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We are Alyssa and Bri, two sisters who believe God wants more for women than we've been taught. Join us as we dive into the intersection of faith and feminism, learning together as we go.
To the We Are More Pod cast. My name is Alyssa. And my name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word.
Speaker 1:And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy. Hello, world. Welcome. Oh, I was not about
Speaker 2:to Welcome. No. No. No. I'm thinking about a new theme song.
Speaker 1:I thought you were gonna say a new podcast partner. Cat?
Speaker 2:Cat? Dog? Anybody? Wanna be a new partner? They don't know there's a cat
Speaker 1:or a dog in here. They're so confused.
Speaker 2:There's a cat and a dog in here.
Speaker 1:But they would not be good podcast partners.
Speaker 2:No. They don't speak.
Speaker 1:That makes it difficult.
Speaker 2:And they don't have thumbs. So, you know, those parts are difficult. Yeah. So I guess you're as good as it gets.
Speaker 1:Thanks. You're welcome. I do use my thumbs a lot on
Speaker 2:my podcast. My left thumb has been hurting, and I think it's because of my hypermobility.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Brie and our brother Brandon are both very hypermobile. Like, I can
Speaker 2:pop my thumb in and out of socket. Mhmm. Like and I've been watching a lot of TikToks that are like, oh, things that hurt people that are hypermobile and they don't even realize it. And now I've been just chronically hurting. Maybe you should stop watching TikTok.
Speaker 2:Maybe.
Speaker 1:Also, you watch the weirdest TikTok of anyone I know.
Speaker 2:To be fair, it's not TikTok. It's YouTube shorts lately is my advice.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, whatever reels you're watching, we were at the salon today. Brie was getting her haircut, and then my daughter was getting her haircut afterwards. And so I'm sitting next to Brie, and she's scrolling through reels. And it was the most bizarre selection of crap.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. There was like teeth cleaning videos.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And I don't even they're sewing. Something about burial. Yeah. Like, you can bury yourself in a giant egg and sprout a tree out of it.
Speaker 2:And the tree has a GPS coordinator so you can find that tree again.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It was it was odd. Yep. No one's algorithm is like yours.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's because I stop and I watch those things, and I'm just like, that's weird. And it's like, she must like this. Let's give her more.
Speaker 1:She needs more burial content. Have we ever told you guys that Brie has a plan for what she wants on her headstone?
Speaker 2:I have a death plan, and I think everybody should have one. Everybody should. My death plan is to be buried in a wicker casket. I don't wanna be embalmed. I just want a natural burial in a wicker casket and on my tombstone.
Speaker 2:I want it to say, you're standing on my head. Now I talked about this with my new coworkers, and we really were getting into it. And one of the girls was like, well, I want mine to say, I'm right behind you. Or turn around. That's pretty good.
Speaker 1:Now, mind you, Brianna has worked at this office for what? Maybe a month? Two months? One month.
Speaker 2:So we're already getting into the good topics. My death plan. They already know about my need for a rich old man. Every
Speaker 1:time you say that, I feel that it
Speaker 2:undermines the point of the podcast. Listen. Rich in general person, like, who want I could I could also put myself up for adoption.
Speaker 1:Oh, good call. Love
Speaker 2:I wanna be in a will. Listen.
Speaker 1:Wasn't there an episode of Gilmore Girls where Kirk befriends elderly women and like takes their wedding rings or something?
Speaker 2:That sounds familiar. I'm pretty sure. That should happen. Random music gets pushed through my algorithm too. We were talking about weird reels.
Speaker 2:It's also weird music. There's a weird musical. I don't know the name of it. But it's like, is that so bad if I befriended someone and stole all their money? And is it so bad?
Speaker 2:It's essentially that.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, you you have to weigh the the cost and benefits, I guess. Yeah. It's all I've got for you.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't even a good story of mine because I don't even know the name of the song or the musical Somebody else or anything heard about it.
Speaker 1:Listeners of the internet, wherever you happen to be, DM us if you know what this musical is.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's like, I was in a relationship with someone just so that I could kill them, oops, and got some money.
Speaker 1:Wow. This sounds
Speaker 2:like a well crafted musical. I'm not selling this very well. On the topic of rich old widows What a great transition. We're talking about Judith today.
Speaker 1:I feel like when you say we're talking about Judith today, people are like, your neighbor?
Speaker 2:Like, who who the crap is Judith? Judy. I love her. She's so kind, and she bakes pies.
Speaker 1:I don't think she did, though. Maybe not. Probably not.
Speaker 2:Not our style of pie.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:And not the new deep fried apple pies from McDonald's, which aren't as good as you would hope they would be. No. They were not. They were a little bit of a disappointment. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Too much cinnamon. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And not enough apples, strangely. Anyway, so Judith is from the bible, but your Protestant bible, if you come from a Protestant background, doesn't contain her book. She actually has a whole book called Judith. But we lopped her out somewhere around, like, the seventeen or eighteen hundreds. And we'll get into why and how that happened later.
