Slinky Bible Babes, Part II!

 

A few months ago, I didn’t get a post into either the Carnival of the Godless or the Biblioblogger’s Carnival, and so I made my own little “Carnival”. In answer to objections from some of the riff-raff fans of the site (note that I did NOT mention the name of JOHN VOKEY), it was a Carnival of Slinky Bible Babes. Of course, I did not find a post about EVERY woman to get a mention in the Bible and be represented by the motion picture and pin-up industry, so there were some further complaints about omissions. Its about time to address that in a positive way.

So here is PART II of  Slinky Bible Babes!

And this is also in consolation for me dropping out out the Bibliobloggers Top 10. I’m #11.

So let’s have some thematically appropriate Slinky Jazz Babe Music to start!

 

SO HERE ARE THE
SLINKY BIBLE BABES, Batch the Second

RUTH

So, lets start all nice and rural with some ancient Israelite (and Moabite) farm girls. The biblical story of Ruth and Naomi is a heart warming tale with some interesting innuendos that are usually lost in translation for the faithful. Anyway, for the uninitiated, the book of Ruth is about a widow, Naomi, and her equally widowed daughter-in-law, Ruth and how the latter gets herself a new man.

Elana Eden as Ruth in the 1960 film, The Story of Ruth.

When Ruth finds her hard-workin macho-man, she curls up when he is sleeping off a hard day harvesting and this is the scene that the “The story of Ruth” omits. Matt Page, in his excellent blog Bible Films, comments that of the four films of Ruth that he knows of, two were made for children. As Page puts it:

That would also explain the only glaring omission from the story – the episode where Ruth “sleeps at the feet” of Boaz. Many scholars consider this to be a euphemism, and I suppose that even taken literally it is hardly the kind of thing a Sunday School teacher wants to encourage her class to do. It’s a shame though that of only four films about Ruth, half of them are for children, and one is so old that the emotional/relational/sexual implications of this scene are unexplored.

Anyway, we are all adults here, or at least will be one day if nothing goes terribly wrong, so just take it for granted that the above picture is probably not quite what the biblical writer was talking about. Here is Elana Eden again. Use your imagination. I know I have.

Elana Eden Pictures

Esther is another of the rare biblical books with a female lead character. The book is a nice little fiction, telling how an even nicer Jewish girl marries the King of Persia and then saves her people from a plot by the mean, nasty, cruel and rotten Haman to kill them all.

Tiffany Dupont in “One Night with the King” (2005).

There have been a number of Esther movies. Again, Matt Page has the details.

Louise Lombard (1999) TV movie.

Joan Collins in Esther and the King (1960).

Well, lets flip back to Genesis. Eve was (un)covered in part 1, and Potiphar’s wife was uncovering Joseph as well, but there are other ladies. For example:

SARAH

Jacqueline Bisset as Sarah in “In the Beginning” (2000)

Mrs Abraham must be hard to cast for film makers. On the one hand, she is supposed to be very beautiful. On the other hand, she is supposed to be around 100 years old before the story really begins. Jacquelline Bisset is probably as good a compromise as can be done! Sarah’s daughter in law (Mrs. Isaac) gets some mention in Genesis, and some attention from the film industry.

REBECCA

 

Now then, Rebecca had two daughters in law married to her kid Jacob, but that’s ok, because the two girls were sisters. It was their dad’s fault. Not that the girls got along all that well. As Rabbi Waskow puts it, “Listen to the text: their struggle is so tense that Rachel says, ” ‘With Godlike wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and have prevailed’”

I got lazy trying to find movie stills of them. So here is probably what is going through your mind as represented by the art of interpretative puppetry.

I know, I posted it before, but it is one of my favourite Muppet skits.

Ok, lets have a few more.

How about a Mary! (Magdalene, that is!)

Maria Grazia Cucinotta as M. M. in the italian film released in the US as Mary Magdalene. The picture above is low resolution, so here she is again, somewhat less biblical. You can just google-image her name to check out more of her talents…

http://www.lovefilm.com/film/Bible-Mary-Magdelene/56453/

THE QUEEN OF HEAVEN

Ah, the Queen of Heaven! Either the Virgin Mary or some pagan goddess. The latter’s worship really pissed off Jeremiah.

moar funny pictures

And while we are on the topic of Diva Demonic, here is the
THE WHORE OF BABYLON

Fritz Lang’s 1927 Metropolis. Brigitte Helm as the Maschinenmenche / False Mary, dancing as the Whore of Babylon.

Part III IS HERE

Part I IS HERE