Kristine Garroway Summary

On March 9th, I went to the convocation event titled “Representations of Women and Children in the Bible and the Ancient Near East,” lead by Kristine Garroway. This lecture provided an insight on the women and children in the Bible. Garroway started off by saying that this type of emphasis is a new and growing field that is just beginning to be explored. She labeled it two ways: Child-Centered Interpretation and Childist theory. This theory’s intent is to find the silent voice by reinterpreting previous findings of Israel.

The lecture began with six texts of the women in the bible. Each text followed a particular type scene: a woman, who cannot bear children, is given a child, or multiple, by God. The first one was about Sarah, the wife of Abraham. Sarah was a barren woman who had no children. She could bear no children, yet through God’s divine grace, she was given a son, Isaac. The second text was of Rebekah who was also barren but then the lord gave her twins, Jacob and Isah. The third text we read of Rachel, also barren, who gave birth to Benjamin. Text four, Hannah was given Samuel. In text five, Mrs. Manoah, miraculously had Samson. Finally, in the sixth text we read, the Shunnamite woman bore a son in 2 Kings

The fact that this area of Child-Centered interpretation of the bible is only just being expounded upon is interesting. Everything address during that hour showed me interesting parallels between the roles of women and children then and women and children of today. To delve into biblical times and see how much women relied on the ability to have children, as it was basically their only role in society, and compare it to today and how women have so much more to offer is eye opening. It made sense to me how much society relied on children as the new generation to pass on their beliefs and values. It is cool to think that this theory is underdeveloped and I’d really like to see where it