Tamar

So before I go onto other things today, I want to write a little bit about this Tamar situation. I usually get a little mixed up with biblical people and stories. What comes first, who comes next, where is this happening as compared to that one...? and on and on and on. So, when things start aligning, like Judah and Tamar, Judah is Leah's son, Leah is Jacob's wife, Jacob is Issac and Rebekah's son who steals the birthright, Rebekah marries Isaac from far away, Laban is Leah's father...etc, I get excited.

I get a sense of the times a little more. Most of these guys are shepherds and with Judah, he migrates more into the city, which gets him into trouble in many ways...one of them is Dinah, and the raping/murdering incident...but that's a whole story in and of itself and really doesn't have much to do with Judah. So Judah had sons, the oldest marries Tamar, dies, and then the second oldest is told to marry her, does and ejaculates on the ground, and dies. So Judah tells Tamar, go back to your dad's house, I'm going to send for you when my youngest son is old enough. But he doesn't. So one day he's going to shear his sheep in a town and Tamar gets word of it, travels to the road covered in a prostitute's veil, and has sex with him.  She gets preggo! Judah hears of it and says she should be burned, but Tamar sends him his own staff and tokens to show him that HE was the one who impregnated her. So he apologizes to her and she has twins, one of which is in the genealogy of Jesus by way of David. Pretty strange.

There are so many mini microstories in the bible, it gets hard to follow. One tiny moment, one sentence, can hold so much as far as story goes. What goes into Tamar's decision to go be a prostitute to Judah?? That's like ... probably 7 years worth of build up. What happened to her on a daily basis? Were widows mocked everyday? What did her dad treat her like? Did she gather water and wash clothing and do almost nothing? Did she long for a husband, had she given up? What made her so sure Judah wouldn't recognize her, even with a veil? Did he really not pay that much attention to her when she lived with his son? What did that look like?

All these things are going through my head. Plus, when I looked up Tamar's picture, this came up, and to be honest, I think Tamar was probably a whole lot uglier. Why you ask? Well, why wouldn't the brothers be excited to sleep with her? Why wouldn't they want her in their lineage? If she were beautiful like this, wouldn't they WANT her to have their babies? Just asking...

I want to write these stories, I want to start by mapping out an outline, but I don't have very much to go off of for that time period. I know nothing about the daily life, and every time I go to research it, it's so vague it feels like I'd be talking out my buttttt.

Also, I've been having so much FUN researching my beloved France with this DVD, but if I wanted to write something about it, I would feel like I was reaching for something I've never experienced before. But I don't find inspiration in the desert living....do I?? I'll just keep on trying things and trying to write them down. Now THIS is a challenge. Praise God. :)