Speaker 1:But her story is so good. It's very much JL vibes.
Speaker 2:If you go back and listen to our episode on Big Deb and JL, a similar thing happens with Judith. And Alyssa and I love a violent woman. We love it. We're very much into like biblical womanhood, you know, living, breathing that. And sometimes that includes violence.
Speaker 2:And tentpigs. Yeah. And swords. Yeah. So Judith, her story is around the time of king Nebuchadnezzar.
Speaker 2:Nebuchadnezzar. I'm sorry. Didn't the Veggie Tales say Nebuchadnezzar? I do not think so. I swear they did.
Speaker 2:No. But if you remember Chocolate Bunny guy, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, same king, same dude. He's still trying to get, at this time, everybody to bow down to him. So he's going around town to town to town and saying, I'm going to get my revenge. Y'all are gonna bow down to me.
Speaker 1:Well, he's not. He sent somebody.
Speaker 2:He sent someone. But Mhmm. We're getting there. Okay. He's like, I'm gonna be over here partying for a hundred and twenty days.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm gonna send my guy, Holofernes. There's some exciting names in this book. Holofernes. Holofernes.
Speaker 1:I don't know, man. Holoferners.
Speaker 2:Big Hal. Sure. I'm gonna send my guy, Big Hal, out to all these different places, and that he's gonna take revenge on anybody who doesn't wanna bow down to King Nebuchadnezzar because he thinks he's the sun, the moon, the stars. Mhmm. And everybody should bow down to him.
Speaker 2:So, Hall Fairness, the call, is going town to town to town. And most of the towns are being like, fine, whatever. Please don't kill us. Take our servants, take our women, take our children, take our resources, do what you must, whatever. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:But not Israel. And actually, Big Hal was warned by one of his other associates. He came up to them, and he was like, so Israel is preparing for battle. Mhmm. Nobody else did, but Israel is preparing for battle.
Speaker 2:Maybe we might wanna skip this town because here's the history of Israel. And he goes into it, he says, They worship the God of heaven. And when they do right, then their God is on their side, and we're gonna get smote. Like, it's just gonna not end well for us. If we go after Israel, I don't think it's a good idea.
Speaker 2:And all of the other people, army men, you know? Sure. Army men. Keep in mind, it's a lot of men. It's like 120,000 men plus 12,000 archers?
Speaker 2:I don't know. Other people.
Speaker 1:Imagine that. Like, think of a city size. That's that's a large city full of people.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of military people coming
Speaker 1:for you.
Speaker 2:So they all got mad at this associate for saying that they shouldn't go I'm gonna say associate.
Speaker 1:It sounds so busy to me.
Speaker 2:That associate for saying they shouldn't go after Israel. They were like, who are you to tell us we shouldn't go after them? We went after everybody else. Who are you? And so Big Hal says, hey, friend, associate.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna send you away. We're gonna go take over Israel. And when we're done taking over Israel, I'm gonna treat you like one of them, and you're going down. Oh. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's how you get loyalty. Yeah. So Israel is preparing for battle, but it's getting closer and closer, and they're getting more and more afraid. And they have decided to test God in a way. Their plan was, Hey, if God doesn't save us in like five days, fine.
Speaker 2:We'll give up. We'll surrender. It is what it is. Cue in Judith. Judith is a rich old widow.
Speaker 2:She had a rich old husband who died, and she was left with lots of resources. She's very respected. She's beautiful. She's mentioned as being very beautiful.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And she goes to,
Speaker 1:like, the elders of the town. The elders.
Speaker 2:I don't who said the townspeople. No. I mean,
Speaker 1:meh, kind of. Some of them.
Speaker 2:And she says, who are you to test God?
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:We have gone through enough. Who are you to test God and tell him his timeline? We have faith that God will save us. This is ridiculous. Judith takes matters into her own hands.
Speaker 2:She dresses up. She gets all bougie.
Speaker 1:I imagine this like a pretty woman type scene.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. She goes over and she marches over into the enemy territory. Mhmm. The people who are trying to take over Israel. And she finds Big Hall.
Speaker 2:And says, hey, boy. And apparently, there's something to do with cheese.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. So she she goes and she sees him. And she basically tells him, hey. So Israel is going against God. They are defying what God wants.
Speaker 1:And they're gonna do it on a certain day. And when they do, God will abandon them. And I'll tell you when that's gonna happen. And once God abandons them, then you can attack and you'll win. Right?
Speaker 1:So she spends a few days in their camp, and she gets to know him. He's he wants her. Right? Because she pretty. And every day, her and her servant will go out and pray.
