Land of Silence by Tessa Asfhar is a retelling of the Biblical story of the woman with the issue of blood.
Since so little is known about her Asfhar was able to create a rich backstory to this character, Elianna, bringing the reader into her tragedy, heartbreak, hopes, and dreams. She also connects Elianna to Lydia of Thyatira, setting up her next book.
What I find so interesting about the culture explored in this book are the exploration of the gender roles, how Elianna becomes stuck because as an unmarried woman, she can't run the business she's been running for her father after his death, and also how she nearly kills herself to provide dowries for herself and her sister. Even knowing this is an accurate portrayal, and having prior knowledge of these practices, from a modern Western perspective it is difficult to understand personally.
Additionally, in her 12 years of uncleanliness, again it struck me how while in some cases being unclean was evident to others, sometimes it wasn't—and then it was the responsibility of the unclean person to tell others and to avoid making them unclean (sitting on the floor, not touching others, etc). This woman became an outcast in every way. She couldn't worship at the synagogue or Temple, couldn't hug her sister, couldn't draw water with the other local women—and was isolated from her community. There were so many times she warned someone and I was like, Why did she tell them?, even knowing that not doing so would be sin.
We live in such a different world today, but there are so many lessons from Elianna's story that we can learn, from cultural information to deeper lessons of what it means to follow God's Word, even when no one is watching. If you like Biblical fiction, definitely check out this book.
You can get it here on Amazon!
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