The day I signed the contract to publish Shiloh's Daughter I was ecstatic. I have lived with this book for several years. I spent about two years figuring out that it was indeed a book. It began as a journal for a Lenten project, but it became much more than that.
I started by asking myself, "How did Hannah, the mother of Samuel, become the woman who could write the superb poem in I Samuel 2?" I thought I knew a little about the things a Jewish family might teach a daughter, because I had read the Bible through a couple of times. I had read parts of it countless times.
When I embarked on a serious search for the answer to the question, however, I discovered how little I truly knew. For starters, reading through the Bible in order to read through the Bible is not the same as reading any biblical text with a question in mind. Every time I opened up a text with one question, I went away with a dozen. It was wonderful. Preparing to write this book opened the Bible up for me in ways I could never have previously imagined. I thought I would figure out more about Hannah, but along the way, Abraham and Sarah, Miriam and Moses, Joshua and Deborah all came alive in my mind.
The roots of Hannah's life lie in the books of the Bible from Genesis to I Samuel, as well as Job, Psalms and Proverbs. Obviously, the things Hannah's parents would have taught her about God and about her ancestry were in the books written about events before her life. More than likely, she did not have direct access to any of those books and would have heard the stories told in gatherings and festivals throughout her life. I thought back to all the family stories which were told and retold during my own childhood when we gathered for Christmas and birthdays, weddings and funerals, and just because. I tried to imagine that her family history was my own.
This is the way it all started. I will add to the blog as I can. Come along with me for the ride to a finished book. It may not be new to you, but it is a grand new adventure for me.
