Rebekah: Women of Genesis

An easy, warm read. A twist in the beginning.

Does anyone tell a Bible story as wonderfully as Orson Scott Card? I have loved every one of the Women of Genesis books. This one is my favorite. Mr. Card takes plenty of artistic liberty with the Bible stories, but the characters he creates are truly memorable. Bethuel and Laban come to life. Rebekah, the motherless child and the fiercely devout mother-to-be of Israel, emerges both as magnificently noble and achingly human. Abraham and Isaace emerge as richly complex personalities that alternately aggravate and inspire. There are no Demigods here, but there are many admirable people doing the best they know how to cope with difficult conflicts, with tragic and heroic consequences. There is no doubt that these people love and respect each other, and yet they torment each other because of the blindnesses we all have in dealing with those we love from perspectives that are inevitably colored (and clouded) by our own intense past experiences. Rebekah has practically worshipped the legend of her Uncle Abraham all of her life, but finds when she lives under his rule that he has his human frailties, and they cause her (and Isaac) great pain. She and Isaac discover their own frailties and insecurities (warranted and unwarranted), which cause significant pain to each other, to Abraham, and to their treasured sons. In so many instances, they repeat the life patterns they most wanted to avoid. We see emerging, from all of this pain, the searing and purifying insights that God offers to us all as a refiner's fire, if we are humble enough and courageous enough to embrace them. Abraham, Isaac, Rebekah and Jacob have that courage. They do what they must when the crucial choices must be made, and forgive each other. In their sunset years, we find Isaac and Rebekah blessed with peace in each other's arms. That all husbands and wives might be so blessed.

and yet if anyone can, Orson Scott Card can. I was very impressed when I found the book one day in a drug store and bought it. To write fiction based on the Bible is dangerous because it leaves one open to intense critism and also because God must then become a character. Card has done a remarkable job telling a real story of drama with characters who have real lives and motivations. He uses the Bible and yet shows so many new ways of looking at the events and the people. His own theology must of course be in it, how could he tell a passionate story while ignoring the things that speak to him in it? I thought he did a surprisingly good job letting the theology be that of the characters and not his own. If you read books of this sort written by many evangelical-style Christians they will not allow any drama into the story- in trying to protect the prophets of God from critisism, they dry the wonderful stories up. Card is certainly a Christian, but it is almost not noticable in this and his other book so far in the series. I think anyone can get something useful out of the book. Even if you don't care for the religious aspect, the qualities of the women in both stories are wonderful to read about. Card's women have passion, fire, but also a beautiful sense of duty and love.

i haven't quite finished the book yet but this is the first time i have read anything that makes Biblical figures seem human. i'm not a really religious person but i do attend Catholic school but this was my first encounter with someone of Orson Scott Card's talent and writing style tackling biblical figures. before i never really pictured these people as having frustrations and real feelings because all i really know is from the Bible and textbooks and those are full of deadpan prose like, "God said to do this and so he did." this book gave Rebekah a soul i didn't realize she had, and her trials and frustrations are very real. but i must say i'm rather dissappointed with Isaac and Abraham, but only in their ignorant veiw of Jacob and Esau and who should get the birthright and things like that. i fully understood Rebekah's frustrations cuz i'm sure it felt like beat one's head against a stone wall. but Isaac desperately needs some self esteem!! but i can see how one could turn out that way with a father like his. so overall it was very believable and very entertaining. i won't pretend to know how accurate it is but i though that it took an interesting look at the whole biblical story, especially by taking Rebekah's point of view! well i hope u enjoy it!!

"Rebekah" tells the intimate life's story of the Old Testament woman of the same name: wife of Isaac, mother of Jacob and Esau. The woman who is so widely familiar to anyone who's ever attended Sunday school is also so little known. Orson Scott Card, acting as historian and believer as well as novelist, uses a few chapters from the book of Genesis as the jumping-off point in a quest to imagine the story of Rebekah's life. What did she go through that would eventually lead a real, flesh-and-blood woman to have the faith she had, but also to commit her famous deception of her prophet-husband by jockeying her favorite son into the inheritance in place of Esau, the rightful heir?After "Sarah," the first in series-happy OS Card's "Women of Genesis" series, I had been a little disappointed. Card has long been trying to overcome his sci-fi fame to direct some attention to other genres like his religious-themed novels. He often does this by blurring the lines between the two, adding religious miracle to fantasy and science fiction on the spectrum of speculative fiction. However, even with such as "Stone Tables", he had succeeded brilliantly in showing he could drive a historical religious novel with no traditional sci-fi or fantasy theme with the same gripping character-driven plotting that has made his sci-fi novels so well-loved. Unfortunately, "Sarah" seemed like something of a misstep, where the good and happy characters were brightly delineated from the evil and miserable ones, at the expense of a compelling story. But be warned, anyone who has so far let the first episode's flaws prevent them from picking up Round Two. In "Rebekah," Card has regained his balance and is in top form again. This time, the bad guys behave pretty well and the good guys get pretty bad, everyone struggles, and any moral clarity has to be well-earned if it can be come by at all. Although the difference could be blamed on the source material, since the novels follow a mandate of at least loose consistency with the relevant passages from the biblical Genesis, there is still a clear distinction in choices made by the author. After all, "Sarah" avoided the most difficult, and juiciest, story opportunity by ending right before Abraham's attempt to sacrifice Isaac, while Rebekah's toughest moment in the afore-mentioned "switcheroo" is made to seem just a natural continuation of a lifetime of moral dilemma.The issue of both biblical consistency and relative lack thereof is actually fascinating. Card takes some pretty well-justified creative liberties to fill in the quite substantial gaps the scriptures leave in the life-story of Rebekah, Isaac, and their various family, that form a rich source of surprising complexity in the family and character dynamics. Occasionally this comes in the form of fun feminist and otherwise irreverent retorts to the male-dominated Bible, but more often it takes shape as a much more convoluted background to explain the biblically depicted idiosyncrasi

Rebekah, Issac's wife, mother of Esau and Jacob...and a person in her own right! Card's Women of Genesis series (Sarah and Rebekah, so far) is incredibly powerful. It is reminiscent of Diamant's "The Red Tent", in that the women are strong and skillfuly rendered.Did you ever wonder what it must be like to live in Father Abraham's family? Carry the burden of the birthright? Be a woman who, although you can read and write, never be allowed to see the sacred teachings? Read Rebekah.This is not sci-fi, folks. I found myself marvelling after Sarah, thinking could this possibly be the same person who wrote the Ender series? After reading Rebekah, I ceased to question-I'm just glad the book was written. Read Rebekah, as a matter of fact, read the whole Women of Genesis series. I can hardly wait for the next installment.