To get it out of my system now, let me start by pointing out that the Proverbs 7 woman is an adulteress which means she's a married woman who is having sexual intercourse with a man who is not her husband. The Botkin Sisters application of this Bible section to causal relationships between unmarried men and women is at best overwrought and at worst a knowing misapplication of basic Biblical study. As before, since most of the reflection is quotes from other portions of Proverbs on wayward women, I'm going to note those sections with [Bible quotes] to save time and space.
"She is loud and wayward;
The Hebrew word translated here is "loud" has a meaning something like boisterous, defiant, clamorous, tumultuous. [Bible quotes]. "Wayward" is often translated as rebellious, stubborn, backsliding. We get the impression of a woman who moves like a force of nature; a creature who will not be controlled, by herself or by anybody else. [Bible quotes.]" (pg. 96.)
- Let's be honest. This isn't a reflection; this is length-padding through outside quotations at its worst. This section could be summarized as {Strong's Concordance}[Bible Quote]{Strong's Concordance} (One original sentence) [Bible Quote].
- If this not length-padding, the other possibility I see is that the Botkin Sisters assume their readers have an extremely weak vocabulary. Are we supposed to believe that teenage girls or young adult women don't know that "loud" is a synonym for "clamorous" or that wayward means "stubborn"? Is this the image of home schooling that the Botkins want to put forth?
"her feet do not stay at home; now in the street, now in the market, and at every corner she lies in wait.
We see that the woman is a stalker. She's a predator, a restless man-hunter, actively prowling, lurking: [Bible quote].
What this verse isn't saying is that women who leave the house are harlots. We know that her righteous counterpart, the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 is [Bible Quote]. What the wording of Proverb 7 suggests is a dis-satisfaction with the home, her relationships and duties there - her feet will not stay there. She's bored with her duties, and neglecting her post, in search of more excitement elsewhere. {Quote from John Gill's commentary on this verse}.
Of course, being physically at home is not the point. Plenty of us have found that, as far as boy-chasing is concerned, we can be at home in body only, while mentally languishing in a romantic fantasy - continuing to pursue boys over email, IM, phone, or texts, using our energy and focus on trying to arrange another encounter with the opposite sex." (pg. 96-97)
What this verse isn't saying is that women who leave the house are harlots. We know that her righteous counterpart, the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 is [Bible Quote]. What the wording of Proverb 7 suggests is a dis-satisfaction with the home, her relationships and duties there - her feet will not stay there. She's bored with her duties, and neglecting her post, in search of more excitement elsewhere. {Quote from John Gill's commentary on this verse}.
Of course, being physically at home is not the point. Plenty of us have found that, as far as boy-chasing is concerned, we can be at home in body only, while mentally languishing in a romantic fantasy - continuing to pursue boys over email, IM, phone, or texts, using our energy and focus on trying to arrange another encounter with the opposite sex." (pg. 96-97)
- Problems in paragraph one:
- "Stalker" is a stretch. Nothing about this Proverb reads that the Forbidden Woman is focused on one particular man rather than any susceptible man who comes her way. Perhaps the Botkin Sisters are too sheltered to understand the term "stalker" and they're simply creating it de novo.....hard to say.
- When I was a kid, I liked the Sesame Street TV game where you picked which item was different than the other three items. The second sentence reminded me of that game since "lurking" is not a synonym to the other three.
- Problems with paragraph two:
- Yawn. This isn't particularly deep material, ladies, and this much emphasis on an elementary topic is agonizingly boring.
- I can't see support for the Forbidden Woman neglecting her duties at home in the chapter. Yes, she seeks out and gets sexual relations outside of marriage, but that doesn't mean she's leaving her household in tatters. Her husband is a wealthy trader of some kind and the Forbidden Woman is clearly taking some basic precautions - dressing as a prostitute, only cheating while her husband is away - to prevent her adultery from being found out. I doubt she's stupid enough to give her husband something to complain about by dealing poorly with her household.
- Problems with paragraph three:
- That second sentence is quite a long, laborious construction with so little actual material.
- "The interwebs are evil" appears in CP/QF so much and without any sense of irony since all authors who opine on the subject have a brisk trade in internet commerce.
