Feminist Theology21(1) 40 –57

© The Author(s) 2012Reprints and permission: sagepub.

co.uk/journalsPermissions.navDOI: 10.1177/0966735012451819

fth.sagepub.com

The Silenced Speak: Hannah, Mary, and Global Poverty1

Gale A. Yee

AbstractThree 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 anti-poverty goals by their 2015 target date and the announcement of major new commit-ments for women’s empowerment, maternal and children’s health and other initiatives

Corresponding author:Gale A. Yee Email: gyee@eds.edu

451819 FTH21110.1177/0966735012451819Feminist TheologyYee2012

Article

1 Research for this article was made possible through the 2010-2011 Lilly Theological Research Grants program. All biblical citations are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV).

Yee 41

against poverty, hunger and disease. Nevertheless, working against such ambitious goals are biblical texts, such as those in the epigraph above, that have legitimized the subordi-nation and the oppression of women in the course of history. According to these texts, woman alone is responsible for sin and death in the world. Therefore, her voice and those of her daughters must be silenced. Although cursed by pain in childbirth (Gen. 3.16), 1 Timothy declares that woman will be saved through bearing children, if she continues in faith and love and holiness, with modesty.

Resisting the use of the biblical text as a club to batter women, we will in this article hear ‘the silenced speak,’ drawing lessons from two biblical women on how they can be of service in promoting three Millennium Development Goals: ‘Promote gender equality and empower women;’ ‘Reduced child mortality;’ and ‘Improve maternal health.’2 Although we may disagree with 1 Timothy’s claim that women will be saved through childbearing, we have concrete evidence that promoting gender equality, empowering women, and improving their maternal health are absolutely central in eliminating world poverty.3 The two women I discuss not only speak, they sing! They sing of how God victoriously overturns social hierarchies, raising the poor from the dust and lifting the needy from the ash heap (1 Sam. 2.8), filling the hungry with good things, and sending the rich away empty (Lk. 1.53). And they sing their songs in contexts dear to these MDGs: their pregnancy, motherhood, and empowerment in the midst of poverty. These women are Hannah in 1 Sam. 1-2 and Mary, the mother of Jesus, in Lk. 1-2.

Hannah (1 Sam. 1-2)

In our English Bibles, Samuel of the Hebrew canon is divided into two books, with 1 Sam. following the book of Ruth. However, in the Hebrew canon the book of Samuel follows the book of Judges, which I think is significant theologically. There are points of contact between the end of Judges and the beginning of Samuel, which will have bearing on the story of Hannah. Judges concludes with the violent rape and dismember-ment of one woman in Judg. 19, leading to the seizure and rape of six hundred more women during a civil war among the tribes. These women were forced to become wives to replenish the disgraced remnant of the tribe of Benjamin in Judg. 21. We do not hear the voices of pain, rage, and protest of any of these women through their enforced preg-nancies. Rape as a tactic of warfare still continues to this day. A former United Nations force commander recently noted that it is more dangerous to be a woman than to be a soldier in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where 27,000 rapes were reported in 2006. Even though UN Security Council Resolution 1820 was enacted in 2008 to prevent sexual violence in conflict, it has been undermined by individual cases

2 For complete information on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, see, http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/

3 Kabeer N (2003) Gender Mainstreaming in Poverty Eradication and the Millennium Develop­ment Goals: A Handbook for Policy­Makers and Other Stakeholders. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre. Available at: http://www.idrc.ca/openebooks/067-5/

42 Feminist Theology 21(1)

of UN peacekeepers themselves who were guilty of trafficking in women and girls and sexual exploitation.4

The muteness and invisibility of the women raped in Judges and those in our own time directly contrasts with Hannah who, in the next narrative of the Hebrew canon, is able to verbalize her own pain, anger and protest to God for her infertility, along with a magnifi-cent prayer of praise. From a feminist perspective, I would like to hope that, in the liter-ary juxtaposition of their accounts, the silenced women at the end of Judges eventually found some sort of expression in the bitter laments and protest of Hannah in 1 Sam…5 The image of Hannah releasing her anguish before God can also be a model for the countless women who have been raped in combat. And that, as with Hannah, the God of the oppressed will hear their cries and respond.

Rationalizing the atrocities against women at the end of Judges is the concluding line of the book: ‘there was no king in Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes’ (Judg. 21.25). Presumably, a king will restore order to the land. However, in 1 Sam., Hannah’s son will warn Israel of the dangers of establishing a monarchy:

So Samuel reported all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. He will take your male and female slaves and the best of your cattle and donkeys and put them to his work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day” (1 Sam. 8.10-18).

The establishment of the monarchy created a stratified pyramidal society of the haves and have-nots.6 Solomon and the other kings of Israel exploited their peasantry, fun-neling their heavy taxes and tributes to just a small select portion of the population. These comprised only 1-5% of the population, but owned or controlled 50-70% of the means of production. A great income disparity between rich and poor still exists today.

4 United Nations Development Fund for Women (2008) Progress of the World’s Women 2008/2009. Who Answers to Women? Gender and Accountability. Available at: http://www.unifem.org/progress/2008/publication.html

5 Many scholars have noted correspondences between the end of Judges and 1 Samuel. See especially, Jobling D (1998) 1 Samuel. Berit Olam; Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 43-76; and the poetic rendering by Fewell DN (2003) Hannah’s song: Judges 19-21; 1 Samuel 1-3. In: The Children of Israel: Reading the Bible for the Sake of Our Children. Nashville, TN: Abingdon,197-223.

6 Yee GA (2003) Poor Banished Children of Eve: Woman As Evil in the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 60-67; Gottwald NK (1993) Social class as an analytic and hermeneutical category in biblical studies. Journal of Biblical Literature 112: 3-22.

