Week 2: Bible Women Unit Review (Essay)

The reading Unit I chose for week 2 was the unit which focused on Biblical Women.

I enjoyed this unit a lot. Most of the stories I was at least partially familiar with, since I grew up in a Christian household. However, some details of each of the stories surprised me, either because of details that I hadn't heard before or of aspects I had heard but weren't actually in the story.

My favorite of the stories were the story of Esther, Susannah, and Bathsheba. I had heard Esther's story many times, but it was always my favorite growing up. I had never heard Susannah's story before, but I thought it had a great message and I wish it was taught more. Bathsheba was another story I liked. I hadn't ever realized that the King George and the Ducky was based off this. That was my brother's favorite VeggieTale when he was little (mine was the Esther one). That may have been a big reason why the story of Bathsheba stood out.

I didn't like the Witch of Endor as much. I thought that the story didn't focus enough on her. The story just didn't seem to fit into the unit as well as all of the other stories. Besides that, I thought they were all great and fit well together.

I don't have any regrets about the unit I chose. The only thing that some people may want to know is that the stories are in the original King James Bible, and not one of the more modern translations. I didn't mind the old version at all but some people may not want to read the old English.

In this unit, I learned about two new stories, but I also learned a lot about how the women and stories I had learned about as a kid fit together into a timeline. The stories went in such an order where I could see more of a family history and timeline than I ever had with these stories before. That was really interesting to me. This was especially applicable in the first half's old testament stories where they went in order through a families generations, like Sarah to Rebekah, to Leah and Rachel.

By Dante Rossetti, "Dante's Vision of Rachel and Leah"

Overall I thought this was a very good unit. I enjoyed the stories and think they will work well with the mythologies and ancient stories that we will be studying in this class. I would recommend this unit to anyone who is interested in women's stories from folklore.