Feminist Biblical Interpretation in Theological Context

Restless Readings

J'annine Jobling

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781138733893
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351740388
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This title was first published in 2002: The premise of the text is that there is a continuing need for biblical hermeneutic propsals and frameworks which emerge from the fields of both feminism and Christian theology. Feminism, the author asserts, demands not only the plotting of new routes but the restructuring of entire landscapes. As such this project, since it seeks to develop a feminist theological frame for meaning, impinges on and is impacted by innumerable inter-relating questions. In consequence, the scope of the book is necessarily both broad and interdisiplinary. The author, J'annine Jobling, uses particular texts and has articulated her own positions in response. In this way the embodied practice of thinking-in-relation is mirrored in the texts produced. This has determined the macro-structure of the thesis, which is based on an analysis of two feminist biblical scholars: Elisabeth Schussler Fionenza and Phyllis Trible. From this analysis Jobling identifies two primary principles for interpretation: rememberance and destabilization. This is a strategy which allows both materialist and post-structuralist perspectives to be set into play, each of which has vital contributions to make to feminist enterprises. The "Bible" is understood as matrix, as a set of discourses which are permeable to and intersect with other cultural discourses. The task of feminist interpretation is then to reconstitute the heterogenous biblical matrix in feminist horizons. A fundamental tenet of the book is that hermeneutics inhabits particular metaphysical constructs. Therefore, the argument extends from an interpretation of the Bible to an epistemological framework in which an eschatological hereneutic is recommended, to a metaphysical framework which takes eschatology as its structuring principle. The author argues that it is eschatology which can provide the resources for an ontological model radically disruptive of a metaphysics of presence, and in which it is possible to discern the traces of God. From this outermost limit of the author's hermeneutic investigations, the text returns to the centre: the feminist discursive community and develops a construct that the ekklesia, as a feminist deliberative space set oppositionally to structures, worldviews and idealogies operates on patriarchal logics. The relationship of this "imagined community" is compared to the Christian Church and scripture, ethics and gendered identity within a logic of equity.

Chapter 1
Introduction

The rules break like a thermometer,

quicksilver spills cross the charted systems,

we’re out in a country that has no language

no laws, we’re chasing the raven and the wren

through gorges unexplored since dawn

whatever we do together is pure invention

the maps they gave us were out of date by years …¹

This poetic fragment by Adrienne Rich embodies a central problematic for feminist thought, and by extension, for this book. Feminist philosophies are attempts at thinking otherwise. To think otherwise on the basis of existing prevailing categories and models of truth, reason and knowledge would lock feminism into the system which it strives to dismantle.² To articulate a feminist philosophical perspective requires a comprehensive restructuring of epistemology, ontology and subjectivity. However, feminists cannot simply take a leap into pure alterity and set sail for new and uncharted lands; thinking otherwise requires a renegotiation of the landscapes in which feminists already are. In this territory, nothing can be taken for granted.

The impact of feminism, then, radiates out in shockwaves which leave no area undisturbed. This book is positioned at one particular nexus of feminist disturbance, namely, the area of biblical hermeneutics within Christian theological context. A recurring theme is the interaction of feminist biblical hermeneutics with postmodern philosophies. It is an exercise, proceeding from these intersecting perspectives, which seeks to put forward constructive proposals for a paradigm of feminist and theological interpretation.

The premise of the book is that there is a continuing need for biblical hermeneutic proposals and frameworks which emerge from the fields of both feminism and Christian theology. This is not, naturally, virgin territory. A considerable number of writers have made significant contributions to such an endeavour.³ Nevertheless, this book seeks to make a distinctive contribution. It certainly does not claim (or desire) to replace or supersede the rich and valuable body of literature already in existence, but, more modestly, to add another feminist voice to the dialogue. In its outworking, it does not strive to develop a new ‘method’ for interpretation, but rather to articulate a meta-framework hospitable to the presuppositions and emphases of feminist theological scholarship.⁴ The distinctiveness of the argument lies, then, not its goals, but in the particularity of the pathways which it follows and opens up.