Yee 43

Compare these figures with the US, where the top 1% of the population owns 37.1% of all assets, while the bottom 80% owns 12.3%.7

Unlike Israel’s tribal period when any surplus wealth from agriculture went back into the tribe and enriched it, during the monarchic period, this surplus wealth of crops and herds left the tribes and was sent upward in the pyramid as tributes or taxes to a non-productive minority. The king and his aristocracy were not producers but consumers liv-ing off the backbreaking production of their peasants, in order to pay for their costly wars, ambitious building projects, and lavish lifestyle. The peasantry, on the other hand, was kept at a subsistence level of existence, left with just enough to survive. Besides demand-ing a huge amount of their farm goods and livestock, the king demanded another form of taxation, paid in human bodies. According to 1 Kgs 5, ‘King Solomon conscripted forced labor out of all Israel; the levy numbered thirty thousand men. He sent them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month in shifts; they would be a month in Lebanon and two months at home’ (1 Kgs 5.13-14). A very large sector of the population was thus conscripted into labor gangs without pay to construct Solomon’s many buildings (compare 1 Kgs 9.15-22). Because many were taken away from farming and herding, and from their own families, there were fewer people to work the land and care for the flock. Nevertheless, the people still had to keep up with the monthly taxation of farm goods and animals (compare 1 Kgs 4.22-28), which added to their considerable burdens. Solomon in all his glory was enjoyed only by a privileged few, while exploiting and oppressing many.

In 1 Sam. 8.10-18, Samuel warns of this exploitation by the king and his ruling elite. ‘But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; they said, ‘No! We are deter-mined to have a king over us’ (1 Sam. 8.19). As a result, during its monarchic period, most of Israel will live under conditions of grinding poverty. However, as God hears the cries of the Israelites and responds in the Exodus story (Exod. 2.24-25), God hears the cries of Hannah and responds in 1 Sam. Hannah gives birth to Samuel, the last judge in Israel, who warned of the perils of choosing a human king over Yahweh.

It goes without saying that the Bible is primarily a male story, written by men for men. Women enter into this larger male story primarily in their relationship with men as wives and as mothers. Two ideologies governed women in ancient Israel. The first is a patrilin-eal kinship ideology that was supported by a number of social practices that privileged men and disenfranchised women. This ideology determined male advantages when it came to descent, inheritance, status in religion and cult, and in marriage and the family. The second is an ideology of honor and shame that intersected with this patrilineal kin-ship ideology. Women acquired honor within this system by their acts of deference and sexual modesty toward men and by bearing legitimate children, especially sons, for their husbands.8 It is in these lights that we must regard Hannah. Her story was most likely

7 See the chart, ‘The rich few.’ In: Spiegel Online International. Available at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/bild-712496-122272.html and the accompanying article by Schulz T, The erosion of America’s middle class. Available at: http://www.spiegel.de/interna-tional/world/0,1518,druck-712496,00.html

8 Yee GA (2003) Poor Banished Children of Eve: Woman As Evil in the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 36-48, for an extended discussion of the ideologies of kin-ship and honor/shame.

44 Feminist Theology 21(1)

included in the founding narrative of Israel because she was the mother of its last judge. Nevertheless, her story is significant for our topic, as one who was silenced, but who powerfully proclaimed the liberating acts of God on behalf of the poor and powerless. Her story can be divided into two parts: 1 Sam. 1.1-28 where Hannah finds her voice, and 1 Sam. 2.1-10, where Hannah uses her voice.9

We are introduced to Hannah and Peninnah as the co-wives of a man named Elkanah. Within ancient Israel’s male ideology of kinship and honor, a man could have more than one wife, increasing the likelihood of begetting more sons and thus more honor for him-self and the family. The relationship between the two wives is conflicted. Unlike the secondary wife Peninnah, Elkanah’s first wife Hannah has no children. She belongs to a whole line of matriarchs in the Bible who are barren, but who eventually give birth to important leaders in Israel: Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, Samson’s mother.10 Because the ability to give birth especially to sons confers honor upon women and elevates their sta-tus as wives and mothers, Hannah barrenness is an acute source of shame for her.

Elkanah would take the whole family on an annual pilgrimage to the temple at Shiloh. During these yearly occasions, Peninnah would taunt Hannah severely, rubbing salt in Hannah’s wound, because ‘the Lord had closed her womb’ (1 Sam. 1.5-7). Elkanah is no help. When Hannah weeps and refuses to eat, Elkanah tries to comfort her, ‘Hannah, why do you weep?…Am I not more to you than ten sons?’ (1 Sam. 1.8). It is a convention in the Hebrew narrative that the first direct speech of an individual revealed his or her char-acter.11 The first words out of Elkanah’s mouth reveals his narcissistic cluelessness! Elkanah would have gotten better traction if he had said to Hannah, ‘Are you not more to me than ten sons?’12

During one of these pilgrimages, Hannah had enough. She goes to the temple and pours out her heart to the Lord, the one who ‘had closed her womb’ in the first place: ‘She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord, and wept bitterly’ (1 Sam. 1.10). Notice that the text does not record Hannah speaking directly to Penninah to counter her taunts, nor does she respond to Elkanah’s bungled attempts to console her. The first time Hannah directly speaks in the text, where she finds her voice, is when she vows to the Lord: ‘O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remem-ber me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head’ (1 Sam. 1.11). The first time we hear

9 Cook JE (1999) Hannah’s Desire, God’s Design: Early Interpretations of the Story of Hannah. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 35.