Speaker 1:She's keeping up with all of her traditions. She's eating a certain way. She's going out and praying. So kind of doing her normal thing. And then one night, big hall, invites her for dinner, clearly wanting to seduce her.
Speaker 1:So now this part is not actually in her book, but Jewish tradition says that Judith gave him really salty cheese. If there's some particular kind of cheese, I don't know what it is, but really salty cheese. And so he got really thirsty. And so he drank just a crap ton of wine. Got wasted.
Speaker 1:Right? As you do. And passes out. And this is, like, the super crazy dramatic part of the story. And the bible is not subtle in the way that it tells this.
Speaker 1:She took his sword. It's just her and him in his tent and maybe her servant. And she takes his sword, and it says she had to hit him twice. So she didn't make it all
Speaker 2:the way through the first time. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Now, JL, on the other hand, it says the tent peg went through and hit the ground. Right? So you assume this was a relatively quick process. Mhmm. But she had to chop.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then chop again. Yeah. Okay. I don't mean to be graphic.
Speaker 2:But think about that. Yeah. Like, your sword is already halfway through someone's neck. Mhmm. Because she's chopping off his head.
Speaker 2:Yep. I don't know if we said that part. But then she has to, like, wiggle it out. Uh-oh. And chop again.
Speaker 2:But see, think
Speaker 1:that's the important part of these stories is to be like, okay, this
Speaker 2:was a human person. Yeah. She wasn't trained in military But she was following what God told her to do.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And apparently, this was not
Speaker 2:a very sharp sword. No. Which is odd for a military leader. Maybe he's not doing much battle. Maybe not.
Speaker 2:Maybe he's
Speaker 1:like the figurehead. Not anymore. So she has, like, a food bag with her. Maybe where she kept
Speaker 2:the cheese. Maybe. And
Speaker 1:she takes his head, and she puts it in the food bag. And her and her servant walk casually out of the tent. No one knows that anything's happened. They walk out of enemy camp, and the guards think she's going to pray because she's done this every day.
Speaker 2:So casual.
Speaker 1:So casual. Like, just picture being this woman. Okay? Yes. She's confident.
Speaker 1:Yes. She's wealthy. Yes. She's all these different things. But she still
Speaker 2:has a man's head in a bag. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And her servant too has to just be like, alright.
Speaker 2:Let's This is
Speaker 1:what we're doing. So they walk back into is it Bethulia? That sounds right. Yeah. The name of whatever the name of their town.
Speaker 1:It's Bethulia or something like that. And she walks back into town, she's like, hey, guys. Guess what I got? It's not cheese. It's not cheese.
Speaker 1:Maybe there was some cheese left over. Maybe. So basically, the townspeople get together and put his head on a pike outside of the city gates. And the next morning, the enemy soldiers, which by the way is what you call army people And their associates. And their associates.
Speaker 1:Yes. So they see that his head is on a pike and they're like,
Speaker 2:woah, that's not good. We thought he was just sleeping in.
Speaker 1:And they I mean, there's still a lot of them. You would think, okay. There's probably, like, some chain of command. Somebody else could take over. But they start panicking and probably already had doubt from this other guy.
Speaker 2:Right. The associate Yes. Who does have a name that was like, don't mess with Israel.
Speaker 1:And so they start to break apart. There's chaos. They're going off doing their own things, and they leave Israel alone. They just go away. Israel is saved yet again.
Speaker 1:And the cool thing with Judith and, I mean, maybe for us today when we think of I don't know what success looks like for us. This might not feel like success. But Judith doesn't become the queen. Mm-mm. A lot of these other stories, you know, in in Esther, Esther becomes the queen.
Speaker 2:Or think David and Goliath.
Speaker 1:Right. David becomes the king. There's big results for some of these people. Even with Ruth, she becomes the wife of a wealthy person. Judith just kind of goes back and lives her own life.
Speaker 2:Her life was pretty chill.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Not a lot happens to her. There's no big grand exit for Judith. Eventually, her story does say she passes away, which shouldn't be surprising because this was pre Jesus time. We also all only get out
Speaker 2:of here one way, except for that one guy.
Speaker 1:The one guy. So she eventually dies basically of old age, and the whole town mourns her because of this situation, but also because she lived a life of faithfulness. She was known as someone who prayed faithfully, faithfully, who spoke to God, who sought God's counsel. And so the town the town grieved her. The nation of Israel grieved her.
Speaker 1:And that's kind of her story.
Speaker 2:Which that just says a lot about who she is Mhmm. And the kind of life that we're meant to live. Mhmm. The life that we're meant to live in community and caring for each other, but also taking major steps of faith.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We, on this podcast all the time, say pray but take a step. Because I know a lot of people, I'm sure you guys too, that will say, alright, I'm gonna pray and I'm gonna wait. Or I'm gonna pray and I'm gonna challenge God just like Israel did. And if God doesn't do this in five days, then I'm gonna sit here, I guess.