Feminism demands not only the plotting of new routes but, as already intimated, the restructuring of entire landscapes. As such this project, since it seeks to develop a feminist theological frame for meaning, impinges on and is impacted by innumerable interrelating questions. In consequence, the scope of the book is necessarily both broad and interdisciplinary, and it is sited in feminist, philosophical, theological, historiographical, literary, ecclesiological, sociological, psychoanalytical and biblical domains which are even broader. Methodologically, this has required a ruthless restriction of discussion to the purposes for which it is undertaken; it is, in this respect, ‘led from the front’. Supporting literature is, of course, cited — but a comprehensive survey of relevant secondary material was not possible within the parameters of space. Thus one might say that full coverage of material has been sacrificed to the production of a multidirectional constructive paradigm which weaves with threads from many angles.

For these pragmatic reasons, but also by preference, the dominant methodology is Socratic. It interacts critically and creatively with particulars, in a dialogic process which both advances and shapes the discussion. This is by preference because I consider it an especially appropriate mode of proceeding for a feminist piece of work. Feminism stresses contextual thinking, and the importance of dialogic reasoning. For the purposes of this book, I interrogate particular texts and articulate my own positions in response to them. In this way the embodied practice of thinking-in-relation is mirrored in the text I have produced. This has determined the macro-structure of the thesis, which is based on analysis of two feminist biblical scholars: Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (Chapters 2 and 3) and Phyllis Trible (Chapters 4 and 5). It can also be discerned in each of the component elements of the argument.

These authors were selected for three primary reasons: they are both seminal thinkers important to the development of feminist biblical hermeneutics; they work within contrasting methodological paradigms, namely the socio-historical and the literary; and, taken together but not separately, they enable both the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible to enter into the debates. In other respects, the significance of their work to this thesis is not symmetrical. Schüssler Fiorenza has written much more substantively in the theoretical arena than has Trible, and it is theory with which this book is primarily concerned. Furthermore, she continues to exert a dominant and formative influence on New Testament feminist scholarship in ways which Trible, whilst still a significant figure in the parallel domain of the Hebrew Bible, does not. Nevertheless, the aspects of Trible’s work on which I draw are appropriate to the movement of the argument, as shall be seen: however, the impact of Schüssler Fiorenza on my constructive proposals is rather more obvious and far-reaching. This imbalance in their respective contribution to the book is reflected in the relative weighting of discussion in terms of space.

From analysis of Schüssler Fiorenza and Trible, I identify two primary principles for interpretation: remembrance and destabilization (Chapter 6). This is a strategy which enables both materialist and post-structuralist perspectives to be set into play, each of which has vital contributions to make to feminist enterprises. The former grounds theory and praxis in specificities, the concrete actualities of women’s lives. The latter dismantles stable categories, and sets interpretation free to roam in realms where subjectivity is constructed and unstable and truth is dissolved into signification.

The ‘Bible’ is understood as matrix, as a set of discourses which are permeable to and intersect with other cultural discourses. The task of feminist interpretation is then to reconstitute the fluid and heterogeneous biblical matrix in feminist horizons. This activity in my account is undertaken through the hermeneutics of remembrance and destabilization sited within a feminist emancipatory framework inspired by utopic impulses and a theology of hope — a context in which the polymorphous nature of interpretative strategies is stressed and the question of the ethical constitution of interpretation is paramount.

From remembrance to hope and back again, treading bridges which are not rooted in certainties but thrown across voids: the eschatological imagination, I argue, captures this movement between remembrance and hope in a context where meaning is neither present nor fixed but differed and deferred. Thus, I begin to articulate an eschatological hermeneutic. This offers not only an obvious theological context, but allows for the double movement of feminism between materialism and deconstruction.

It is also a fundamental tenet of this book that hermeneutics inhabits particular metaphysical constructs. Therefore, the argument ripples outwards in ever-increasing circles: from interpretation of the Bible to an epistemological framework in which an eschatological hermeneutic is recommended, to a metaphysical framework which likewise takes eschatology as its structuring principle. The discussion at that point (Chapter 7) is inevitably indicative only. Yet, a hermeneutic which claims to be theological cannot well proceed without reference to the kind of theological ontology which underlies it. Here, I begin to sketch in an alternative to the so-called onto-theological tradition, in which God is inevitably complicit with a metaphysics of presence, and seek to delineate a metaphysics better suited to my interpretative framework. As indicated, it is eschatology which, I argue, can provide the resources for an ontological model radically disruptive of a metaphysics of presence, and in which it is possible to discern the traces of God.