10 See, Havrelock RS (2008) The myth of birthing the hero: heroic barrenness in the Hebrew Bible. Biblical Interpretation 16.2: 154-78; and Fuchs E (1985) The literary characteriza-tion of mothers and sexual politics in the Hebrew Bible. In: Yarbro Collins A (ed.) Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholars. Chico, CA: Scholars Press: 117-36.

11 Bowman RG (2007) Narrative criticism: human purpose in conflict with divine presence. In: Yee GA (ed.) Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2nd edn, 23-26; Bar-Efrat S (1978) Literary modes and methods in the biblical narrative in view of 2 Samuel 10-20 and 1 Kings 1-2’. Immanuel 8: 23-25.

12 Jobling D (1998) 1 Samuel. Berit Olam; Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 131.

Yee 45

Hannah’s voice is when she cries out for a son to the God who has closed her womb and promises that she will dedicate that son in God’s service. Hannah puts God in a position where he has to respond, not with words but with deeds,13 and she will reciprocate accordingly.

There is another man in the story who also misunderstands her. This is the priest Eli. The text says that ‘Hannah was praying silently; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard’ (1 Sam. 1.13). Notice that emphasis on a silent prayer, and a voice not heard. The text continues: ‘Therefore Eli thought she was drunk.’ Another clueless male! He sees a woman in a temple weeping and moving her lips. He does not see a person in pain, one who might be seeking consolation from God, but automatically assumes she is intoxi-cated. He says to her, ‘How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine’ (1 Sam. 1.14). And again the silenced one speaks, and finds her voice: ‘No, my lord, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time’ (1 Sam. 1.15-16). Eli tells her to ‘Go in peace, (shalom); the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him’ (1 Sam. 1.17). Which God did: ‘The Lord remembered her and in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son’ (1 Sam. 1.19). We next hear Hannah speak in her naming the newborn, Samuel, ‘for I asked him of the Lord’ (1 Sam. 1.20). Years later after weaning Samuel,14 Hannah makes good her promise and brings Samuel to Shiloh. After offering her gifts of a sacrificed bull, flour and wine,15 she surrenders to Eli her ultimate sacrifice, Samuel, saying: ‘“For this child I prayed; and the Lord has granted me the petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he lives, he is given to the Lord.” And she left him there for the Lord’ (1 Sam. 1.26-27).16

We now come to the section where Hannah uses her voice, in what has come to be known as the Song of Hannah (1 Sam. 2.1-10). It follows the tradition of other songs in the Bible,17 like the song of Miriam (Exod. 15.19-21), the Song of Deborah (Judg. 5), and

13 Havea J (2003) Elusions of Control: Biblical Law on the Words of Women. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 148.

14 Wet-nursing contracts range from a year and a half to three years. See, Yee GA (2009) ‘Take this child and suckle it for me’: wet nurses and resistance in ancient Israel. Biblical Theology Bulletin 39.4: 183, 185 (180-89).

15 Regarding Hannah’s cultic visibility, see Meyers C (1996) The Hannah narrative in feminist perspective. In: Coleson JE, Matthews VH (eds) ‘Go to the Land I Will Show You’: Studies in Honor of Dwight W. Young. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 117-26.

16 Some have interpreted Hannah’s abandonment of Samuel as child abuse. See Steinberg N (2010) 1 Samuel 1, the United Nations convention on the rights of children, and ‘the best interests of the child.’ Journal of Childhood and Religion 1.3. Available at: http://www.childhoodandreligion.com/JCR/Volume_1_%282010%29_files/SteinbergApril2010.pdf; and Jobling D (1998) 1 Samuel. Berit Olam; Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 306-307. From an ‘emic’ perspective, that of the Israelite culture itself, giving a child into cultic service was honorable. From an ‘etic’ perspective, assessing the culture from the perspective of the outside observer, Hannah’s action can be read as child abuse.

17 O’Day G (1985) Singing woman’s song: a hermeneutic of liberation. Currents in Theology and Mission 12.4: 203-10.

46 Feminist Theology 21(1)

as we will see later, the Magnificat of Mary (Lk. 1.46-56), songs put into the mouths of women, triumphantly proclaiming God’s victories: ‘Hannah prayed, and said, “My heart exults in the Lord;/ my strength is exalted in my God./My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in my victory.”’ (2.1). A surface reading of Hannah’s song might strike some readers as odd. The only verse that seems to tie directly into Hannah’s personal story is v. 5b: ‘The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn.’ But even here the facts do not tally. According to 2.21, Hannah will eventually give birth to five more children besides Samuel, three sons and two daughters. Six children total, not the song’s seven.

We can explain the oddity of Hannah’s song if we read it in the context of Samuel’s dia-tribe against the abuses that a king will inflict upon the people (1 Sam. 8).18 Hannah’s song can be read against a context in which an exploiting class burdens its peasant classes with taxes and tributes that keep them barely at subsistence level. Her song can be read as prais-ing God who shakes up the status quo, by overturning these oppressive hierarchies, taking power and wealth from the dominant and giving it to the poor and vulnerable.

The bows of the mighty are broken.But the feeble gird on strength.Those who were full have hiredthemselves out for bread,But those who were hungry are fat with spoil…The Lord makes poor and makes rich;God brings low, and also exalts.God raises up the poor from the dust;God lifts the needy from the ash heap,To make them sit with princesAnd inherit a seat of honor.For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s,And on them God has set the world (1 Sam. 2.4-5a, 7-8).19

The social reversals in Hannah’s song are striking. The military will become crippled, but the exhausted with be girded with strength. ‘Those, who were full, have hired them-selves out for bread’ (2.5). The royal elites will now actually have to work to eat, while

18 Polzin R (1989) Samuel and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History. San Francisco, CA: Harper and Row, 18-54. Polzin argues that Hannah’s story is a parable about kingship.

