The Israelite Woman

Social Role and Literary Type in Biblical Narrative

Athalya Brenner-Idan

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780567657756
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Estudios bíblicos

In the first edition of The Israelite Woman Athalya Brenner-Idan provided the first book-length treatment by a feminist biblical scholar of the female characters in the Hebrew Bible. Now, thirty years later, Brenner provides a fresh take on this ground-breaking work, considering how scholarly observation of female biblical characters has changed and how it has not. Brenner-Idan also provides a new and highly personal introduction to the book, which details, perhaps surprisingly to present readers, what was at stake for female biblical scholars looking to engage honestly in the academic debate at the time in which the book was first written. This will make difficult reading for some, particularly those whose own views have not changed. The main part of the book presents Brenner-Idans's now classic examination of the roles of women in the society of ancient Israel, and the roles they play in the biblical narratives. In Part I Brenner-Idan surveys what can be known about the roles of queens, wise women, women poets and authors, prophetesses, magicians, sorcerers and witches and female prostitutes in Israelite society. In Part II the focus is on the typical roles in which Hebrew women appear in biblical stories, as mother of the hero, as temptress, as foreigner, and as ancestress. In these narratives, for which there are standard plots and structures and characterizations readily available, women play a generally domestic role. Not only is the book a highly valuable resource detailing the social role of women in ancient Israel, and showing how the interpretation of women in the bible has been influenced by convention, but it is also a challenging reminder of how outdated attitudes can still prevail.

1

INTRODUCTION: QUO VADIS DOMINA? REFLECTIONS ON WHAT WE HAVE BECOME AND WANT TO BE

This short piece would serve here, as I hope, as a superficial survey for showing how feminist criticism and its practitioners have changed (and also remained the same, to use a cliché) since the mid-1980s, when the Israelite Woman was first published. It was first published online in June 2013 in lectio difficilior, and is here updated and revised.¹

a. Disclaimer

(Mishnah Avoth 3.1)

Tractate Avoth [‘fathers’ or ‘fundamentals’] of the Mishnah is a collection of ethical sayings, not of halakha, that is placed at the end of the mishnaic order called in Hebrew Neziqin and dealing with damages – material, social, mental and others – in human societies, and their reparation. In it, in Chapter 3, Section 1, there is a saying attributed to the sage R. Aqaviah son of Mehalalel, who probably lived in Jerusalem or near it at some time between 200 BCE and the commencement of the Common Era. This is what he is reported as saying, in translation:

Reflect upon three things and you will not fall into the clutches of transgression:

Know from whence you come,

whither you are going,

and before whom you are going to have to give a full account [of yourself].

(Trans. J. Neusner, Mishna-N in the Accordance electronic Program)

I am taking this quote out of context. R. Aqaviah, let him rest in peace, meant something completely different from what I am going to present now, as the next few lines of the Mishnah make clear. The explanation to his instruction, in context and as given in the following lines of the Mishnah, is:

‘From whence do you come’? From a putrid drop.²

‘Whither are you going’? To a place of dust, worms, and maggots.

‘And before whom are you going to give a full account of Yourself’? Before the King of kings of kings, the Holy One, blessed be he’. (Trans. Neusner)

But no matter: I chose R. Aqaviah’s words as a motto for this piece since, like in many of the Avoth sayings, so few words are used to touch upon so many issues: sex, procreation, life and death and in between, ethics and faith and giving account, here and in the hereafter. This seems appropriate to me since the present short piece, now rewritten from a talk at a Groningen conference on gender studies (January 2011), pursues the purpose of the conference in which it was delivered. The aim of that conference was to reflect on the recent past and coming future of gender studies, within the framework of not only religious studies per se but also of religious studies as relevant to life and death of religious and non-religious women (and men) in their contemporary communities. And because I know and acknowledge that you, my colleagues and readers, are versed practitioners and interested parties, standing before you – metaphorically – causes me no little anxiety. A task of writing about the state of the art of gender studies anno 2010+ is, for me, a task I approach with trepidation. And another reason for this quote, which is personally directed at all of us it seems, summing up a human condition shared by many, is, that although I am going to proceed inductively, from my own experience onto a general assessment, I am reasonably sure that my experience is shared. And so to my task – that is, to give a concise review of what I know about academic gender studies in the western hemisphere, at this time, especially in biblical studies and especially around Europe and the United States.