- If a guy really wants to hang out with you, it shouldn't take that much work to arrange another meeting, FYI.
"She seizes him and kisses him,
This would certain count as "being aggressive." Need we say more?" (pg. 97)
- Yes, you do need to say more. Jumping out at a random guy who you've never had contact with before, grabbing him and kissing him is a criminally bad idea. Doing that to a guy you know and have a romantic relationship with, on the other hand, is often a good start to the evening. :-D
"and with bold face she says to him,
Some translations render the word "bold" here as "brazen". {uncited use of Strong's Concordance} [Bible Quote][Bible Quote] She has suppressed her conscience and is dead-set on her course. "(pg. 97).
- Agonizing overreach. Perhaps the book should have been shorter.
"I had to offer sacrifices, and today I have paid my vows;
The first words out of her mouth were, essentially, the Old Testament equivalent of saying, 'imagine meeting you on my way back from the soup kitchen where I was volunteering today! Hey, I have a feast in my kitchen left from what I took to prayer meeting this week, and there are still some cookies that the orphans didn't eat. By the way, today I fulfilled all my commitments to God, and sang with our praise-and-worship team, and paid my tithe to my favorite evangelical charity....So, I'm in a really good place with God right now.'
What? Were we wrong about this woman? Maybe we shouldn't have judged her by her skanky clothing. She sounds like a really fine Christian woman!
One reason we often miss the point of this chapter is because we assume it's describing a professional hooker, which, of course, none of us would ever be. It doesn't apply to us. We're not "that kind of girl." The truth is, this woman isn't either (sic). She is a respectable woman in the covenant community - a wife who fulfills her "religious" duties to the letter. {John Gill commentary quote}" (pg 98).
What? Were we wrong about this woman? Maybe we shouldn't have judged her by her skanky clothing. She sounds like a really fine Christian woman!
One reason we often miss the point of this chapter is because we assume it's describing a professional hooker, which, of course, none of us would ever be. It doesn't apply to us. We're not "that kind of girl." The truth is, this woman isn't either (sic). She is a respectable woman in the covenant community - a wife who fulfills her "religious" duties to the letter. {John Gill commentary quote}" (pg 98).
- I don't like the Botkin Sisters trite comparison of two major components of sacrificial Judaism to superficial cooking and singing duties. They should do some comparative religion studies ASAP.
- Learn how to use commas. There is a lot of variation available, but there is never a point where the sentence "The truth is, this woman isn't either" is ok.
- I'm questioning if the Botkin Sisters have read the Gospels. The Gospels are pretty clear that some of the earliest female followers of Jesus were prostitutes.
- I ran into the phrase "There but by the grace of God go I" in "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee. I like that phrase because it brings home how many benefits and privileges that people have simply because of who their parents are, the time period of their birth and the color of their skin. The Botkin Sisters are clueless about the amount of privilege in their lives since they were born into a fairly small family with parents who hustle to make ends meet. Anna Sophia and Elizabeth signal their cluelessness when they state that they (and their readers) would/could never be "professional hookers." I beg to differ.
- First, CP theology makes all married women hookers by making men in control of all finances and requiring women to be sexually available at all times.
- Second, extreme conservative politics that derides the use of government assistance, requires uncontrolled reproduction and denigrates women's vocational training creates situations where women literally have no choices to raise income besides selling their bodies.
- Third, Anna Sophia and Elizabeth don't seem to realize they could lose everything in a heartbeat. How many lecture series is Beall Phillips running now? How are her books selling? How are the Duggars doing financially now that the TV show is done?
- Fourth, Anna Sophia and Elizabeth don't seem to realize that without CP/QF, they have NO audience. Can they support themselves on the royalties from their two books alone with current sales? How about if sales drop by 90%? What marketable skills do they have otherwise? They've done some stuff for their brother's film projects and created a few average websites which gives them skills that the average HS graduate has - well, except a high school diploma....and connections from classmates.....yeah.
There's another page worth of pseudo-reflection on Proverbs 7, but you've gotten the idea. The next post will cover their ideas on modesty and beauty.
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