Abigail Bringing Gifts to David, Simon de Vos, 1641

THE BIBLICAL heroine Abigail, who brought gifts to David in an effort to appease his anger over her husband’s inhospitable behavior, was a cunning temptress whose bows to the Hebrew warrior were deliberately flirtatious. This, in essence, is the view of the author of this brief profile of Abigail in a 2006 book, Great Women of the Bible in Art and Literature. “[S]elf-accusation, imploring, humility and empathy, adoration and the prospect of happiness were part of the coded message of a beautiful and clever woman to a hero and future king,” writes Dorothee Soelle. (p. 75) This is obviously a feminist who sees any traditional woman as suspect, but her words remind me of the view one also finds in the men’s rights movement. A woman wants nothing more than to entrap a man and get him to pay her way. She is incapable of having, as the Old Testament story of Abigail suggests, any higher objectives than self-interest or of caring about truth and virtue for their own sake. In this view, if I were to argue that Abigail spoke out of a love of truth, my argument (the words of a housewife) would be part of the ongoing effort to bring about universal female supremacy.

                                                                                                 — Comments —

Terry writes:

I don’t know how this writer surmised that Abigail was a deceptive or calculating woman. Here was a woman married to a fool, the Bible’s characterization not mine. Despite her mean and foolish husband, she went out of her way to protect his property and his very life by throwing herself on David’s mercy and appealing to his godliness. I wonder how this woman came to draw the conclusions she did. Abigail had no way of knowing her husband would die soon or that David would request her hand in marriage when he learned of Nabal’s death. Maybe Ms. Sorelle thinks Abigail “offed” Nabal so that she could be with David. 

I imagine the very idea of a woman bowing to and making an earnest appeal to a man was something she found revolting. That’s probably at the root of it.

Laura writes:

If Abigail’s words to David (“my lord fighteth the battles of the Lord, and evil hath not been found in thee all thy days”) were a coded message of seduction then she was a liar and a hypocrite who did not believe what she spoke or in the God of the Israelites. As you say, she did not know her husband was going to die and if she was enticing David, she was explicitly disobedient to God. Certainly then she would not be one of the “great women of the Bible” but a schemer and a phony.

Given that feminists so often glorify women, why would a feminist find Abigail offensive? I think the reason is this: Abigail was faithful to a fool. She was seeking to protect her husband despite his failings. Abigail is offensive precisely because she was not flirting.

Feminists would also despise her piety, her practicality, and her noble submissiveness.

Rita writes:

Sounds like Ms. Soelle is jealous! Pity.

Mark writes: 

In 2008, we had our first child, and named her Abigail. We thought it was a cute name, but our choice was sealed by the fact that it was assigned to “a woman of good understanding, and of beautiful countenance” (1 Sam. 25:3). 

It’s interesting that her intelligence is mentioned ahead of her beauty. But then, the old and new testament scriptures are filled with women who are praised for their discretion, helpfulness, resourcefulness, fidelity and good sense. Alas, Dorothee Soelle, the feminist whose parents evidently couldn’t spell Dorothy or Dorothea, seems to want to bring her sisters down into the muck, where their intelligence is reduced to clever cunning, used only in the service of cruel carnal ends. One need only open one’s eyes to see what our feminist-inspired culture has spawned — the clever, indiscreet, liberated temptress. And, far from looking in horror at their Frankenstein monster, the modern feminist seems positively to revel in this ugliness.

Michael S. writes:

“Alas, Dorothee Soelle, the feminist whose parents evidently couldn’t spell Dorothy or Dorothea…”

A little due diligence reveals that Dorothee Sölle was, in fact, German — which would explain the non-American spelling of her name.

Wikipedia describes her as “a German liberation theologian and writer who coined the term Christofascism.”

Mark writes:

Thanks to Michael S. for the correction. If I’d have seen the umlaut the first time …

Laura writes:

I also originally misspelled her name.

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