19 The reference to God giving strength to his king, and exalting the power of his anointed in 2:10b seems to indicate a pro-monarchic outlook. Here, however, I agree with David Jobling and Norman K. Gottwald that the original poem was altered later to provide divine support for the king. See, Jobling D (1998) 1 Samuel. Berit Olam; Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 166-69 and Gottwald NK (1979) The Tribes of Yahweh. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979, 534. These closing words clearly contradict the liberatory outlook of the rest of the song. Jobling argues that the closing words result from the royal propaganda machine, designed, like Psalm 72, to create the fiction that the king is on the side of the poor.

Yee 47

the starving, upon whom they preyed, will become satisfied. God will raise the poor from the city dump, and needy from the garbage heap. Like the Song of Deborah (Judg. 5), another celebration of peasant power in Israel,20 Hannah’s powerful voice proclaims on behalf of the exploited that God ‘will guard the feet of his faithful ones, but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness; for not by might does one prevail’ (1 Sam. 2.9).

Mary (Lk. 1-2)

We now turn to our second woman who speaks forcefully on behalf of the victimized, Mary, the mother of Jesus, in Lk. 1-2. Some might not be familiar with the Mary I will be discussing: a poor, brown-skinned, teen-age unwed mother from the boonies. This Mary was de-politicized, spiritualized, and morphed into a blond, blue-eyed Caucasian. Dressed in blue, one of the colors only worn by the wealthy,21 she became the picture of an upper-class Renaissance woman, who was addressed as ‘Our Lady.’ This was the Mary that I grew up with, as a former Roman Catholic.

Just as we had to learn the social contexts of Hannah to understand the exceptional power of her words and acts, so must we understand the milieu in which Mary lived. The oppressive conditions of the Israelite peasantry under the monarchy actually worsened when the nation was destroyed in 587 bce. The land and its people were colonized by a series of empires: Babylonia, Persia, Greece, and Rome. To be sure, there were a number of popular revolts and other forms of resistance against these colonizers,22 but these were brutally crushed. What were the social, economic and religious conditions of first-century Palestine which provide the important background for understanding Mary and her song?

‘In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary’ (Lk. 1.26-27). In order to appreciate Mary, one must know something about the region in which she lived, Galilee.23 Galilee was the district west of the Sea of Galilee in northern Palestine, where Jesus spent much of his ministry. It was a rich agricultural region for growing wheat, and fruit and olive trees.

The Sea of Galilee itself supported an important fishing industry. Fish was a fundamental staple in the Mediterranean world. Bread and fish, with the addition of olive-oil and wine, formed the most substantial parts of the diet for both rich and poor in ancient times. High prices often put fresh fish out of the reach of the poor. In fact, it was presumed that if a poor person bought fresh fish, he was a thief. The poor could only afford dried and salted fish, which was the basic food of the lower classes, slaves, peasants and soldiers in the field.24

20 Jobling D (1998) 1 Samuel. Berit Olam; Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 167.21 Boyd MP (2006) Blue. The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, A­C, Volume 1.

Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 482.22 See Horsley RA (1985 [1999]) Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs: Popular Movements in the

Time of Jesus. Repr. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International.23 Johnson EA (2009) Galilee: a critical matrix for Marian studies. Theological Studies 70:

327-46.24 Hanson KC (1997) The Galilean fishing economy and the Jesus tradition. Biblical Theology

Bulletin 27: 99-111.

48 Feminist Theology 21(1)

It is telling that the Gospels never mention meat. It was bread and fish that Jesus blessed, which miraculously fed the five thousand in the desert. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asks, ‘What person among you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?’ (Mt. 7.9-10). In one of his many parables, Jesus describes the kingdom of heaven like a net which was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind; when it was full, laborers drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into vessels but threw away the bad. When the resurrected Jesus appears to the disciples in Luke’s Gospel, he demonstrates his humanness by eating a piece of broiled fish.

Fishing families who worked the waters were on the same social scale as the peasantry who worked the land. Fishing was backbreaking labor with relatively small reward. Our Gospels record that their hard labor did not always result in a catch (Lk. 5.7-10). Assuming that they were fortunate to net a substantial quantity of fish, they spent the night and early morning disentangling and the sorting the commercially valuable fish from the bad. And tax collectors were on the lookout for a successful catch and were ready to take their cut. Mark records the tax collector, Levi, sitting by the shore at the tax booth, when Jesus comes along and says ‘Follow me’ (Mk. 2.13-17).

The agricultural and fishing economies of Galilee were aggressively controlled by their colonizer, imperial Rome, which ruled the region through its Herodian client kings. The lower classes in Roman Palestine carried the heavy tax burdens of three sets of elites.25 The first was to Rome, whose imperial estates were managed by pre-fects, such as Pontius Pilate. The second was the taxation of the Herods, the client-kings of Rome, who also controlled land and agricultural production in their large estates, as well as the fishing industry in the Galilee. The third were the heavy tithes and offerings to the priestly aristocracy of the Jerusalem temple.26 As in the pre-exilic time of the Israelite monarchy, the peasantry and fisherfolk had to borrow money from the wealthy or sell themselves or their children into slavery to compensate for their debt (compare 2 Kgs 4.1-7).27 Doing the dirty work of extracting the soil taxes, head taxes, market taxes, transit tolls, port taxes, rents, temple tithes, and sacrifices for the ruling elites were the tax collectors, sometimes called publicans. These indi-viduals were regarded as personae non gratae by the populace. In Roman and Hellenistic literature, they are lumped with beggars, thieves, and robbers, which

25 For a thorough discussion of the taxation and debt cycles in Roman Palestine, see Hanson KC, Oakman DE (2008) The denarius stops here: political economy in roman Palestine. Palestine in the Time of Jesus: Social Structures and Social Conflicts. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2nd edn, 93-121.

