The Bible in the News: Rehabilitating Rahab
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Since I am in the midst of writing a commentary on the Book of Joshua, it seemed like a good time to return to this book for a column. Previously, I highlighted Joshua and Jericho. So, I thought, let’s look at the other main character of that exciting episode: Rahab, the “prostituting woman” who risked everything for her and her family’s safety (Joshua 2 and 6). Her rewards, already amply generous in the Biblical account, are enhanced in post-Biblical Jewish midrash by her marriage to Joshua and by their prodigious and prominent progeny.
So how does Rahab fare in the contemporary popular press? Not at all badly, as we shall see. This is largely the result of her becoming the patron saint (to mix testaments, if not metaphors) for women and children worldwide who have been forced to ply the trade she apparently practiced willingly.
There is, for example, Rahab Ministry in China. The recipients of its largesse are women, often teenagers, who were “brought to the territory under false pretenses … and forced into prostitution.” The recipients of its wrath: “Although it is illegal to live off the proceeds of prostitutes in Macau, the city has lots of pimps” (South China Morning Post). Surely, we hope that the number of such individuals has been greatly reduced through the efforts of this Rahab.
We are rooting with equal fervor for the success of “Rahab’s House in Svay Pak, a rural slum outside Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh … Once a notorious brothel, a year ago it was renovated … to become a place where the community finds medical care and where children go for safety” (Toronto Star). I can’t help thinking that Jericho’s Rahab would have enjoyed the knowledge that in her name so many women and children are finding “safe accommodation, food and retraining for other jobs.”
The continents of Africa and Europe are also homes to similar organizations. From the Observer we learn of Sister Ancy Matthew: “In 2000, she was transferred to London, where she became aware of the growing problem of trafficked women … She founded a charity called Rahab, named after a Biblical prostitute, and accompanied officers from the human trafficking unit raiding flats where trafficked women might be held … The police can’t provide round-the-clock care, but the Rahab team do manage to do that.”
Elsewhere (getreading.co.uk) we read of “a Caversham trainee hairdresser who raised more than 1,000 [British pounds] for a charity project that supports people affected by sexual exploitation. Melissa Upton, 24, had her long rainbow-colored hair completely shaved off on Friday, March 27, to raise vital funds for The Mustard Tree Foundation’s Rahab Project.” It is possible, though admittedly not very likely, that this selfless action provides a key to understanding the otherwise maligned activities of Delilah: Maybe she was simply trying to raise consciousness of, and funds for, exploited Philistine women, including perhaps the very prostitute that the then long-tressed Samson had encountered earlier.
Areas where prostitutes publicly parade their wares are often spoken of as red-light districts. According to the South Wales Echo, this term “is sometimes said to originate from the signal Rahab hung out for the spies to find her house.” Now there’s something I had never thought of.
As I review this column, it appears to be one of the most uplifting I have ever composed. I hope no reader will feel pulled (or put) down by the last item I include. In a linguistic note from the Oklahoman, a reader wrote that “he had a professor at Oklahoma State who told his class that the word ‘rehabilitate’ is of Hebrew origin. [The reader] said that the professor traced the word to the name of ‘a wicked priestess’ who turned to God and experienced a dramatic behavioral change.” The newspaper’s resident expert opined that “the professor must have been pulling [his student’s] leg pretty hard. The professor probably was referring to Rahab, the prostitute from Jericho.” But if the word “rehabilitate” had descended from “Rahab,” so the newsman reasoned, “it would have come down to us as ‘rahabilitate.’”
This is just the sort of educational nugget that I hope will rehabilitate—or is that rahabilitate?—my sometimes faltering reputation.
Since I am in the midst of writing a commentary on the Book of Joshua, it seemed like a good time to return to this book for a column. Previously, I highlighted Joshua and Jericho. So, I thought, let’s look at the other main character of that exciting episode: Rahab, the “prostituting woman” who risked everything for her and her family’s safety (Joshua 2 and 6). Her rewards, already amply generous in the Biblical account, are enhanced in post-Biblical Jewish midrash by her marriage to Joshua and by their prodigious and prominent progeny. So how does Rahab fare in […]
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