Today’s gospel doctrine class was on Ruth, Naomi and Hannah. There are many important lessons to be learned from the lives of these righteous women, but this lesson in itself highlights how seldom women are mentioned by name in the scriptures (compared to men).
But it occurred to me today that some of us may be missing the point regarding women in the scriptures. Men are more often the protagonists in the scriptures, but women are the heroes of many of the most crucial events. Let’s take a look.
Are we meant to think that we may never have made it out of the Garden of Eden if it weren’t for Eve? Obviously, billions have read the Bible without correctly understanding this crucial point. She was the one who figured out that we could never advance and fulfill our destiny as mortals without taking the necessary step of committing the first transgression. You could argue that she dragged Adam along until he finally saw the light. One way or another, we must recognize that at this crucial juncture — the beginning of our story as sons and daughters of God on this Earth — she was central to the plot.
Once we came to the Earth, what was the most important event in our Gospel story? The life and death of the Savior.
The story of his life began, interestingly enough, with Ruth. She was the woman righteous, virtuous and selfless enough to marry Boaz and start the future Messiah’s line. She was the gentile who married into the House of Israel and helped bring salvation to us all. (Interestingly, the pattern is repeating in the latter days: gentiles are being adopted into the House of Israel to help prepare for the second coming of the Savior).
Hannah was the woman virtuous enough to give up her young son so he could be trained as a prophet. Her son Samuel became the wise disciple who anointed David, Ruth’s great-grandson.
It was another virtuous woman, Mary, who gave birth to the Savior, risking her own reputation and place in the world to become a handmaiden to the Lord. Of course she was there at the horrible scene of his death.
We often forget that the first person to see the resurrected Lord was a woman, none other than Mary Magdalene (in some versions accompanied by “the other Mary, the mother of James.”). In all four Gospels, it is clear that one of the most important events in the history of mankind — the resurrection of the Savior — is first witnessed by a woman, not a man.
Another selfless woman — Sara — started the covenant family of Abraham by maintaining her faith into her old age and bearing Isaac.
Again, men are clearly mentioned more often than women in the scriptures. But I don’t think, based on when and how women are mentioned, that you can argue that the scriptures say men are more important.