One woman’s year of living biblically

The Guardian reports on Rachel Held Evans’ experiment in living biblically:

Rachel Held Evans, who lives in Dayton, Tennessee, started following the literal instructions for women in the Bible last October. She refused to touch her husband during her period, sleeping for a weekend in a tent in her backyard and even carrying around her own cushion to sit on so she did not make anything else unclean (Leviticus 15-18). Then reading “it is better to live in a corner of a roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman” in Proverbs 21:9, she did so whenever she nagged. She also stood on the highway in front of the “Welcome to Dayton” sign holding a poster saying “Dan is awesome” – because a virtuous woman’s husband is “praised at the city gates” (Proverbs 31:23). And never once during the 12 months did she cut her thick hair (1 Corinthians 11:15).

…while women in the bible command armies, it was always the strict gender roles and emphasis on women’s subservience that was spoken of.

So what did Rachel, a committed Christian and feminist, learn? “To call into question that there is a single blueprint of how to be a woman…”