Customer Reviews

After the Apple: Women in the Bible: Women In the Bible - Timeless Stories of Love, Lust, and Longing

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Naomi Harris Rosenblatt is a Jewish psychotherapist who has gained much of her understanding about people from the Bible. As she states, "by portraying life as it is, with all its contradictions and complexities, the Bible has guided me along the path of compassion, empathy, and understanding of others." In "After the Apple: Women in the Bible," she uses the Jewish technique of midrash, reinterpreting Biblical narratives in light of today's circumstances, to delve into the lives of several notable women of the Hebrew Scriptures.

In Rosenblatt's capable hands, these women are three-dimensional. They struggle with decisions and with odds stacked against them. Rosenblatt analyzes their motivation and their influences. None are purely good or purely evil (although Jezebel does come close!) Most of them are simply trying to survive and insure that the Jewish faith will continue to the next generation. Several, including Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel, conceive children late in life, having faced the difficulty of infertility in a world where much of a woman's value was the children she gave her husband. Some such as Leah, Jacob's first wife, and Michal, David's first wife, are stuck in unhappy marriages. While Leah creates her own identity as mother to her children, Michal becomes a bitter woman who seals her own fate when she humiliates the king in public. Later on, another wife of David's, Bathsheba, will exert her influence in having her son Solomon named to the throne to succeed his father.

Ruth and Esther are the two women for whom books of the Bible have been named. Both use seduction as a means of getting what they need. Ruth seduces Boaz so that he will take her as his wife and provide support for her and her mother-in-law Naomi. Their great-grandchild is King David. Esther is a member of the Persian king's harem. After one night with her, he decides to make her queen. Ultimately, she will use her influence to prevent the mass killing of all Jews living in Persia.

Rosenblatt acknowledges that the biblical scribes (most, if not all, of whom were men) were very sympathetic to women. "The risks they took, their heroism, and their resourcefulness" was recorded in detail. Exploring the lives of the women in "After the Apple" can help us understand our own lives and difficult circumstances more clearly.


Patrice Fagnant-MacArthur is editor of "The Spiritual Woman Newsletter" and author of "Letters to Mary from a Young Mother" (iUniverse, 2004). She has a Master of Arts Degree in Applied Theology from Elms College.

Truly inspirational, After The Apple reminded me of all the amazing women in the Bible I'd forgotten or never knew existed. Rosenblatt retells these ancient tales like gripping short stories. She infuses the text with just the right amount of analysis gleaned from her background as a psychotherapist to make the connection between the problems these women faced and those we face today as contemporary women. After the Apple will appeal to any age group. Recommended as a great Mother's Day gift too.

Rosenblatt's After the Apple, is an in depth biblical analysis. The author makes readers look at the matriarchs of The Bible in new and intelligent ways. Her insights into biblical theology and history is exciting. It is pleasing also that Rosenblatt discusses the roles of women in the shaping of biblical history mainly. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for some interesting biblical study and new perceptions into the stories of old concerning the women of The Bible.

I loved this book.It was wonderful,I higly recommend this book to scholars of the Divine Feminine and Biblical Scholarship.This gives the women of the Bible a wonderful overview.It is a positive and humanizing way to look at the Matriarchs of the Jewish Faith and Christian as well.Angela Miller.

I think this book is an excellent starter for anyone who hasn't studied much about the bible or biblical people. However, if you've read more in-depth books on this subject (for example "Reading Women in the Bible" by Tikva Frymer-Kensky) this one isn't going to tell you anything new.

I have read and re-read many sections of Rosenblatts' previous
book "Wrestling with Angels," and have relied on it in drawing
information to write and develop Torah lessons for synagogue
use. I do not believe that "After the Apple" is written with
the same depth as her "Wrestling with Angels." In preparing
presentations, I would still turn back to "After the Apple"
for Rosenblatt's views and interpretations, but other sources
are better in analysis. I also think that Rosenblatt presents
some of these stories, especially the ones about the "founding
mothers" as actual history rather than as narrative theology.
Rabbi Fred V. Davidow

Rosenblatt's exquisite, readable little book shines yet another light on the timelessness of the ancient texts upon which she draws. Some will no doubt disagree with the "feminist revision" they'll see in this modern look at famaliar stories. Others will quote passages and say, "I told you so." So, what else is new? Thousands of years of study, debate, dispute, and even violence have not yet yielded a single, uniform interpretation for either The Tanakh or its Christian and Muslim counterparts. Why should this overview of Biblical heroines be any different? Rosenblatt adds her fresh, powerful voice to the ongoing, ageless dialogue. Read this book; love it; hate it; share it; think about it; talk about it, but don't ignore it. You deserve the best, and Rosenblatt delivers.

Rosenblatt, whose earlier book I have also read, can always be relied upon to provide a new perspective on the Bible's oft-told stories. This book, which adopts a feminist perspective, is quite strong and thoughtful. Rosenblatt's retellings of lesser-known stories such as that of Judah and Tamar, or that of David and Abigail, have considerable force. It had been a long time since I had looked at the Abigail tale, and Rosenblatt added a great deal to my understanding.

Some of the discussions of the well-known stories (Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca) will not seem new to people who know those stories well, but this book is well worth reading.

I had been looking for a book presenting Bible stories in an accessible way. While the focus is narrowed to the stories of women, I got far more than access to Bible stories with "After the Apple".

I liked that Rosenblatt explained how concepts originated. For instance, the word commonly translated as "rib" (Adam's) technically means side. I also liked that she put stories from the different Bible chapters together. For instance she tells how how David grew from the lyre playing shephard boy who slew Goliath to being a King.

In Sunday School we drew pictures of Jacob's ladder. We learned about the beauty of David's "royal city" and sang about it. We did NOT learn about Jacob's concubines nor of David ignoring his daughter's rape by his son. With no paternal protection, she could have been stoned were it not for another brother who had a moral sense and or cared about her. In the end, David moarns for this son... not the fate of the daughter.

The Bible's world is very disturbing. Death by stoning for rumored infractions is a threat for all, especially women. The masses most likely lived on subsistence diets. It seems to be a Darwinian world and the male id, among the elite, appears to be unrestrained.

Other than the Queen of Sheba (somewhat), the women cited in this book are immortalized in the Bible for their sexual interactions (whether in marital or union or not) with men. It makes you weep for all the other women who did not/could not approach the palace, a sheltering tent or even a smile. What of the homely/ugly, the unsponsored, the sick? The presumably better lives of these few women cited causes one to wonder about the foundations of this society.

Rosenblatt gives these stories a very sympathetic treatment. They add to the understanding of history and ourselves.

I give this book 5 stars because so much complex material is digested for lay people like me to understand it. I cannot say I enjoyed it because there was too much repression and pain in the lives of these (few) heroines. Empathy among the characters, particularly the men to the women, is rare.

The inspiration for me is not in the stories but in how far societies of the world have progressed since this time.

Ms. Rosenblatt's excellent book has enriched my study of the Old Testament as well as my study of psychotherapy. As a 56 y/o grandma, I had become somewhat "ho hum" over the Old Testament stories; her obvious affection for these characters from the Torah and her insight of the women as people with great initiative and courage, rather than the passive creatures they have been portrayed in the past, has ignited my interest once more and made me see them with new eyes.

I also have Ms. Rosenblatt's tapes of "In God's Image" which I listen to whenever I have to go somewhere in the car. I recommend them highly, as well.

I intend to recommend her books and tapes to the other students in my class at Corban College. Through her eyes, these two-dimensional characters from Bible text, our spiritual forebearers, have come alive once more in my imagination.

Here's hoping she will write many more books.