b. Gender Studies: Certainly a Success Story

Things have changed for ‘gender studies’ in the last decades, for better and for worse, as is widely acknowledged I think. Historically, gender studies and gender-affiliated studies were gradually introduced into Academia as a cluster commencing from the emphasis on female issues, after earlier arrangements coyly labelled ‘women studies’ that, paradoxically, often contained an element of feminist criticism stronger than that of ‘gender studies’. This in itself, the coming of age so to speak of such studies as academic subjects that matter, is no mean victory. But beyond this bare factual progress, not always easy for practitioners as well as for objectors, how do we measure the success or failure of this ostensible integration into the academic world? Regrettably, the academic world – at least in the Humanities – is quite conservative. For a new cluster of topics to enter it as units, departments, colloquia, seminars that remain around for students and teachers and researches alike, in the short span of a couple of decades, is no mean feat. But what does this serious inroad actually mean?

c. Gender Studies and the Workplace: Parameters for Evaluation

Let us not forget in our intellectual and moral zeal that the academic world is, among other things or first and foremost, also a workplace, a marketplace. So we can begin by being pragmatic. Let us divide ‘success’ in the workplace into two clusters. The one cluster is more emotional/mental: it includes wishes for recognition, acceptance, feeling at home, freedom to choose, right to happiness or at least fulfilment, satisfaction, and the power to make social difference. The second is more practical: wishes of actually having work, influence, equal pay, equal economic opportunity, and the formal appreciation that leads to professional advancement, with all that this entails. The two parameters actually overlap in many places, since both centre on the broad concern of access. And, in the academic world, the issues boil down to four important categories: jobs and financing, as conditioned inter alia by publications, the opportunity and space to publish and to be read and known; influence, including power positions (in administration); and syllabus planning, that is, determining acceptable fields of study and their contents.

Before commencing I shall emphasize briefly what has already been implied earlier: increasingly, for many scholars and certainly for me, ‘gender studies’ as it has developed is more inclusive now. It is not just a glorified name for feminist criticism in any field, although feminist criticism is what started it all. No: the term also includes historically derivative and ideologically close – albeit burgeoning into prominence status – fields, such as queer studies and the study of masculinities. Those areas may now claim a nascent independent status but they were made possible thanks to feminist studies that began by focusing on women and literary woman figures. Looking back from this angle, viewing how the coy ‘women studies’ of the 1970s, say, have changed the world of legitimate scholarly inquiry while it was changing itself, is even on its own a formidable success story. Opportunities certainly opened up there, and another inclusive academic discourse emerged.

d. A Closer Look into Publication as Success Parameter: The Case of Biblical Studies

Let us think then about the current situation regarding feminist and gender studies specifically in my own field, biblical studies, in the area of publications, the sacred cow of academic survival and advancement. I will chart some roads travelled, first in feminist bible criticism and then – albeit briefly – in the emerging biblical queer studies. My survey will relate to bible research done mostly in English, since this is what I know best; and since Americans, and to a lesser extent English-speaking European women, were at the forefront of early (so called ‘third wave’) feminist research in the late 1970s and through the 1980s to the early 1990s.

When I wanted to start the Feminist Companion to the Hebrew Bible series in the late 1980s, it took four years of intensive and at times humiliating search before a publisher willing to invest in anything bigger than one volume of collected essays, and to give it the explicit title ‘feminist’, was found.³ Until then, whole books about the subject numbered maybe ten, including essay collections. Indeed, essay collections or anthologies were the more common.⁴ By comparison: By 2004, when the Feminist Companion to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings was beginning to take shape, it was enthusiastically planned as a much needed sequel.⁵ Moreover, less than twenty-five years after the forerunning anthologies of the early 1980s and later, we now have, first and foremost, dedicated dictionaries and encyclopaedias such as the Women in Scripture big volume (WIS).⁶ Who remembers that The Women’s Bible,⁷ and the European, German-language Kompendium Feministische Bibelauslegung⁸ that followed, are less than twenty years old? From a modest beginning of one-volume short commentaries, nowadays there exists a plethora of feminist studies, from anthologies and subject collections to monographs to commentaries and reference works, to consult at your heart’s desire as a matter of course. Moreover, several very big series projects are currently in the making, over and apart from individual books or collections. There is the big European Commentary that is being published in four languages⁹; the American Commentary given the name Wisdom Commentary, sixty-three volumes planned and in various stages of preparation at this time.¹⁰ Let us note the shift from [anthologies of] articles into the ‘commentary’ genre, reserved for hundreds of years only for elite guild members, mostly males of course, and the willingness of established publishers to invest in such big and expensive projects. My own Feminist Companion series was reissued in 2010 as is, all volumes, without any changes or updates. The Feminist Companion to the New Testament is nearly done; both series still fare well from the production angle in spite of changes in publishers, which indicate a readership and continued demand. And I know of other smaller, multi-volume projects that are being prepared as well. And all this is apart from the many, many monographs that are now available. Furthermore, we have reached the stage when retrospectives of feminist bible criticism are being prepared and published: is this not a sign of maturing, even aging somewhat, or at the very least a sign of acceptance as worthy? Furthermore, earlier work by feminist bible scholars, such as mine, is now contested as ‘conservative’, not to mention outdated; yes, this is a marvellous sign!¹¹

