The reason that there aren't any references to women in the wisdom literature, aside from the vague passage in Proverbs 8, may be due to the fact that the authors were writing for an audience of men. This is also probably why there are numerous warnings about promiscuous women. Keeping in mind the misogynistic attitudes of the time period, few women were allowed to become literate, hence any writing that was done, was most likely intended exclusively for men. I'm certainly not advocating this practice, but it does make some sense of the lack of femininity.
In both these sections of our reading i found it interesting that a bear, lion, and hunter are mentioned together.
Job 38: 31 Can you bind the chains of the Plei'ades, or loose the cords of Orion? 32 Can you lead forth the Maz'zaroth2 in their season, or can you guide the Bear1 with its children? 33 Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God's3 dominion over the earth?...
37 Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens 38 when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together? 39 "Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions 40 when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket?
1) or Leo
2) alternate translations include morning star and zodiac
3) or their
Lamentations 3: 10 He is to me like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding; 11 he led me off my way and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate; 12 he bent his bow and set me as a mark for his arrow. 13 He drove into my heart the arrows of his quiver;
Bold=My Emphasis
These references are interesting because they seem to relate to astrology, which many Christians have come to view as an evil perversion of the hebrew zodiac, or Maz'zaroth. Also, neither the bear nor the lion are native to the Levant. This would lead me to believe that these actually are astrological references and not the author speaking extemporaneously. Further evidence of this is the equation of bear and lion in both passages.
The Job reference is quite obviously a bit of astrology, as it begins with the Pleiades, or 7 Sisters. This may also be where the theme of 7's originates. If one takes the "morning star" translation of the Job passage, this could be a reference to the Inanna/Ishtar/Astarte/et al. goddess, who were represented by the planet Venus. It is notable that Astarte was both the sister and consort (or according to some sources wife) of the Syro-Palestinian deity El. Also if one replaces "God's" with "their," as per the footnote, we have another reference to the curious Elohim. This makes it more likely that the speaker here is El as opposed to Yahweh, though the two had been somewhat merged by this point.
Another interpretation of the "their" footnote is that the pronoun is refering to the Maz'zaroth, or Semitic Zodiac. This would then be a very strange verse if it attributed power over the earth to the Zodiac. If this is to be the interpretation, the Lamentations passage could also be construed as meaning that these negative events happened due to some astrological alignment. I doubt there is any way to prove that for certain, but it is an interesting viewpoint from which to look at other seemingly odd sections.
It is also interesting that El equates himself with the astrological sign of Aquarius when he says "Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens." As the sign of aquarius is a man pouring out a jar of water. This may sound like a stretch, but given a series of previous anecdotes, I believe it makes sense. For more info about the Great Year and Great Months, or Ages, click here. First off there is the golden calf incident that occured at the earliest 2200-1800 BCE. This was around the end of the Age of Taurus(ca 4300-2150 BCE). After the Age of Taurus, we have the Age of Aires(ca 2150BCE-1CE). As you probably already know, Aires is represented as a ram.. During this period the blowing of the shofar, or Ram's horn, was involved in many a religious ceremony in Judaism. The horn of any animal can be used as long as it is not of a bovine, because of the golden calf incident. Also interesting are the variants of El, including El-Eyal and El-Ayil. Ayil and Eyal are related words in hebrew, the latter means "power" and the former means "ram." Then comes the Age of Pisces(ca 1CE-2150CE) represented by two fish. There is plenty of fish (the sign of pisces) imagery connected with Jesus, i.e. the two fisherman brothers Simon Peter and Andrew, the feeding of the multitude with 5 loaves of bread and two fish, Mat. 4:19 "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men," etc... Furthermore, when asked (indirectly) about his return Jesus says "And He sent two of His disciples and said to them, "Go into the city, and a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him; (Mark 14:13, Luke 22:11). Given all of this, and that the apocolyptic visions of Enoch, Daniel, and Revelation sound much more like the despotic El/Yahweh deity than the pacifistic Christ, I believe it is safe to assume that the apocolypse, or second coming, is merely a reference to the passing of the Age of Pisces and the coming Age of Aquarius.
As the Zodiac was most likely developed in Babylonia, it should not be surprising that it has quite a heavy influence on the local Levantine mythologies that conglomerated to form what is now the Judeo-Christian tradition. Also, many different cultures have mythologies that are heavily influenced by the zodiac. These seem to originate independently in different cultures as well, as Chinese, Mayan, and Near Eastern zodiacs all appear to have developed regardless of contact with each other.