From this outermost limit of my hermeneutic investigations, I return to its centre: the feminist discursive community (Chapter 8). This is demanded by the epistemological model I adopt, which prioritizes the location of interpretation. I develop at this point a construct which emerged from the dialogue with Schüssler Fiorenza: the ekklesia, as a feminist deliberative space set oppositionally to structures, worldviews and ideologies which operate on patriarchal logics. I consider the relationship of this ‘imagined community’ to the Christian Church and to scripture, to ethics and to gendered identity within a logic of equity. This provides the discursive feminist location from which the eschatological hermeneutic I put forward can be deployed.

And now, let us turn to the first of my dialogue partners: Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza.

Notes

¹ Rich, The Dream of a Common Language, 31.

² The classic expression of this comes from Audre Lorde: ‘[F]or the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change’. (‘The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House’, in Moraga, Cherrie and Anzaldua, Gloria [eds.], This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Colour [Watertown, MA: Persephone Press, 1981], 99.)

³ Indeed, the field of feminist biblical hermeneutics more generally is now so large and heterogeneous that surveying it would be a major undertaking in itself. The relationship of this thesis to some of the more significant works will be mapped as its contours take shape and its relative positioning will become gradually apparent.

⁴ What these presuppositions and emphases might be is, at the outset, underdetermined: they emerge from the dialogue and discussion, since they are dialectically related to the kind of framework and principles eventually advocated. However, minimally, by ‘feminist’ I refer to a worldview and practice committed to the emancipation of women from structures of socio-economics and politics, religions and ideologies, which explicitly or implicitly privilege men.

Chapter 2
The Historical Paradigm

Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza is without doubt a major figure in the field of feminist biblical hermeneutics. With Judith Plaskow, she is co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion; she has also written a number of books revolving around questions of feminist approaches to biblical interpretation. What makes her work particularly of note and interest for my current purposes is the great weight of theoretical discussion in her writings, although she has also formulated specific historicial hypotheses. Perhaps the most well-known of these is her postulation of a so-called ‘discipleship of equals’, an emancipatory egalitarian movement among the early followers of Jesus.

My aims in the coming chapter are precisely focused. I should make it clear at the outset that no exegetical evaluation of Schüssler Fiorenza’s work will be provided; the discussion here moves entirely in the realm of hermeneutic and feminist theory. In this chapter, I outline Schüssler Fiorenza’s historiographical perspectives and methods, isolating and analysing its defining moments. I describe Schüssler Fiorenza’s paradigm for historical reconstruction with a view to investigating fruitful shapes for feminist historiographical theory to take. Particular attention is given to the positioning of Schüssler Fiorenza’s hermeneutics with respect to current historiographical debates over epistemologies, which focus especially on issues surrounding objectivity, the relationship between historical texts and historical realities, and the extent to which histories are constructed or discovered. From these explorations, the discussion moves into the relationship between Schüssler Fiorenza’s historiography and politics.¹

Having established Schüssler Fiorenza’s stance with respect to these aspects of her historical-critical method, I then go on to indicate how her feminist historiography actually differs from so-called ‘traditional’ historical-critical method. The relationship between Schüssler Fiorenza’s feminist historical-critical method and historical-critical method more generally is complex. Indeed, historical criticism itself has been somewhat beleaguered in recent years as the rise of postmodern historiographical critique and new literary paradigms have problematized what seemed to be founding assumptions of historical research. Debates over textuality, truth and objectivity have appeared to undercut — some think fatally — the guiding principles of historical-criticism.² The discussion here takes its cues from Schüssler Fiorenza’s own writings on this. Finally, I extract from the explorations as a whole some general conclusions for method in feminist biblical interpretation.

Schüssler Fiorenza’s hermeneutic framework revolves around the concept of the ekklesia gynaikon (women-church) as the centre of and deliberative space for interpretation. Investigating this is the topic of the next chapter. He...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The Historical Paradigm
• 3 Biblical Interpretation and the Ekklesia
• 4 Redeeming the Text
• 5 The Terrors of the Text
• 6 Towards an Eschatological Hermeneutic
• 7 Truth, God and Interpretation
• 8 The Ekklesia
• 9 Conclusions
• Selected Bibliography
• Index