Speaker 2:And that was literally her speech. Like, who are you to test God? Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But we love to do that, don't we? We don't call it testing God. We call it faith. But really, it's us saying, God, do this on my timeline. When I think a lot of times God is saying, pray, ask counsel, you know, like, do the smart thing,
Speaker 2:but then also do a thing. Or we desperately want God to just take care of it. Right? And that would be ideal. Yeah.
Speaker 2:If God could just take something off my plate, that would be great. But a lot of times, I think God is saying like, Yes, pray. Yes, I want to talk to you about this. But make a move. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Put one foot in front of the that's the song that I always think of. When you think of Pray and Take a Step, you might take a step in the wrong direction, but trust and believe that God will redirect your
Speaker 1:steps Right.
Speaker 2:As long as you're
Speaker 1:still stepping. And remember that Judith was seeking God's counsel. We know that she was known throughout her town prior to this situation as the faithful woman.
Speaker 2:And actually, something that I found interesting in my research was when she prepared for this, she absolutely knew going into this situation, like, Okay, I'm gonna go and kill this guy. Mhmm. She prepared for it like a priest. So like a priest would prepare for his sermon. She prayed.
Speaker 2:She fasted. She prepared. And then she took a step. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And what a wonderful thing we can compare that to today. Like, just living your own life. Mhmm. Take that peaceful time with God, and then do the thing. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Now you might be wondering why you've never heard this story. Judy. Judy is not in the Protestant Bible, and I am fascinated by that because we've talked many times about how there are things that we've lost in the Bible. The book of Mary Magdalene is half gone because we didn't include it in the main Bible, and so
Speaker 2:it was lost. And so the book of Judith, or even in different translations, removing the words like you all Mhmm. Hey, they, and changing them to gender specific Yes.
Speaker 1:Now the book of Judith was included in the Protestant generally used Bible up until about Martin Luther. So like, the original King James Bible included Judith's book. And I think that, like, blew my mind when I found that out. Because you think of that as, like, the 66 books. Right?
Speaker 1:Mhmm. But it wasn't. There was actually quite a few books. You mean it's been through a couple different revisions? Just a few.
Speaker 1:So what happened was Martin Luther and the other people that were working with him pulled together several books that they didn't feel were canonically biblical.
Speaker 2:That's so strange that men would do that.
Speaker 1:Now, there were a couple of reasons. The first one is that the book of Judith is kind of controversial.
Speaker 2:There's a couple of when you read the book, it definitely reads much more like a story
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Than some of the other bible books.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Like a factual account.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Yeah. And some of the facts are a little bit off in Judith's book.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So like, it says that Nebuchadnezzar I said it right that time. Thank you. Was the king of Assyria, but he's the king of Babylon. And so there's a couple of, like, little things like that that are incorrect.
Speaker 1:And so Judith's book is included in the Catholic bible. And a lot of Catholic theologians believe that it is a fictional account. They don't believe that it really actually happened. They kind of think of it as like a combination almost of like JL's story and Esther's story and Deborah's story.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And some other religions, I think, also view it as like how Jesus would talk in parables. Mhmm. This is similar to a parable, look at the story of Judith and how you should live your life. Right.
Speaker 1:So that was one of the reasons that they kind of categorized it as like, oh, well, maybe not. And then another one of the reasons was that Jesus never directly referenced it. But that's kind of a weird one because there's a lot of books of the bible that Jesus didn't directly reference, but that was one of the reasons. So they combined a bunch of books together, and they called them the Apocrypha. They didn't actually take it out of the bible.
Speaker 1:They kept it in, and they put it, like, in its own little section between the Old and New Testaments. Which is an interesting choice, but they I guess they did keep it in.
Speaker 2:An in betweeny, son by twiny. Now
Speaker 1:over time, people kind of stopped looking at the Apocrypha as part of the major scriptures. Like, it's there, but it's less important. It's there, but we're not gonna preach about it. Shocking. And in around the seventeen to eighteen hundreds, they took it out, mostly because of printing costs.
Speaker 1:So we lost Judith in the Protestant Bible primarily due to printing costs.
Speaker 2:Which I think is very interesting. You know, the way that we hold the Bible now, your Bible sitting on your shelf, right, your NIV, your KJV, whatever that is, people look at it as the living word of God. Mhmm. And you can't edit it. You can't take away.
Speaker 2:You can't add. But we did. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:The first fifteen hundred years of Christianity had Judith's book in their main bible. So
Speaker 2:that would be the living, breathing word of God Mhmm. That you removed Yeah. Because of printing costs.
