Somehow, left me feeling bleak....

books:


	• Rebekah (Women of Genesis) Orson Scott Card Forge Books, 2002 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 33 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

loved it!

I enjoyed reading Rebecca so much! I am reading the old testament and am loving that as well! It's neat to compare the scriptures with the book and seeing how Orson Scott Card can use his God given talents to draw us in!I would recommend reading the series of the Women of Genesis-it's amazing the incredible strength these women had and what great examples of what to do and not to do!I would recommend the hard cover copies for they are worth keeping in your library!

Moving and engaging

This novel by Orson Scott Card about the life of the matriarch Rebekah, is at once moving and engaging.
Unlike some novels, such as Sarah by Marek Halter and The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant, where the women are portayed as worshiping idols and other gods, she is shown as a strong women, devoted to the service of Yahweh since she was little, as are the other matriarchs in the Women of Genesis series.
Card has done a great job of filling in the gaps and bringing the women of the Bible to life.
The digressions from the Biblical account are not major and are, I believe, in the overall spirit of the Biblical account.
As a believing Jew, I did not find anything incongruent or objectionable in this book, although it is written by a Mormon.
Rebekah loses her mother as a baby, and is brought up under by a doting father, by her simple-minded and devoted nurse Deborah. She is also close to her brother Laban.
Her beauty is renowned and she has a headstrong and powerful personality temprered by an innate compassion.When she is seven years old an accident renders her father, Bethuel, deaf. She rejects marriage to a wealthy nobleman Ezbaal, because he worships pagan gods, and not Yahweh, and is by a strange series of events reunited with her mother Akyas, who was sent by Bethuel shortly after Rebekah's birth.

Later she knows, through G-D, when Eliezer meets her at the well, that it is her destiny to go with him and marry Isaac, and go's with Isaac to dwell at the home of his father Abraham at Kirjath-arba.
The love between Rebekah and Isaac is great but it is strained by the rivalry with his brother Ishmail, and the domineering nature of Isaac's father,. Abraham. She falls pregnant after twenty years, and in a dream is visited by her great ancestors Seth, the son of Noah, and Eber, and several others of whom she knew less. They inform her she will give birth to twins " You have two great men inside you, two mighty nations, two ways of life, and the one will be stronger than the other, and the elder will serve the younger".
Not long after the twins Jacob and Esau are born, their different natures become apparent. Jacob is good natured and obedient, while Esau is wild and wilfful. Rebekah favours Jacob and Isaac favours Esau. Esau hunts and kills the animals, while Jacob tends and loves them. A powerful anecdote is related to show their different natures, when they are five years old and and Jacob weeps because Esau throws stones at a puppy until it is blinded.
They grow up and finally Esau shows his true waywardness, bloodthirsty caharacter and his disinterest in the word of G-D, and he marries two Hittite women.
The book draws to a close with the famous events where Esau sells his birthrigh to Jacob for a mess of pottage, and where Jacob tricks Isaac into giving him the birthright instead of Esau. But according to the author's interpretation, Isaac really knows it is Jacob, but G-D tels him that indeed Jacob is worthy of the blessing.
The dialogues show the conflicts prevalent in the narrative.
It is written in modern language, and should bring the narratives alive to the readers.
I look forward to reading the other Women of Genesis novels.

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Somehow, left me feeling bleak....

This version of Rebecca's life left me feeling that some would certainly have a misconstrued picture of who Rebecca was if they were to make the mistake of not actually reading the biblical text. While the story was readable, the writer certainly used creative license in the re-telling of the story. Enjoy this with that knowledge.

Beautiful.

My husband got me 3 of the Women in Gen series for my birthday, and I am so glad he did. These are written as "fiction" but it is evident that there is a lot of research put into it as well. Card portrays an honest view of Jewish life far surpassing the vulgar cave-man "Red Tent" version. My copy of Rebekah has an endorsement from the Jerusalem Post on first page which says a lot about it's accuracy. Also commendable is the fact that Card does not alter the Genesis account. What he adds gives deeper meaning and a higher understanding of what is already in the scriptures. There are hints that some of Rebekah was loosely taken from other ancient texts as well. As an example;

Jasher 24: 39 ... and they gave him Rebecca, the daughter of Bethuel, for a wife for Isaac. 40 And the young woman was of very comely appearance, she was a virgin, and Rebecca was ten years old in those days.

