The Silenced Speak: Hannah, Mary, and Global Poverty

Abstract

Three of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) to eradicate poverty are very much inter-related: 'Promote gender equality and empower women,' 'Reduce child mortality,' and 'Improve maternal health.' Although the biblical text has often been used to subordinate and oppress women, it can be a resource to empower women who live and give birth in conditions of grinding poverty. Put in the mouths of pregnant women, the Song of Hannah (1 Sam. 2) and Mary's Magnificat (Lk. 1) envision a reversal of hierarchies, in which 'The Lord raises up the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap.' Attention will be paid to the social pre-exilic and Palestinian contexts of exploitation to which these songs speak. KeywordsHannah, Mary of Nazareth, Millennium Development Goals, poverty From a woman sin had its beginning, and because of her we all die (Sirach 25.24).Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty (1 Tim. 2.13-15).The September 2010 United Nations Summit on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) concluded with the adoption of a global action plan to achieve the eight antipoverty goals by their 2015 target date and the announcement of major new commitments for women's empowerment, maternal and children's health and other initiatives

Stories We Know : Empire, Land and Gender in the Book of Ruth

“…Gale A. Yee (2012) notes "the muteness and invisibility of the women raped in Judges [chapter 21] and those in our times." She gives the 2006 example of 27,000 reported cases of rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the majority of whom remained silenced.…”