26 Hanson KC, Oakman DE (2008) The denarius stops here: political economy in roman Palestine. Palestine in the Time of Jesus: Social Structures and Social Conflicts. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 98; Herzog II WR (2005) Why peasants responded to Jesus. In: Horsley RA (ed.) Christian Origins. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 48.

27 Chirichigno GC (1993) Debt­Slavery in Israel and the Ancient Near East. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

Yee 49

offers some perspective on Jesus who was accused of being a drunkard and a friend of tax collectors and sinners (Mt. 11.19).28

Besides financing the opulent lifestyles and armies of the Herodian kings, taxation in both material and human resources particularly bankrolled their numerous building pro-jects, such as Herod the Great’s Jerusalem temple renovation, his pleasure palace at Masada, and the city of Caesarea in honor of the Roman emperor.29 His son Herod Antipas built his capital city, Tiberias, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, which allowed him to control the trade route along the lake as well as its lucrative fishing indus-try. Antipas also expanded the city of Sepphoris into an important administrative center.

The establishment of these cities brought Galilee more directly under Roman and Herodian control, than it had been previously. With the construction of good roads, stor-age facilities, and administrative offices, the elites had greater access to the agricultural and fishing resources of the Galilee. This urbanization and the flow of elites into these cities put considerable pressure upon the local rural population by increasing the need for more taxes to support their rich lifestyle, as well as making tax collection more accessi-ble.30 To the peasants in the villages, the already burdensome triple tax became next to unbearable as the Herodian portion was increased to pay their building projects.31 One of the villages most likely affected was Nazareth, the village of Mary, located about four miles from Sepphoris. Nathaniel’s cynical response about Jesus in Jn 1.46, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ reflects Nazareth’s reputation as a hick one-horse town. Nazareth was a small village of about 400, compared to 8,000-12,000 in neighboring Sepphoris.32 Archaeology has revealed no evidence of any public structures in Nazareth from the early Roman Period. No marble nor mosaics nor frescoes or any luxury items. No public inscriptions whatsoever, signaling the illiteracy of the village. The material artifacts recovered reveal a poor agrarian community of no political significance, and one preoccupied with farming and heavy taxation to support the aristocracy of nearby Sepphoris.33

Because Mary was married to a tekton, named Joseph, whose trade was passed on to Jesus (compare Mt. 13.55; Mk. 6.3), we have another social stratum to consider in ancient Palestine, alongside the peasant and fishing classes. Jesus and his father are usu-ally depicted as carpenters. However, a better translation of the Greek tekton is ‘builder,’ a manual laborer who worked with stone, wood, and sometimes metal in large and small

28 Donahue JR (1992) Tax collector. Anchor Bible Dictionary 6, 337-38.29 Netzer E (1992) Herod’s Building Program. Anchor Bible Dictionary 3,169-72.30 Moreland M (2006) The Jesus Movement in the villages of Roman Galilee: archaeology, Q,

and modern anthropological theory. In: Horsley R (ed.) Oral Performance, Popular Tradition, and Hidden Transcript in Q. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 169; Reed JL (2000) Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus: A Re­Examination of the Evidence. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 68-69, 96-97.

31 Johnson EA (2009) Galilee: a critical matrix for Marian studies. Theological Studies 70: 335.32 Reed JL (2000) Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus: A Re­Examination of the Evidence.

Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 83-89.33 Reed JL (2000) Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus: A Re­Examination of the Evidence.

Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International 131-32, 137-38.

50 Feminist Theology 21(1)

building projects.34 The tekton belonged to the artisan class, which according to Lenski, drew from the ranks of the dispossessed peasantry and their non-inheriting sons. At the lower end of the social scale, their income was usually less than the majority of peasants and their numbers were not large.35 Evidence from the Hebrew Bible and LXX seems to qualify Lenski’s notion of artisans as dispossessed peasants for those in ancient Israel, and perhaps Palestine. Artisans were among those exiled to Babylonia with the upper classes (2 Kgs 24.14, 16; LXX tekton). Although artisans were disparaged in Greek and Roman literature, this seems not to be the case among the Jews of Palestine, such as Josephus and the rabbis, who seem to have respected and praised artisans for their labor and craftsmanship.36 Joseph and Jesus could have conceivably worked in the building projects of nearby Sepphoris and other cities of Galilee before Jesus began his ministry at age 30 (Lk. 3.23).37 However, Jesus probably avoided Sepphoris during his ministry to escape the reach of Herod Antipas, who had beheaded John the Baptist.38

How, then, do these social conditions affect our understanding of Mary and her Magnificat? Mary was a resident of a poor small village whose agricultural goods and human labor were heavily taxed to support the urban aristocracy at nearby Sepphoris and for elites much farther away in Jerusalem and in Rome. Like the other rural villages in Palestine, Nazareth was burdened with the triple taxation of Rome, the Herods, and the Temple. The lack of any archaeological remains of higher status in Nazareth indicate that Mary herself was probably one of the illiterate poor of her village, even though wife to an artisan and mother to an artisan son. She herself witnessed the abusive exploitation of her village whose surpluses were drained by the cities, keeping its peasants scarcely at subsistence level. Like many wives, she had to endure the long absences of husband and son as they followed the building projects for work in different parts of the Galilee and perhaps even in Jerusalem.

Like her ancient Israelite ancestors, she and the other women of her village toiled very hard in support of her family and to keep up with demands of taxation.39 Even today, women in many poor countries endure the bulk of subsistence production and

34 Campbell KM (2005) What was Jesus’ occupation? Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 48.3: 501-19.

35 Lenski G (1966) Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification. New York: McGraw-Hill; Repr. 1984, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina: 278-80, 284.