Early on in the Book Card mentions Rebekah being 10 years old, and makes a point that she was very mature for her age. Her age is mentioned in such a way that most readers will not realize how young she was when married though. Card also mentions the book of Noah in reference to another account of the flood - and the Book of Noah does actually exist, you can buy it on Amazon, usually in combination with the works of Enoch.

He also discretely brings up the Israelite Goddess Asherah, AKA, Heavenly Mother. If you don't mind, I would like to provide some additional background on Asherah to anyone interested in reading this, or any other books related to Jewish histories. The existence of a Heavenly Mother is not just Mormon doctrine - although I do not want to misrepresent the LDS either, they do not worship Her, they only admit to Her existence. In Genesis 21:33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree (tree of life representing feminine child bearing ability) and called there on the name of Yahweh el Olam (a combination of two divine names). In Genesis 30:13 Leah names her son Ahser whose names means "with Asherah's help". Perhaps the most beautiful description of Asherah in the Bible is the Proverbs 3:13-18 inclusio (happy, wisdom, and tree of life are all "discrete" translations of the Hebrew words Ashre, chokmah, and ets chayyum). Asherah is very much a part of the Old Testament. Just as Abraham sacrificing Isaac represents Heavenly father sacrificing Jesus, I strongly suspect Sarah, Abraham's beautiful wife, represents Asherah. The many righteous barren women combined with the polygamy throughout the OT possibly symbolic of Mary, not Asherah, becoming the mother of Their "only" begotten son. The background of the ever so important baptism as being an actual "birth"... a birth respecting the free agency of the "children" in which divine Parents are chosen rather than forced upon a spirit through a physical birth... Also adding to the reason that Jesus was baptized, not to take away sin, or to become a child of Heavenly Father... the words "This is my beloved son" perhaps being spoken by a female voice after Jesus' baptism. Of course inappropriate worship of the beautiful Asherah lead to Her presence being hidden, the commandment of not worshipping images. Ex 19: 4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above - this commandment does not come about until Ex, so Abraham and others are perhaps not really doing something that was wrong at the time although the idea of men protecting and respecting the sanctity of womanhood was in place starting with Adam. Card points out the fact that the Jewish people do not dare utter the name of Heavenly Father and protect Asherah even more vehemently. The great sin of inappropriately worshipping Her much worse than using the Lord's name in vain. (I know the account surrounding Rebekah's mother is fictional, but the points made by the story are very real).

If Orson happens across my ramblings, I apologize for overanalyzing your fictional work. Perhaps I read too much into it, or combine it with things I should not... or perhaps I am right, and just not as discreet at introducing some subjects as Card is...

In any event, Rebekah is a beautiful read, perhaps I misrepresent it, I do not think it is meant to be a scholarly research paper, it reads like a best-seller novel, although to those who have read some other things, there are elements in it that are much deeper than perhaps the uneducated reader might grasp - which is what makes all of Card's books so intriguing. Disturbing how accurately Card, a male, is able to portray all that is female. Beautiful that he is able to reveal the real power women had and still have to those who do not yet understand the nobility of being a mother and wife. I will pass this book along to others not only as a testimony builder that brings the scriptures to life, but also as a book that reveals the beauty of male and female roles and the appropriate honest way people from "Mars and Venus" can come to respect and support one another.

My deepest thanks to Bro. Card for all of his work.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Born into a time and place where a woman speaks her mind at her peril, and reared as a motherless child by a doting father, Rebekah grew up to be a stunning, headstrong beauty. She was chosen by God for a special destiny.

Rebekah leaves her father's house to marry Isaac, the studious young son of the Patriarch Abraham, only to find herself caught up in a series of painful rivalries, first between her husband and his brother Ishmael, and later between her sons Jacob and Esau. Her struggles to find her place in the family of Abraham are a true test of her faith, but through it all she finds her own relationship with God and does her best to serve His cause in the lives of those she loves.

In Rebekah, Orson Scott Card has created an astonishing personality, complex and intriguing, and her story will engage your heart as it captures your imagination.

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