Speaker 1:And it's so fascinating to me because, I mean, that would blow most Christians' minds. Right? I have never heard this.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Printing costs? Are you kidding me? Other religions have the book of Judith. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Like, the Catholic tradition, the Orthodox tradition Mhmm. Have Judith's book in their bible. But we don't. Right.
Speaker 1:The Jewish tradition does not include her book in their bible, but they do really respect Judith. And she's part of their Hanukkah traditions. And, like, so she They eat cheese. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That was something I read that was some Jewish families, not all, certainly, but some Jewish families will eat cheese around Hanukkah to remember Judith in her story.
Speaker 2:I will eat cheese any darn day. Alright. Well, now you remember Judith in honor of Judith. Also, especially aged Manchego with the little pockets of salt.
Speaker 1:I'm sure that that's exactly what she gave him.
Speaker 2:Maybe. It's a sheep's milk cheese.
Speaker 1:So probably that was it. Yeah. But it's just interesting that this is how we got to where we are. And I think it's important for us to step back and deconstruct that and acknowledge that, okay, the Bible is really important and good, but it might not be everything. There might be bits and pieces outside of our 66 books that God still wanted for us.
Speaker 1:And apart from that too, I think
Speaker 2:we can also look at other Bible scholars.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So Alyssa and I look at different scholars all the time. But specifically Beth Allison Barr. Yeah. And taking their wisdom as well and looking at how much they've studied, like, not just the the words that you read on the page of your NIV, but like the historical and the societal aspects of it. Does that mean?
Speaker 2:And what would these words have meant to them back then? Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's talk about some of the other traditions and the way that they view her. So Catholic tradition, like I said, has her book in their Bible. And so she is someone that they're talking about on a semi regular basis. Now, don't go to a Catholic church, so maybe you're not hearing about her every Sunday.
Speaker 1:I don't know. Why not? That's weird. That is so strange. But they kind of see her as, like, the ideal heroine.
Speaker 1:Now, they like like I said, lots of Catholic theologians say that this is a fictional story. But still, she's, like, the ideal. Right? Because she's courageous. She's faithful.
Speaker 1:She's prayerful. She's chaste. So she's, like, virginal, you know?
Speaker 2:Even though she's a widow.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But that's kind of the vibe is like, she keeps herself from sex.
Speaker 2:I just also find that so interesting because you look at her story. Like, yes, she is those things. But at the same time, to get to the end of the story, she had to lie. She had to be deceitful towards Big Hall. She had to be violent.
Speaker 2:She had to go against the will of the elders of the town. Yeah. She had to speak up to the elders of the town and say, this isn't right. You're testing God. Well, it
Speaker 1:goes to show you what we've turned the ideal woman into versus what God says the ideal human is. Mhmm. Because that list of things is what a a good, quiet little woman would be. Right? Courageous, but in her home.
Speaker 1:Faithful, but in her home.
Speaker 2:Prayerful, but in her home. Chaste, except for when, you know, you know, you know.
Speaker 1:And and you're right. Her story isn't that. It has elements of that,
Speaker 2:but that's not who she was. And as you look back at the Bible, show me a quiet, calm, submissive woman Mhmm. That that is notable. There's and I'm not saying that if your nature is quiet, calm, that you can't do amazing things, but you look at these women in the Bible, like Mary, mother of Jesus. That took a tremendous amount of courage and effort to raise the son of God.
Speaker 2:Mary Magdalene, JL, Deborah, Esther, all of these women are so intense. Mhmm. They are not the perfect little Christian woman. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:But we turn them into that. Because look at Mary, the mother of Jesus. Like you just said, she was amazing. She was strong and brave, it took so much to do what she did, to say yes to God because she could have said no. But she said yes to God, she went through a situation that no one in the history of the world would ever understand.
Speaker 1:And put her into a dangerous situation.
Speaker 2:Can you imagine all the people that looked at her and judged her and that she had to put up with every day?
Speaker 1:But who have we turned her into? This quiet virginal yeah. Because that's our ideal woman. But it's not God's. It's not God's ideal woman.
Speaker 1:Because real women in the bible are strong and scary. And whether you think Judith is fictional or not, the fictional women too are strong and scary. When we're telling stories about women, we're making them strong and scary.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Also, like, when you think mama bear, that's something to be proud of. Like, your your kids are in danger or whatever, you all of a sudden find this new inner strength that comes out of you in bear form.
Speaker 1:But not like the bears from who was it? Elisha? Elisha's bears?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Those were scary.
Speaker 2:Those were scary. But you know what? God loved them.
Speaker 1:No. The Eastern Orthodox Church also has Judith as part of their bible. And I think their view on her is really interesting and maybe a little bit less that quiet woman because they emphasize wisdom over brute force. So instead of rallying an army behind her and running into enemy camp, she sat back. And she said, okay.
