Saturday, May 24, 2008

ANY MORE BABES LIKE YOU? Christianity Today looks at some impressive second-temple-era ladies, mostly fictional:
Five Intertestamental Beauties
Don't mess with these women.
by William Griffin

"Are there any more babes like you up there? If so, we don't stand a chance!" (Judith 10:19).1 That was an Assyrian military officer speaking to the Jewish Judith. She'd come down from her hillside village, heading toward the Assyrian general's tent with murder in her heart.

The same statement could just as well have been applied, mutatis mutandis, to such other extraordinary women found in intertestamental literature as Esther, Vashti, Sophia, and Susanna. Which is to say, they were the sort who, despite a blindfold, could take creation apart and reassemble it again as though it were a Rubik's Cube.

First thing one notices about these women is that they were smart.

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You may notice that the translations are pretty free. See the first footnote.