Rachel Held Evans: A Biblical Woman will drive a tent peg through your skull?

I’m slowly critiquing through Rachel Held Evan’s book Inspired but I want to deal with something that last week someone commented on our blog about.  Rachel Held Evans had a favorable retweet of the following:

Y'all know I love this one. https://t.co/AXYxGi2cbL

— Rachel Held Evans (@rachelheldevans) August 8, 2018

Just in case the Tweet disappear Evans said “Y’all know I love this one.”  What she was referring to to was someone’s tweet that she reposted which says “don’t 👏 say 👏 you want 👏 a biblical 👏 woman 👏 unless 👏 you’re prepared 👏 to have 👏 a tent peg 👏 driven 👏 through 👏 your skull.”

I find it incredible the twisting of Scripture Rachel Held commits and also the endorsement of others twisting the Scripture in order to attack the idea of Christians being biblical.

So does having a biblical woman in one’s life mean she might drive a tent peg through your skull?

1. The references to a woman driving a tent peg through someone’s skull is from the narrative in Judges 4:17-22.  In the passage a woman name Jael drives a tent into a man name Sisera.
2.  We must consider the context of what’s going on.  I believe seeing the context here would demonstrate that having a biblical woman in one’s life does not mean she will have to drive a tent peg through your skull.  Notice that the tweet does not give any context; of course one might say its the limitation of Twitter with limits on amount of word per tweet.  True.  But the tweet uses the biblical passage contrary to the intent of the passage in its context.  Don’t forget that a use of a biblical text without context is often pretext for an agenda other than the author’s intent.
3. We must keep in mind the literary form of the passage.  The genre of Judges 4:17-22 is historical narrative.  We must remember that just because something is mentioned in historical narrative that does not mean the actions are required of readers to do.  Some might rebut this by noting that Jael driving a tent peg into Sisera is mentioned in the following chapter in Judges 5:24-31.  There it is a song praising God and in the midst of singing to God Deborah who was singing it view what Jael did to Sisera positively.  Again I think as we look at more of the context we see there’s a reason for the incident being seen favorably.  But that doesn’t mean this is something that every “biblical woman” has to do to me or to others.  Neither in Judges 4:17-22 nor Judges 5:24-31 do we see any Hebrew imperative verb commanding readers or women readers to do the same thing as Jael.  The tweet confuses narratives for law; that is, it is comitting an is/ought logical fallacy.  Just because the event is mentioned does not mean it is a command for every woman to carry out.
4. Who is Sisera?  Asking this question is important since I want to show that as we know more about Sisera it removes the force of the tweet making it as if a biblical woman will drive a tent peg into “you,” with the “you” being understood as any ordinary Tom, Dick and Harry today.  That would be incorrect according to the context.
   1. In Judges 4:2 Sisera is mentioned as the commander of the Caananite army.
   2. The second half of Judges 4:3 mentioned that “he oppressed the sons of Israel severely for twenty years.”
   3. The oppression by Sisera was so bad that the first half of Judges 4:3 states “the sons of Israel cried to the Lord.”  Israel seeking the Lord for help is incredible here for before they have not sought the Lord; that’s how bad the condition under Sisera was.
   4. Judges 4:3 also gives additional details of why Israel cried out to the Lord: “for he had nine hundred iron chariots.”  Chariots is the ancients’ version of our tanks.  Apparently Sisera as the commander of the Caanite army also had 900 chariots!  Putting this in perspective to parallel it to something we can understand a little bit more today the average German Panzer Division has a 190 main battle tanks.  Speaking roughly in terms we can understand Sisera having over four division size level of chariots (with accompanying logical and other military supporting elements).  Sisera with that many chariots was the equivalent of World War Two German field marshal and general Erwin Rommel.  Sisera is not the equivalent of any ordinary Tom, Dick and Harry today.  The tweet is not considering the passage properly to slander the Bible.
5. The passage in Judges 4:17-22 is not meant to teach that a biblical woman should go out actively hunting evil men such as Sisera to drive a tent peg into their skulls.  Note in Judges 4:17a that after a military defeat “Sisera fled away on foot to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite.”  Jael found herself face to face with Sisera.  In her own tent.  That’s like a house wife in Turkey finding an ISIS commander on the run from a military defeat and coming into her home.  Sure ISIS might not be attacking Turkey just as the Canaanites were not attacking Jael’s people the Kenite (Judges 4:17b) but one knows about the oppressive ways of the ISIS just as Jael would have known about the Jael and the Caananites.  This is a situation which can be dangerous which Jael decided to act.  Knowing this context removes the force of the tweet’s slander on Christians trying to be biblical, as if a biblical woman would randomly drive tent pegs into “you.”
6. Who is Jael?  It is important to answer this question since the more we know about Jael the more it questions the tweet’s assumption that the intent of the passage is to make her out as a “biblical woman” to emulate with her action.  Judges 4:17a describe Jael as “the wife of Heber the Kenite.”  Who were the Kenites?  Judges 4 itself is conscious of the Kenites.  In Judges 4:11 there’s a reference of Moses’ father in law was a Kenite.  Jael was not a Hebrew woman.  She’s a Gentile and might even have foreign gods.  This isn’t a woman who is necessarily intent on being a biblical woman; she just happened to kill the infamous Sisera and the narrative recorded that.
7. Judges 4:17-22 should also be understood in the context of the chapter.  God called Barak to be a Judge to free Israel from the oppression of Sisera but Judges 4:8 mentioned that he was rather cowardly and did not believe God’s Word that says he will be victorious against Sisera but wanted Deborah to go with him; he even said he won’t go unless she goes.  As a result in Judges 4:9 God spoke through Deborah saying Sisera will fall to a woman and not Barak.  Judges 4:17-22 gives us the detail of who it was that had the honor of getting rid of the evil Sisera.  In its chapter context we see the main intent of Judges 4:17-22 is not to say every biblical woman must emulate Jael but it is a lesson to not doubt God’s Word.

Rachel Held Evans’ retweet of that tweet and affirmation of that tweet in her own comment reveals how poor her interpretation of the Bible is.

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