I would like to emphasize that the shift from collections/anthologies to commentaries represents a professional conquest of sorts. More and more individual female scholars who are not coy or diffident about defining themselves as feminists are commissioned to write commentaries to whole biblical books for the prestigious series, such as the Anchor Bible (AB) and the Old Testament Library (OTL) or the Jewish Publication Society (JPS). This is perhaps more a personal victory for certain scholars than anything else, although it is in the spirit of the times; I could drop names and refer to individual authors here, such as Cheryl Exum on the Song of Songs¹² or Julia O’Brien on Malachi,¹³ but it is perhaps not necessary to do this much further. What is even more worth noting is that big series are brought out as dedicated feminist commentaries, not as anthologies, while – as described above – collections continue to be published as well. Consider, for instance, the award-winning The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, a Jewish commentary designated for communal as well as for academic use.¹⁴ All this indicates that feminist criticism of the bible has made serious inroads into mainstream biblical scholarship, however that ‘mainstream’ is defined.

One more extended example will perhaps suffice to summarize this part of the discussion. In 1977 Marvin Pope, let him rest in peace, published his monumental commentary on the Song of Songs, all 750 pages of it, in the AB series.¹⁵ In it, on pp. 205–10, he refers to Phyllis Trible’s pioneering ‘Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation’ article, originally published in 1973,¹⁶ an article that should be considered as the honoured mother of feminist Song of Songs scholarship. In his review of Trible’s work, after summarizing her position, Pope states (p. 210):

Whether Trible’s effort at depatriarchalizing the Hebrew Scriptures will find favor with either conservative biblical scholars or anti-biblicists in the Women’s Liberation Movement, remains to be seen. With regard to the Song of Song she is certainly correct in recognizing the equal and even dominant role of the female and the absence of male chauvinism or patriarchalism.

Marvin Pope died at eighty years of age in 1997. He was in a minority scholarly position concerning the Song of Songs, because he advanced the theory that it contained more than traces of goddess imagery and even goddess cult, which coloured his report somewhat about Song of Song study as a whole and motivated his interest in studies of female centrality in that book. When he published his Song of Songs commentary, apart from Trible’s work he could refer only to few antecedents that recognized female exceptional position in that biblical work, such as C. D. Ginsburg’s work from the mid-nineteenth century.¹⁷ Terms such as gender studies, women studies and feminist bible criticism were not available to him. He must have referred to Trible’s work as he read it for the added value it granted his own theories – at least, this is my understanding.

And now, a little over thirty years later? The Song of Songs is one of the biblical books to have received the most attention from feminist critics over the last decades. That there is neither male chauvinism nor patriarchalism in it has been claimed or refuted time and time again, among others by Cheryl Exum, a feminist whose 2005 commentary on the Song of Songs, mentioned earlier, was published by the OTL, which is perhaps even more mainstream and respected than the AB, where Pope published his own commentary. Exum’s work is now the leading commentary to consult while studying this biblical text – by all, whatever their convictions; ignore it at your peril, if you do you would be considered not only old-fashioned but also an ill-informed and ignorant scholar. (Some scholars are notoriously ignorant, as paradoxically as this may sound.) Furthermore, new scholarly voices, also male voices, are now raised in favour of reading the Song of Songs from a queer, masculinist, or other perspectives.¹⁸

I have used the example of the Song of So...