36 Fiensy D (1999) Leaders of mass movements and the leader of the Jesus Movement. Journal for the Study of the New Testament 74: 21-22; Levine AJ (2007) Theory, apologetic, history: reviewing Jesus’ Jewish context. Australian Biblical Review 55: 67-68.

37 Fiensy D (1999) Leaders of mass movements and the leader of the Jesus Movement. Journal for the Study of the New Testament 74: 24-25. Compare with Longstaff TRW (1990) Nazareth and Sepphoris: insights into Christian origins. Anglican Theological Review 11: 8-15.

38 Reed JL (2000) Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus: A Re­Examination of the Evidence. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 137-38.

39 The following is drawn from Meyers C (1988) Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context. New York: Oxford University Press; and eadem (1998) Everyday life: women in the period of the Hebrew Bible. In: Newsom CA, Ringe SH (eds) The Women’s Bible Commentary. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox, expanded edn, 251-59.

Yee 51

reproduction.40 First of all, rather than tilling the grain fields, Mary would have done farm work that was compatible with childcare, such as cultivating fruit trees, vines and vegetables on plots closer to the household. She had to convert harvested food-stuffs, such as grain, olives, and grapes, for storage. Thus she did a lot of threshing, drying, pounding, pitting, pressing olives for oils and grapes for wine. Mary had to process the harvest to convert it to food. So, for example, to bake a loaf of bread, she had to soak, mill, and grind the grain into flour, and then assemble ingredients, knead and bake the dough in a communal oven. Mary took care of feeding, grooming, and healing her animals, and then milking them for dairy products. Mary was responsible for making cloth and clothes from cloth for Joseph and Jesus. Therefore, she had to shear the goat, process its hair, spin the yarn, weave the yarn on a loom to make the fabric, and then cut and sew the outfit. She had to make pottery for eating and weave baskets for storage. Just like millions of women in Third World countries today, Mary would have been responsible for the grueling collection of water and hauling it back to the household. On top of all this, she, like all rural women in Palestine, was expected to produce children, which were necessary in this labor-intensive society with a high infant mortality rate. Of course, the raising, socializing and instructing of Jesus primarily fell to her, especially if Joseph was absent from the household on a building project. All of these duties she shared with the other women of her village, duties that were time-consuming, exhausting, involving a complex set of skills, and were absolutely essential for the survival of the household. And most of the fruits of her and her village’s labor were ruthlessly expropriated to bolster the extravagant lifestyle of urban elites.

Mary was no stranger to violence. She grew up and gave birth during the brutal rule of the Herod the Great. Matthew’s birth story records his order to kill all the children under two in Bethlehem, because the wise men refused to tell Herod where Jesus was (Mt. 2.16-18). Popular revolts and resistance plagued Herod’s rule and broke out par-ticularly after his death in 4 bce. Judas, son of Hezekiah, mounted an insurrection at Sepphoris, stormed the royal palace and seized all its weapons and booty. Rome acted swiftly in quashing the revolt. In the environs of Sepphoris, the villages were burned, the people sold into slavery, and thousands of rebels publicly crucified in a systematic killing spree.41 Living in Nazareth, as a young mother during this time, Mary would have experienced and survived the horrifying violence of Roman troops crushing the rebellion of her ethnic kin. She will later in life witness her own son tortured and cruci-fied by the Romans in Jerusalem.

40 See Figure 2.1: The ‘“Iceberg” View of the Economy’ which displays graphically the unrecognized and unpaid labor of women in subsistence and reproduction and childcare, in Kabeer N (2003) Gender Mainstreaming in Poverty Eradication and the Millennium Development Goals: A Handbook for Policy­Makers and Other Stakeholders. Ottawa: International Development Research Center, 35. Available at: http://www.idrc.ca/openebooks/067-5/

41 Horsley RA (1995) Galilee: History, Politics, People. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 60-63.

52 Feminist Theology 21(1)

Unlike Hannah who was already married, Mary is a betrothed virgin when the angel Gabriel announces the birth of Jesus.42 She hears Gabriel’s mind-blowing prophecy that she will conceive without the agency of a male and give birth to Jesus, who will be great, be called Son of the Most High, and be given ‘the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end’ (Lk. 1.32-33). She is told that her kinswoman Elizabeth has also conceived in her barrenness and is now six months pregnant. ‘For nothing is impossible with God’ (1.36-37). Mary responds simply, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word’ (1.38).

Mary is the exact opposite of Elizabeth’s husband, the priest Zechariah, serving in the temple. Zechariah does not believe Gabriel’s prophecy that his barren wife will conceive and, as a result, is struck dumb, silenced, unable to speak until his wife gives birth to John the Baptist (1.18-20). Mary, on the other hand, not only believes and accepts Gabriel’s words, but also sings one of the most famous hymns of the Bible, the Magnificat. There are several correspondences between Mary’s song and the interchange between Mary and Elizabeth just before it:

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord” (Lk. 1.41-45).

Now listen to the themes of joy, praise, spirit, blessing, and servanthood in Mary’s song:

My soul magnifies the Lord,And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,Who has looked with favor on thelowliness of God’s servant.Surely, from now on all generationsWill call me blessed;For the Mighty One has done great things for me,And Holy is God’s name (1.46-49).

Mary’s song will continue with the themes of social reversal that we also saw in Hannah’s song:

42 I will not be discussing the arguments of some scholars that the virgin birth tradition in Matthew and Luke were responses to the charges that Jesus was conceived illegitimately. For these, see Schaberg J (1987) The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives. San Francisco, CA: Harper and Row; Repr. New York: Crossroad, 1990, and the essays in Levine A-J (ed.) (2005) A Feminist Companion to Mariology. London and New York: T & T Clark International.

