A Year of Biblical Womanhood - Rachel Held Evans

⭐ 7.5/10

(Originally written by Magdalene)

Everything that I now read by Rachel Held Evans is now bittersweet, and this was especially hard, because the audiobook I listened to was read by her sister and husband after her death. Anyway, in this book Rachel takes a year to follow the Bible as literally as possible, focusing on one aspect per month. She follows some of the kookier Old Testament rules, and the more general advice given in the Bible to women. She talks about the different things she had to do, but along the way she tells stories of some of the women of the Bible, and gives extra context to some of the familiar stories. She visits and talks to people who interpret the Bible differently, including Jews, the Amish, a polygamist, etc.

This was written in 2012, and I could tell that this was some of her earlier work. It felt a bit less progressive and she seemed not to have hit the height of her questioning period yet. So while I did enjoy this, I didn't like it as much as her other books I've read. It felt like fairly standard Christian writing. She mostly tries these things for the story of it, it seems, rather than to see if she'll actually get something out of dressing super modestly or wearing a head-covering. I did like getting this overview of women in the Bible, and how clear she made it that there's no one idea of "biblical womanhood", since just like in every other area, the Bible isn't consistent. I can see this being very informative for other people.