Miriam's Well - Hardcover

In the manner of their Moses' Ark (1989), the authors offer a dozen more dramatically retold Old Testament stories, with notes explaining word use, sources, and poetic details. Some of these (e.g., the Hagar or Abigail stories) are based on little more than anecdotes, yet the women are important, if obscure, and their lives affected or changed the history of the Jewish people. Some of the greatest stories are also included: the entries on Esther, Judith, and (best of all) Ruth and Naomi have dramatic sweep and satisfying conclusions. A final chapter, ``A Mosaic for Miriam,'' presents seven additional women in briefer but still effectively fictionalized form: Jezebel, Job's wife, Delilah, etc. Young readers will enjoy the themes of weakness over strength and survival by trickery, the vitality of the women who prevail, and also, probably, the Biblical gore. Some of the more rampant sex, like what was going on before Lot left Sodom, is ignored, and Ruth sleeps ``beside'' Boaz, but Judith gets close to ``bed'' with Holofernes. Older readers will be intrigued by the intelligent introduction and notes revealing the many sources: variant translations, midrashim, Jewish tradition, archaeology. Leo and Diane Dillon provide a handsome jacket painting and attractive vignettes that serve as chapter heads. Bibliography. (Nonfiction. 9+) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Grade 4 Up-- For a woman of the patriarchal past, just getting her (given) name written into the official saga was an achievement. (Surprisingly, Ruth, a Moabite, got a whole book--but Esther and Judith had to struggle for acceptance into the canon.) Bach and Exum give features, feeling, and life to these three, and to Sarah, Hagar, Rebekah, Abigail, and several lesser-known Biblical women. Although the authors have deliberately omitted stories of violence against women, they do include Jezebel (right up to the moment of her awful death) and, another anomaly, Delilah, trying to present these despised foreigners (and other marginal figures, such as Lot's wife and Job's wife) from a more sympathetic viewpoint. As in Moses' Ark (Delacorte, 1989), the tales are gracefully told, enlivened by plausible and vivid details and an informative introduction and notes. Small pen-and-ink decorations recalling medieval woodcuts open each chapter. A solid amalgam of scholarship (archaeological and textual) and storytelling, this book honors a piece of our cultural heritage in a way that makes it true both to women's experience and to the religious tradition. --Patricia Dooley, University of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.