Speaker 1:What makes sense here? What what can I do? They also talk about humility and how that can defeat an empire. She wasn't saying I'm strong enough to do this. She was saying God's gonna take my next step for me.
Speaker 1:I'm just gonna follow.
Speaker 2:And use what you have. Mhmm. She was like, I'm really good looking. You go, girl. And I could probably manipulate another man.
Speaker 2:Here we go.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And she didn't ask for anybody's permission. Literally anybody. She didn't have a husband whose permission she was asking. She didn't get the permission of the town elders.
Speaker 1:She went up to them and she was like, you guys are morons. I'm gonna fix this. And they've just backed up
Speaker 2:and they said, okay. Oh, Judy. Fine.
Speaker 1:Now they might have been saying, well, she's gonna die. But still.
Speaker 2:But I guess we all will. Yep. And
Speaker 1:like I said, the Jewish tradition, while she's not part of their biblical canon, she is often remembered at Hanukkah. And it's because, basically, they believe that her story was written after the Maccabean period. I like a Macadamian nut. Which I'm not familiar what that is. But basically as an encouragement for Jews who were living under foreign oppression, which is what Hanukkah remembers.
Speaker 1:So it's just really interesting to see like, everybody else, all of the other faith traditions pull her in, but we forgot her. We forgot her to an extent that, like,
Speaker 2:most of us don't know her name. You mean our Protestant Christian tradition would take away yet another strong female woman and pretend she didn't exist.
Speaker 1:How weird. That never happens.
Speaker 2:That literally never happens. We don't even need a podcast.
Speaker 1:In fact, the only reason I actually became like, I had heard her name just through, you know, Betts Books and some other people. But the only reason she really came up on my radar at all was because one of our amazing followers on TikTok commented on a video and was like, oh, you should talk about Judith. And I was like, who's that?
Speaker 2:Who that? That's my neighbor.
Speaker 1:And so now here we are talking about it. So some people do believe that Judith is kind of a mashup of biblical women. And I think you can see that in her story a lot. So you've got obvious echoes to JL. Right?
Speaker 1:Murderous women, basically.
Speaker 2:JL is the lady that killed Sisera in the book of Judges by stabbing him with a tent peg. Mhmm. If you didn't know. We we love her.
Speaker 1:She scares us, but we love her.
Speaker 2:Yeah. They both exploit male arrogance. Yeah. For sure. And they both take down an entire army Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Together. Well, separately, by themselves.
Speaker 1:She also has parallels to Deborah, who's the other part of JL's story, because she basically, without any men present, delivers Israel from this really, really scary situation. Mhmm. She is also a really trusted leader and creates a victory through someone that no one really would have expected.
Speaker 2:And God does that all the time. Right? You see that throughout the entire Bible. We talked about David and Goliath, Jael. Who else can I think of that were I mean, Jesus?
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Jesus too saved all of us, and he didn't live his life as a giant, powerful military leader. Right. And also, immediately, my mind was like, Jonah. But I don't know why.
Speaker 2:I was like,
Speaker 1:that's right.
Speaker 2:Kate was in a whale.
Speaker 1:She wasn't in a whale. There were no whales in that story. There's also comparisons with Esther, how Esther was asked to, like, beautify herself. Mhmm. And then she walked into a situation where she was risking death in order to save her people.
Speaker 1:Judith didn't know she was coming out of this alive. She trusted that god would do what god does, but she didn't know that the story was gonna end well for her, that she was gonna go back to her quiet life and live out her days. She could have been killed. That could have been how God delivered Israel. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And she was willing to do that. There's also some comparisons with Mary in humbleness and faithfulness and being used as an instrument of God, which kind of all of these women were.
Speaker 2:You can also compare it, like, with very lightly, kind of with Mary Magdalene. She carries a Holofernes head in a bag Mhmm. Which basically is delivering safety Mhmm. To Israel. And Mary Magdalene delivers the message of resurrection.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Yeah. That's good. That's real good. That's what JattiBT said.
Speaker 1:Now I think here's my theory as to why this got removed from our bible. I think this story makes us really uncomfortable. And yes, it is similar to JL, and we left JL in the bible. But JL is a little bit buried in Judges. Now we bring light to that story, and many other scholars do.
Speaker 1:But you can almost forget she exists. I have never heard JL preached from the stage.
Speaker 2:There's not a book of JL.
Speaker 1:Exactly. There is a book of Judith. If Judith gets to stay in the Bible, we have to confront the fact that she was violent.
Speaker 2:And is celebrated. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And that's not how we want to see women in today's Christian society.
Speaker 2:Not just violent, but taking charge. Mhmm. Taking matters into her own hands, not asking permission.
