Introducing the Women's Hebrew Bible

Feminism, Gender Justice, and the Study of the Old Testament

Susanne Scholz

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780567663368
• eBook ISBN: 9780567663399
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Introducing the Women's Hebrew Bible is an up-to-date feminist introduction to the historical, socio-political, and academic developments of feminist biblical scholarship. In the second edition of this popular text Susanne Scholz offers new insights into the diverse field of feminist studies on the Hebrew Bible. Scholz provides a new introductory survey of the history of feminism more broadly, giving context to its rise in biblical studies, before looking at the history and issues as they relate specifically to feminist readings and readers of the Hebrew Bible. Scholz then presents the life and work of several influential feminist scholars of the Bible, outlining their career paths and the characteristics of their work. The volume also outlines how to relate the Bible to sexual violence and feminist postcolonial demands. Two new chapters further delineate recent developments in feminist biblical studies. One chapter addresses the relationship between feminist exegesis and queer theory as well as masculinity studies. Another chapter problematizes the gender discourse as it has emerged in the Christian Right's approaches to the Old Testament.

Chapter 1

FROM THE “WOMAN’S BIBLE” TO THE “WOMEN’S BIBLE”: THE HISTORY OF FEMINIST APPROACHES TO THE HEBREW BIBLE

The history of women interpreting biblical literature is not well known, neither in the academic field of biblical studies nor among lay people. Nevertheless, the interpretation of the Bible by women is not new but grounded in a centuries-long tradition. Indeed, as long as women have lived in Bible-dominated societies and participated in the religious life of Christianity and Judaism, they actively and independently read biblical texts. Many, it is true, were the recipients of biblical meanings as handed down and interpreted by androcentric institutions such as church and synagogue, and it was often dangerous for women to speak publicly in front of women and men. Yet alongside this baleful tradition was an alternative experience: again and again, women of high intellect, great independence, and strong conviction challenged male political and religious leaders to accept women’s equality with men not only before God but also in society. By raising their voices, these women, often situated in religious orders and in the upper class, tried to defeat entrenched structures of sexism and misogyny. Sometimes, especially when they came from the underprivileged strata of their society, these lone voices connected the discrimination of women with other structures of oppression, such as racism, and demanded to abolish them.

This chapter traces the emergence and developments of feminist Hebrew Bible studies. It begins with a cursory survey on the proto-feminist era of women reading the Bible since the Western Middle Ages. It then outlines developments in the nineteenth century with a focus on the U.S.–American scene. It continues with a discussion of the cultural-political situation in the early to mid-twentieth century, during which a number of books on women in the Bible were published. It then discusses comprehensively the emergence and diversification of feminist studies in the Hebrew Bible since the Second Feminist Movement in the 1970s through the early twenty-first century.

“In the Image of God”: Individual Women’s Voices in Western Societies from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century

Biblical interpretations of individual medieval women never gained much influence in the religious institutions and societies of their times and remained on the margins of intellectual, religious, and social discourses and practices. Bold, courageous, and outspoken women came and went, and they were quickly forgotten when they passed away. Each woman believed that she reinvented the arguments, but one after another claimed her right to read and to interpret the meaning of biblical literature. We only have knowledge of a few, usually of those who published their work. Many others who were unable to write or publish their views remain unknown, although such women probably existed.1 Indeed, women have always participated at the grassroots level in the interpretative process, and so it seems likely that the next generation will continue holding on to their Bibles. It is therefore crucial to remember the many women who created biblical meanings in opposition to androcentric theories and practices prevalent in their lives. Their voices and insights will surely inspire their daughters and granddaughters to do the same.

Before the first feminist movement in Western societies during the nineteenth century, which brought about the first systematic wave of women struggling for equal political, economic, social, and religious rights, women interpret the Bible independently and in isolation from each other. They follow their conviction that women are not second-class citizens, and they read biblical texts in support of women’s equality in society and before God. For instance, the twelfth-century Christian mystic Hildegard von Bingen repeatedly emphasizes the significance of Genesis 1:26-7. This verse introduces the notion of female and male as created in the image of God and does not limit any aspect of the imago Dei to women, as Bingen’s contemporary male medieval colleagues maintain. They accord the full imago Dei in terms of memory, intelligence, and will (memoria, intelligentia, voluntas) only to men and deny women the capacity of intelligence. Bingen does not accept this view and defends women as fully created in the image of God.2 Her inner conviction of women’s equality characterizes her interpretation of Genesis 1:26-7 and she criticizes the androcentric status quo of her time in which women are considered as lesser human beings than men. Yet her position that the biblical text asserts women’s full and equal inclusion in God’s creation is an isolated phenomenon and does not enjoy the support of a whole movement pushing for change.

