interesting way to read the Book of Mormon is to allow yourself to see the “good” character’s flaws and the “bad” character’s positives.

Something that’s really struck me during this year’s GD study of the B of M – and I had never noticed this beore – is that Nephi tends to come off a little holier-than-thou. At the very least, we are seeing the events of the first two books of the B of M through his filter and no one else’s. So, maybe the reason Nephi’s sisters (and his wife, for that matter) don’t warrant a place in the narrative is because Nephi didn’t think they were awesome enough to bother chiseling their names on the plates, but they weren’t wicked enough to write about the way he wrote about his brothers.

If we go the other way, and assume JS made up the whole thing, what was in his early 19th Century culture that would have him make up a story without women? Was it that women were little more than property? That they couldn’t vote, or own property? It seems there is plenty of evidence that if JS made up the whole thing, he was just mirroring his culture with respect to women.

Sheldon, this is where I’m at with this whole thing as well. I don’t look to the BoM or the Old Testament as my guide to how people should be treat one another. I believe the OT is largely symbolic. I regard the BoM as a book full of stories with great lessons to be learned, like Aesop’s Fables. Viewing it in this way, I have found that I get much less agitated when I read anything from it. I believe it reflects much of Joseph Smith’s culture, ideals, values, etc. Even Paul wrote some very sexist things in the NT. If I am going to look for an example of how women should be treated (or how anybody should be treated, for that matter) I look at Christ’s example, and nobody else’s. His message was love, forgiveness, service, faith, peace, humility. It had nothing to do with people having status over others. So, anytime I see examples of people having a higher position than others in the scriptures, whether that position comes from their gender, political roles, leadership positions, military power, or anything else, I view those as man-made positions. Not something that God appointed to them. Joseph Smith created all kinds of titles to put himself above the flock. I see that as JS’s issues, not God’s. And I certainly don’t believe Christ would have condoned much of it.

So, when I look at the plight of women in the scriptures, I see it as an example of human prejudice, not God’s prejudice.

If we go the other way, and assume JS made up the whole thing, what was in his early 19th Century culture that would have him make up a story without women? Was it that women were little more than property? That they couldn’t vote, or own property? It seems there is plenty of evidence that if JS made up the whole thing, he was just mirroring his culture with respect to women.

Wouldn’t the absence of details about women characters mirror the culture of 600BC – 400AD as well… or pretty much any time before the women’s liberation movement got underway?