Speaker 1:Strong. Yeah. Her story is really similar to David and Goliath, which you mentioned earlier. Because, obviously, David takes down Goliath. It's a violent story.
Speaker 1:I know we like to make it into this cutesy little children's story, but it's a violent story. And we celebrate David for that. But even when we talk about JL, people are uncomfortable with JL too, even though it's the same story. People are uncomfortable with Judith even though it's the same story because they're women. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Because men are expected in the Christian tradition to be big and scary and violent.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And women aren't. I don't think the biggest theme here is the girl power aspect. Mhmm. I think it's more so the Empire versus God's promises.
Speaker 2:It's like a Star Wars thing. Strikes Back. Yeah. See? Last week, I couldn't think of a title for Star Wars, and I'm pretty sure that's a title for Star Wars.
Speaker 2:Like, Hall Of Fern is Mhmm. Represents, like, power and coercive power. Mhmm. And Judith represents the faithfulness of God and God's promises, which the Israelites should know. Right?
Speaker 2:They've every time been delivered, delivered, delivered. So one definitely trusts armies, and the other one trusts God.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And the conflict isn't male versus female. It's domination versus faithfulness.
Speaker 1:I think that hit something for me all of a sudden. Are you ready?
Speaker 2:Go with me. Like, David and Goliath, you want me to hit you with a little rock?
Speaker 1:I'd love if you didn't. But regardless, that story would make our current government very uncomfortable. And I think it would have made governments throughout history very uncomfortable because you have regimes that have a 120,000 soldiers behind them. And they say, you can't beat me. You can't go against me because look at the power that I have.
Speaker 1:And all throughout the Bible,
Speaker 2:it echoes, if you just take down one powerful figurehead, things might change
Speaker 1:And for Judith does that without permission, without a plan, without a society built around her. She just walks in and does the thing. And I can see why, over time, various governments, not just the one we have now, definitely the one we have now, but not just that one, would be uncomfortable with this story, would want to get rid of this story. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And it's not necessarily just about Judith. Right? Her story is about true, true faithfulness. Mhmm. She didn't have a doubt in her mind that her God wouldn't deliver her through this.
Speaker 2:Right. And wouldn't deliver her people through this.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:What does that feel like? What does that look like in your day to day life to instead of worrying about tomorrow, to think it's not on my timeline. It's on God's. Mhmm. But I know that things will work out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And to have the bravery to stand up to the people in charge who are saying something very different. Mhmm. Because the people in charge were saying, okay, the faithful thing to do, the good God fearing thing to do is to wait to give it five days. This I assume they prayed about that.
Speaker 1:I assume they prayed and said, God, this is what we're doing. And the people in charge said, this is godly. The people following the people in charge said, this is godly. But Judith, who had the presence of mind to not just follow, prayed herself, talked to god herself, and said, no. This is not what god would want.
Speaker 1:And how much do we need that today? Mhmm. Because the church is following at least the church in The US is following false idols, is following a regime. And they keep saying, this is God. This is what God would want.
Speaker 1:This is how God would vote.
Speaker 2:Well, we talk I know I say people are gonna turn this into a drinking game. I swear. But we talk about power and control all of the time. What if her story is exposing how we mistake power for strength? Mhmm.
Speaker 2:How the Christian people have turned power into faithfulness, When instead, faithfulness is faithfulness.
Speaker 1:Quietness is faithfulness. Mhmm. Trust is faithfulness. Choosing God Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Is powerful. Yeah.
Speaker 1:When the people in charge are clearly doing wrong, it is up to us to step in. And remembering the people consistently God chooses in the
Speaker 2:Bible are the marginalized people, the people who are overlooked, the women, the people who anybody else wouldn't touch. And who do we dismiss every time Yeah. In our day to day life? The people that God would go towards, the people that God would choose. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And we put people like our pastors up on this very high pedestal. I'm not saying that there aren't some amazing pastors out there. Please don't hear that from me. But we put them up on this pedestal, and we say, God is choosing them. He's not choosing me.
Speaker 1:He's choosing them. But notice in Judith's story that God didn't choose the town elders. God didn't choose whoever the rabbi was. The most powerful army leader from the town. Right.
Speaker 1:God chose none of those people. He could have. It's really hard to say. A lot of people for Deborah's story in Judges are like, well, no good men would step up, and that's
Speaker 2:why Deborah had to lead.
Speaker 1:Which is utter crap. True.
Speaker 2:Yeah. If God wanted men to lead, he would have raised up a man to lead.
Speaker 1:Right. And in Judith's story, there's not even a man really mentioned as as equal to her. Mm-mm. There's no one else that was considered. In Deborah's story, have Barak, and people point to that.
Speaker 1:And they're like, oh, look. He wasn't qualified. Therefore, god had to choose Deborah. But in Judith's story, you can't even make that argument. I also just feel like I hate that argument.