Hildegard von Bingen, however, was not alone in her belief in women’s equality. Later on, fourteenth-century Christian writer, Christine de Pizan, defends women’s equality on the basis of Genesis 1–2. She maintains that woman, like man, is not only created in God’s image but also consists of much better material than man. Woman is taken from human flesh whereas man is made from soil. Moreover, the location of woman’s creation is better than man’s. Woman was created in paradise, de Pizan argues, and as a result her noble nature is guaranteed by God.3 De Pizan regards the first woman as God’s masterpiece because she appears last in the creation process in Genesis 2. Woman thus is the culmination of divine creation, a conviction that later feminist readers repeat.

Other proto-feminist interpreters who affirm women’s equality before God and in society are the medieval mystics Mechthild of Magdeburg, Gertrud von Hackeborn, and Gertrud the Great, the fifteenth-century Italian Isotta Nogarola, the seventeenth-century radical Italian nun Arcangela Tarabotti, the early seventeenth-century interpreters Lucretia Marinella and Suzanne de Nervèze, the seventeenth-century founder of Quakerism, George Fox, as well as his wife, Margaret Askew Fell Fox; the eighteenth-century sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimkè, the early nineteenth-century Lucretia Coffin Mott and African–American abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth. They and many others find full equality of women inscribed in the biblical text in a time when women do not even have the right to public speech. Their courageous and bold individual voices challenge androcentric primacy, and eventually their efforts lead to a full choir in the nineteenth century, when a systematic approach to the Christian canon of the Bible is published for the first time in the Western history of interpretation.

“Inspired by Mrs God”: Nineteenth-Century Women’s Voices of the First Women’s Movement in Western Societies

During the nineteenth century many women, black and white, U.S.–American and European, lifted their voices against male-dominated patriarchal structures of oppression in Western societies. Known as the suffrage movement, this socio-political effort found success in the early decades of the twentieth century, although most of the suffragettes did not live long enough to enjoy the fruits of their persistent labor, determined patience, and unwavering commitment to women’s rights. Their names are many although some of them have been lost to the vagaries of time and history. Yet those whom we know are now famous, and women owe them a great deal. U.S.–American women devoting their working lives to women’s rights include Marie W. Miller Stewart, Anna Julia Cooper, Sojourner Truth, Antoinette L. Brown Blackwell, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. All of them read the Bible against the status quo of patriarchal order and social hierarchies. While African–American women combined the problem of sexism with a call to abolish slavery and racism, white women emphasized women’s lack of civil rights and did not always confront the complexities of racism and class oppression.4

Most renowned among those women is Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who has been severely criticized for ignoring issues of racism during her lifetime.5 The editor of The Woman’s Bible (1895 and 1898),6 Stanton asked other qualified women from the United States and Europe to contribute to a critical examination of the Bible. At the time she is over eighty years old and spent her entire life fighting for women’s right to vote. She insists that religion and more specifically the interpretation of the Bible are the crucial reasons for her lack of success. She considers the Bible as the original cause of women’s oppression, and is convinced that only a systematic study of the oppressive biblical passages would dismantle the sexist forces in society and lead to women’s equality. She also wants to dispel women’s attraction to religion by exposing its deep complicity in androcentric domination. Stanton is a radical feminist, and the older she becomes the more radical she turns. She also views women as complicit in their lack of rights and their religiosity as nurturing this compl...

Table of contents

• Dedication
• Title
• Contents 
• Acknowledgments of the First Edition
• Acknowledgments of the Second Edition
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 From the “Woman’s Bible” to the “Women’s Bible”: The History of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible
• Chapter 2 A Career as a Feminist Biblical Scholar: Four Stories
• Chapter 3 Gendering the Hebrew Bible: Methodological Considerations
• Chapter 4 Rape, Enslavement, and Marriage: Sexual Violence in the Hebrew Bible
• Chapter 5 Ruth, Jezebel, and Rahab as “Other” Women: Integrating Postcolonial Perspectives
• Chapter 6 Denaturalizing the Gender Binary: Queer and Masculinity Studies as Integral to Feminist Biblical Hermeneutics
• Chapter 7 Essentializing “Woman”: Three Neoliberal Strategies in Christian Right’s Interpretations on Women in the Bible
• Chapter 8 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index of Primary Texts
• Index of Authors
• Copyright