Yee 53

God has shown strength with his arm;God has scattered the proud in their thoughts of their hearts.God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,And lifted up the lowly;God has filled the hungry with good things,And sent the rich away empty (Lk. 1.51-53).

Just as the person of Mary has been de-politicized and spiritualized, so has her song been interpreted as referring to spiritual poverty and spiritual hunger. But in the context of the terrible social conditions in which she lived, Mary is talking about grinding pov-erty, aching hunger, and acute exploitation by the ‘powerful on their thrones.’ Hers and Hannah’s songs ‘can only be sung with full impact by people who are not part of the dominant social structure, by people who know what it is to be oppressed and who know that the present social systems are bankrupt of hope.’ 43 Their songs inspire the joyful hope and expectation that God who has heard the cries of the poor in the past, will respond again. ‘He has come to the help of Israel his servant, as he promised to our ancestors; he has not forgotten to show mercy to Abraham and to his descendants for-ever’ (Lk. 1.54-56).

The person of Jesus has also been de-politicized and sanitized, just like his mother. But in Luke’s Gospel, after Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist, after he spent 40 days in the wilderness tempted by the devil, what was his first memorable act?

Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee…and when he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Lk. 4.14-21).

Read in light of the severe exploitation in his Galilean hometown, Jesus is literally talking about the political release of the captives, the true recovery of sight to the blind, and the physical deliverance of the oppressed of his land. Jesus begins his public minis-try by unleashing his prophetic voice, speaking truth to power, to announce the fulfill-ment of the liberating word that Isaiah uttered centuries ago, the message of liberation that both Hannah and his own mother proclaimed.

****

43 O’Day G (1985) Singing woman’s song: a hermeneutic of liberation. Currents in Theology and Mission 12.4: 210. Lloyd L (2006) Eradicating Global Poverty: A Christian Study Guide on the Millennium Development Goals. New York: National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, 30.

54 Feminist Theology 21(1)

What have we learned about Hannah and Mary and how can their stories be of service to the three Millennium Development Goals: ‘Promote gender equality and empower women;’ ‘Reduced child mortality;’ and ‘Improve maternal health?’ We learned that we have to know the social, political, and economic contexts in which they lived. Their world was not our world. The ability to become pregnant and bear children was one of the few sources of honor for women in the patriarchal world inhabited by Hannah and Mary. Because theirs was a labor-intensive society with a high infant mortality rate, women were encouraged and rewarded for bearing children. Children supported their parents when they became old and infirm. The ability to become pregnant was thus con-sidered to be a gift from God (Exod. 23.25-26; Deut. 7.14).

Our planet currently faces an acute ecological problem of overpopulation and will not be able to sustain and feed us if this problem is not corrected. The image of the pregnant woman is thus an ambiguous one for us today, especially because overpopulation pre-dominantly afflicts the so-called Third World where the poor are mostly concentrated. In certain ways, the conditions of the poor here were the ones faced in biblical times. These poorer countries usually do not have Social Security/a Welfare State, State/Government pension plans, savings or other support for the elderly, who depend on their offspring to care for them in their old age, as they did in antiquity. Furthermore, much of the eco-nomic life in poor countries is based on the labor-intensive work of the large family unit for survival. Militating against this survival, then and now, is their disturbingly high infant and maternal mortality rate.

Women in these poorer countries need greater access to education, family planning information and better services once they become pregnant. These are interlinked in the three MDGs, ‘Promote gender equality and empower women,’ particularly through pri-mary and secondary education, ‘Reduce child mortality,’ and ‘Improve maternal health.’ Studies have shown that the best way to reduce family size is to improve the education, health and nutrition of women, in particular. Better health and education lead to smaller families, since declining birthrates tend to follow improvements in living standards. Nevertheless, those of us in the so-called First World who do enjoy higher standards of living must also recognize that our consumption of the planet’s gifts (water, food, and raw materials) is exceedingly greater than in the Third World. A child born in the First World leaves an ecological ‘footprint’ ten times greater than one born in poorer coun-tries. As we tackle the problem of Third World overpopulation, we must also deal with the dilemma of First world overconsumption.

Although we differ from Hannah and Mary in our contexts regarding pregnancy and childbirth, the reality of poverty and hunger in their world is also the reality of poverty and hunger in ours, which the MDGs hope to eradicate. These two mothers gave birth under the oppressive rule of elites who kept them and their villages barely at subsistence level. Their reality was one of hunger, disease, and squalid poverty, while a small minor-ity lived off their labor in luxury and indolence. They and their husbands engaged in back-breaking work on the land to keep up with the demands of taxation and their own survival.

I have taken you, the reader, through the extensive social background of these stories, discussing the conditions in which Hannah and Mary lived, so that you can understand the causes of poverty and oppression in biblical times, and better appreciate the message

Yee 55

of power and hope expressed by their songs in the midst of this oppression. I urge you to learn about our own complex global situation and discern the causes of poverty in our own time. The MDGs address some of these causes: hunger, lack of education, the dis-crimination and subjugation of women, child mortality, inferior or dreadful healthcare for mothers, HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, the degradation and pollution of the environment, the growing indebtedness of the Third World to the First World, the eco-nomic exploitation of the Third World by the First World. I urge you, the reader, to go beyond charity, go beyond sending your checks/cheques to whatever organization, and actually learn about and study the systemic causes of poverty, and the concrete ways to abolish them.

