The second series of Feminist Companions moves beyond the confines of sex- and gender-specific issues and studies of biblical women. Biblical feminist critics now address contemporary life situations, marginalization and a range of questions once not thought accessible to such critique. Feminist theory has also continued a rapid evolution. Among the topics included in this volume are composition, Torah, Ruth-the-Cat, female networking-together with much else to inform and stimulate female (and male) biblical scholars and non-scholars.
The second series of Feminist Companions moves beyond the confines of sex- and gender-specific issues and studies of biblical women. Biblical feminist critics now address contemporary life situations, marginalization and a range of questions once not thought accessible to such critique. Feminist theory has also continued a rapid evolution. Among the topics included in this volume are composition, Torah, Ruth-the-Cat, female networking-together with much else to inform and stimulate female (and male) biblical scholars and non-scholars.
This volume is part of a series which provides a fundamental resource for feminist biblical scholarship, containing a comprehensive selection of essays, both reprinted and specially written for the series, by leading feminist scholars. 'An enterprising series of collections of important and pioneering studies.... Those teaching feminist courses will find the books invaluable as a resource for students.' C.S. Rodd, Expository Times.
This valuable resource both presents and demonstrates the numerous developments in feminist criticsm of the Bible and the enormous rage of influence that feminist criticism has come to have in biblical studies. The purpose of the book is to raise issues of method that are largely glossed over or merely implied in most non-feminist works on the Bible. The editors have included broadly theoretical essays on feminist methods and the various roles they may play in research and pedagogy, as well as non-feminist essays that have direct bearing on the methods or subject matter that feminists use, as well as reading that illustrate the variety of methodological strategies adopted by feminist scholars. Some 30 scholars, from North America and Europe, have contributed to this Companion.
This volume is part of a series which provides a fundamental resource for feminist biblical scholarship, containing a comprehensive selection of essays, both reprinted and specially written for the series, by leading feminist scholars. The contributors to this volume are Lyn Bechtel, Mark Bredin, Athalya Brenner, Edna Brocke, Carole Fontaine, Lillian Klein, Amy-Jill Levine, Judith Lieu, Heather McKay, Adele Reinhartz, Jane Schaberg, Marla Selvidge, Leonore Siegele-Wenschkewitz, Beverly Stratton, Arie Troost, Pieter van der Horst, and Bea Wyler.
This volume is part of a series which provides a fundamental resource for feminist biblical scholarship, containing a comprehensive selection of essays, both reprinted and specially written for the series, by leading feminist scholars. 'An enterprising series of collections of important and pioneering studies.... Those teaching feminist courses will find the books invaluable as a resource for students.' C.S. Rodd, Expository Times.
In the critically acclaimed best-seller,Women's Bible Commentary, an outstanding group of women scholars introduced and summarized each book of the Bible and commented on those sections of each book that have particular relevence to women, focusing on female charecters, symbols, life situations such as marriage and family, the legal status of women, and religious principles that affect relationships of women and men. Now, this expanded edition provides similar insights on the Apocrypha, presenting a significant view of the lives and religious experiences of women as well as attitudes toward women in the Second Temple period. This expanded edition sets a new standard for women's and biblical studies.
This lively commentary encompasses four major books focusing on women in the Hebrew Bible and Apocrypha. Each section in the volume addresses the biblical text in detail, and draws connections from the world of ancient audiences to that of present-day readers. Wolfe's research is motivated by the usual inquiries of biblical scholarship, as well as the questions raised by the many church Bible study groups she has taught. Clergy and laity, students and scholars will benefit from these contemporarily relevant reflections on Ruth, Esther, Song of Songs and Judith. Ruth: The foreign widow who sneaks onto the nighttime threshing floor to find survival for herself and her devastated mother-in-law. Esther: The Jewish orphan-turned-queen who turns Persian banqueting on its head in an effort to defend her people. Song of Songs: The proud and alluring lover who claims her sexuality as her own and joyfully shares it with her beloved. Judith: The pious and beautiful widow who lets the enemy commander's appetite become his downfall in order to save her besieged city. This volume is an opportunity to engage these women's suspense-filled stories, which have sustained faith communities since ancient times.
The biblical Book of Ruth is a love story, apparently personal and simple " of love between women and between man and woman " told in poetic imagery and style. Barely hiding within this immediate beauty are the archetypal depths which reveal nothing less than the eternal mystery of a love which brings about redemption and individuation both personal and transcendent, human and divine. Dr. Kluger wrote the original interpretation as part of the requirements of the first graduating class of the Jung Institute in Zürich. He later updated his work, but the thesis remains the same: the return of the feminine principle in the Bible. To this end, he examines the fate and role of the feminine as she travels from ancient times through various goddesses to the person of Ruth, and her destiny as restoring the original totality of masculine and feminine in equal, interacting, balance. In counterpoint to the scholarly style of her father " while in unison with his interpretations " Nomi Kluger-Nash has written a woman's subjective reactions to the story of Ruth, Naomi and Orpah. To this associative style she brings further amplifications from Kabbalah into the meaning of these women who carry aspects, both light and dark, of the Shekhinah, the feminine presence of God.
What was it like to be a woman in the biblical period? It depended, in part, on who you were: a queen, a judge, a primary wife, a secondary wife, a widow, a slave, or some other kind of "ordinary woman." In Women in the Bible, Jaime Clark-Soles investigates how women are presented in Scripture, taking into account cultural views of both ancient societies as well as our own. While women today are exercising leadership in churches across a number of denominations and our scholarly knowledge related to women in the Bible has grown immensely, challenges remain. Most of Christendom still excludes women from religious leadership, and many Christians invoke the Bible to circumscribe women's leadership in the public square and in the home as well. It is more urgent than ever, therefore, to investigate closely, honestly, and intrepidly what the Bible does and doesn't say about women. In a multipronged approach, Clark-Soles treats well-known biblical women from fresh perspectives, highlights women who have been ignored, and recovers those who have been erased from historical memory by particular moves made in the transmission and translations of the text. She explores symbolic feminized figures like Woman Wisdom and the Whore of Babylon and reclaims the uses of feminine imagery in the Bible that often go unnoticed. Chapters focus on themes of God's relationship to gender, women and violence, women as creators, and women in the ministry of both Jesus and Paul. Clark-Soles aims to equip clergy and other leaders invested in the study of Scripture to consider women in the Bible from multiple angles and, as a result, help people of all genders to live God's vision of better, more just lives as we navigate the challenges of our complex, globally connected world. --- Table of Contents Series Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Of Canaanites and Canines: Matthew 15 2. God across Gender 3. Women and Violence in the Bible: Truth Telling, Solidarity, and Hope 4. Women Creating 5. The Book of Ruth: One of the "Women's Books" in the Bible 6. Magnificent Mary and Her Magnificat: Like Mother, Like Son 7. Women in Jesus’s Life and Ministry 8. Jesus across Gender 9. Women in Paul’s Ministry 10. The Muting of Paul and His Female Coworkers: Women in the Deutero-Pauline Epistles Conclusion: In the End, Toward the End (Goal): Truth, with Hope Works Cited Scripture Index Subject Index