Speaker 2:That is so Yeah. Limiting Mhmm. To the god of the universe. Yeah. You don't think that he would have planned.
Speaker 2:You don't think he would have been like, okay, choosing a woman would not be great because I don't think women are qualified for this position. But I could make anybody, but I'm not going to. Mhmm. So my hands are tied.
Speaker 1:Poor god. It's really hard for him. Master of the universe. But can Itty bitty living space.
Speaker 2:That was good. Thank enjoyed that. You.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's I don't have a whole lot else to say about Judith other than that she's amazing. And fictional or not, I wanna be her.
Speaker 2:I really encourage you to read her book. I listened to it as an audio version. It's on YouTube. But it's not a story that I've heard before. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And it reads really nicely, like a story. It's easy to follow. And I think it's important
Speaker 1:Yeah. To know. Also remember this is like a super side note. But a lot of us that were raised in the Protestant church, you get asked all the time, are you doing your devotions? Are you doing your devotions?
Speaker 1:How much time did you spend with God today? And usually what they mean is, did you read your six verses so that you can get through the Bible in a year? But this is spending time with God. When you sit here and listen to the podcast and we talk about bible verses and stuff like that, and maybe you pray afterwards or pray for us while you're listening. Yeah.
Speaker 1:More likely that. That's spending time with God. And when you read the book of Judith, that's spending time with God too. All of these things. It's not like, oh, I gotta do this, but, you know, it's not part of my faith.
Speaker 1:This is part of your faith. It's something that makes your faith deeper. And
Speaker 2:how cool. Anything that helps you understand and know the character of God Mhmm. Is worthwhile. Yeah. It's worth it's building your relationship.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. And the character of God in this story is trusting women. Sometimes. Trusting women with his biggest missions.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And that's important. It's important for us to know, to highlight, and to make part of ourselves.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Because it's so easy to walk out into the world, even even for me and Brie, to get beaten down by a world of Christians that believe men are the best thing God ever created.
Speaker 2:What a thing to say to have faith like Judith. Mhmm. Have deceitfulness like JL. Righteous deceitfulness. Lie a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Righteous lies.
Speaker 1:God wants you to. And on that note, goodbye. Oh, what
Speaker 2:my mom thinks I podcast about. What my family thinks I podcast about.
Speaker 1:What I really podcast about. Lying for Jesus. Okay. So next week, we're going on a similar vein, I guess. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And we're basically talking about how to piss off Jesus. We're gonna be talking about the Pharisees. We're gonna be talking about the people that Jesus got really angry at.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Because I think we hear that all the time on our social medias. People are like, well, Jesus flipped tables.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Okay. Let's ask why.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And whose tables were being flipped? Let's discuss. So we're gonna talk about that. Brie and I, when the next episode comes out, will be in Disney.
Speaker 1:So we'll be very distracted.
Speaker 2:That just really We confused
Speaker 1:are finally headed on a vacation. But you still get an episode because we're workaholics, and that's how it goes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I don't know how that happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah. We started this podcast, we were like, every other week. That's all we can manage is to do one episode every other week. And then, like, a month in, we were like, no, I think we can do a mini episode every week. And then we're like, no, full episodes every week.
Speaker 1:And we're never taking a
Speaker 2:day off. No. Those stupid mini episodes were just silly because we're like, let's do a mini episode. But then once you get talking Mhmm. It it's just a full episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And here we are. Hot out of the oven. We just can't shut up.
Speaker 2:Yeah. About Judith. Hooray, Judy. Hooray, and lies. I'm gonna get Judy tattooed on
Speaker 1:my butt. Oh, good. That'll be fun.
Speaker 2:Oh, side note. Judy? Not the word Judy. Judith. Hang on.
Speaker 2:Hang with me.
Speaker 1:I'm ready
Speaker 2:and prepared. Are you ready?
Speaker 1:Not really.
Speaker 2:I'm not there yet. Keep waiting. The name Judith in Hebrew, I'm not even gonna try to pronounce it. I think it's gonna be offensive if I do. It's spelled y e h u d I t.
Speaker 2:Okay. You wanna try? Nope. It literally means Jewish woman or woman of Judah. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So it isn't just a person. It almost becomes like symbolic.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And she represents the faithfulness of Israel. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:That's what chat dbt said. Oh, thanks, chat. Yeah. Lifesaver.
Speaker 2:That was just a side note.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, we've talked for long enough today, and it's hot because we have to turn the fan off when we record. So
Speaker 2:And that's something you needed to know.
Speaker 1:It is. You needed to
Speaker 2:know it. It's important. Also, like, I think I get claustrophobic with stagnant air.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, let's turn the fan back on, ma'am.
Speaker 2:Bye. Love you. Bye.