Womens Bible Legends Website: Spiritual Growth Through Stories

Women’s Bible Legends, www.womensbiblelegends.com, is a website that encourages people to explore their spirituality through stories about women in the Bible. The site’s advisors are women clergy, teachers and storytellers from around the world. The site draws on materials from both the Jewish and Christian traditions and is open to people of all faiths, or no faith.

The idea for the site came to the site’s creator, Lynn Clarke, while reading a book written by one of the site’s advisor’s, Dr. Judith Plaskow. The book is Standing Again at Sinai, (New York: Harper Collins, 1991.) In it, Dr. Plaskow observes that women today are creating, exploring and telling stories that connect with women’s present religious experience. (Plaskow, p.55) Envisioning women all over the world reading, writing and creating these new stories, Lynn Clarke began searching for a way to help and encourage people in this creative work.

After gathering the site’s panel of advisors, Lynn asked them to screen written materials on women in the Bible for posting on the site. The materials are an invitation for people to explore their spirituality by reading Bible passages about women in the Bible, thinking about them and then writing new stories about them. Site visitors are also invited, if they like what they write, to send in their stories, so selected submissions can be posted on the site for others to read and share. The Bible passages and writing prompts change often so visitors have plenty of opportunities for reading and writing.

Lynn Clarke is currently enrolled in the Mst Program in Jewish—Christian Relations of Cambridge University. The instructio
Lynn has received in that program has helped Lynn to create a site that is open and welcoming to all faiths. While each visitor to the site is invited to visit every page of the site, and to write about any Scripture passage or legend he or she may find inspiring, materials about women in Genesis are located on separate pages from those about women in the Gospels. That way, visitors who are not interested in Christianity can continue with website pages about women in Genesis as they appear on the site and leave the writing of stories on Gospel themes to others as they wish. Also, the site enforces a strict ‘anti-supercessionist’ policy, explained in the Editorial Guidelines on the Contact Us page of the site.

The hope for this world wide project is that people everywhere will benefit in their personal and spiritual growth through the stories on this unique site.

For more information go to www.womensbiblelegends.com or contact editor@womensbiblelegends.com n