I think you will find this study very depressing. Those in the US context will be appalled at what they will discover about corporate dishonesty and greed, unfair tax laws rigged against ordinary workers, a pay-to-play political system so corrupted by lobbying it can barely function. Learning about the harmful and destructive effects of global capi-talism and overconsumption on people and the environment may fill one with a sense of hopelessness for the planet. However, Hannah and Mary both lived in dreadful circum-stances, yet their songs express a fervent hope and confidence in the God who hears the cry of the poor: Hannah declares, ‘He will guard the feet of his faithful ones’ (1 Sam. 2.9). Mary asserts, ‘He has come to the help of Israel his servant, as he promised to our ancestors; he has not forgotten to show mercy to Abraham and to his descendants for-ever’ (Lk. 1.54-56). May we too remember the lives of these women, their suffering and oppression, and their liberating songs of hope and thanksgiving, and act upon them in a poverty-stricken world that sorely needs their message of liberation!

References

Bar-Efrat S (1978) Literary modes and methods in the biblical narrative in view of 2 Samuel 10-20 and 1 Kings 1-2. Immanuel 8: 19-31.

Bowman RG (2007) Narrative criticism: human purpose in conflict with divine presence. In: Yee GA (ed.) Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2nd edn, 19-45

Boyd MP (2006) Blue. The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, A­C, Volume 1. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 482.

Campbell KM (2005) What was Jesus’ occupation? Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 48.3: 501-19.

Chirichigno GC (1993) Debt­Slavery in Israel and the Ancient Near East. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

Cook JE (1999) Hannah’s Desire, God’s Design: Early Interpretations of the Story of Hannah. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.

Fewell DN (2003) The Children of Israel: Reading the Bible for the Sake of Our Children. Nashville, TN: Abingdon.

Fiensy D (1999) Leaders of mass movements and the leader of the Jesus Movement. Journal for the Study of the New Testament 74: 3-27.

Fuchs E (1985) The literary characterization of mothers and sexual politics in the Hebrew Bible. In: Yarbro Collins A (ed.) Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholars. Chico, CA: Scholars Press.

Gottwald NK (1979) The Tribes of Yahweh. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, Repr. 1981.

56 Feminist Theology 21(1)

Hanson KC (1997) The Galilean fishing economy and the Jesus tradition. Biblical Theology Bulletin 27: 99-111.

Hanson KC, Oakman DE (2008) Palestine in the Time of Jesus: Social Structures and Social Conflicts. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2nd edn.

Havea J (2003) Elusions of Control: Biblical Law on the Words of Women. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature.

Havrelock RS (2008) The myth of birthing the hero: heroic barrenness in the Hebrew Bible. Biblical Interpretation 16.2: 154-78.

Herzog II WR (2005) Why peasants responded to Jesus. In: Horsley RA (ed.) Christian Origins. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 47-70.

Horsley RA (1985) Bandits, Prophets, and Messiahs: Popular Movements in the Time of Jesus. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, Repr. 1999.

Horsley RA (1995) Galilee: History, Politics, People. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International.Jobling D (1998) 1 Samuel. Berit Olam; Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press.Johnson EA (2009) Galilee: a critical matrix for Marian studies. Theological Studies 70: 327-46.Kabeer N (2003) Gender Mainstreaming in Poverty Eradication and the Millennium Develop­

ment Goals: A Handbook for Policy­Makers and Other Stakeholders. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre. Available at: http://www.idrc.ca/openebooks/067-5/

Lenski G (1984) Power and Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966. Repr. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 1984.

Levine AJ (ed.) (2005) A Feminist Companion to Mariology. London and New York: T & T Clark International.

Lloyd L (2006) Eradicating Global Poverty: A Christian Study Guide on the Millennium Development Goals. New York: National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA.

Meyers C (1988) Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context. New York: Oxford University Press.

Meyers C (1996) The Hannah narrative in feminist perspective. In: Coleson JE, Matthews VH (eds) Go to the Land I Will Show You: Studies in Honor of Dwight W. Young. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 117-26.

Meyers CL (1998) Everyday life: women in the period of the Hebrew Bible. In: Newsom CA, Ringe SH (eds) The Women’s Bible Commentary. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, expanded edn, 251-59.

Moreland M (2006) The Jesus Movement in the villages of Roman Galilee: archaeology, Q, and modern anthropological theory. In: Horsley R (ed.) Oral Performance, Popular Tradition, and Hidden Transcript in Q. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 159-80.

Netzer E (1992) Herod’s Building Program. Anchor Bible Dictionary 3, 169-72.O’Day G (1985) Singing woman’s song: a hermeneutic of liberation. Currents in Theology and

Mission 12.4: 203-10.Polzin R (1989) Samuel and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History.

San Francisco, CA: Harper and Row.Reed JL (2000) Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus: A Re­Examination of the Evidence.

Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International.Schaberg J (1987) The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Infancy

Narratives. San Francisco, CA: Harper and Row; Repr. New York: Crossroad, 1990.Schulz T (2010) The erosion of America’s middle class. Available at Spiegel Online International:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,druck-712496,00.htmlSteinberg N (2010) 1 Samuel 1, the United Nations convention on the rights of children, and ‘the

best interests of the child.’ Journal of Childhood and Religion 1.3. Available at: http://www.childhoodandreligion.com/JCR/Volume_1_%282010%29_files/SteinbergApril2010.pdf

Yee 57

United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Who Answers to Women? Gender and Accountability. Progress of the World’s Women 2008/2009. Available at: http://www.unifem.org/progress/2008/

Yee GA (2003) Poor Banished Children of Eve: Woman As Evil in the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

Yee GA (2009) Take this child and suckle it for me: wet nurses and resistance in ancient Israel. Biblical Theology Bulletin 39.4: 180-89.