God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality

by Phyllis Trible

Publisher:

Fortress Press

, 1978

Overview

Focusing on texts in the Hebrew Bible, and using feminist hermeneutics, Phyllis Trible brings out what she considers to be neglected themes and counter literature.

After outlining her method in detail, she begins by highlighting the feminist imagery used for God; then she moves on to traditions embodying male and female within the context of the goodness of creation. If Genesis 2–3 is a love story gone awry, the Song of Songs is about sexuality redeemed in joy. In between lies the book of Ruth, with its picture of the struggles of everyday life.

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Key Features

• Examines the Hebrew Bible for feminist themes
• Focuses on feminist hermeneutics
• Explores overlooked themes throughout the Hebrew Bible

Contents

• Clues in a Text
• Journey of a Metaphor
• Passages Along the Way
• A Love Story Gone Awry
• Love’s Lyrics Redeemed
• A Human Comedy

Top Highlights

“She belongs to a new order that will by itself transform the earth creature” (Page 97)

“But in the Song, male power vanishes. His desire becomes her delight. Another consequence of disobedience is thus redeemed through the recovery of mutuality in the garden of eroticism. Appropriately, the woman sings the lyrics of this grace: ‘I am my lover’s and for me is his desire.’” (Page 160)

“Yet only for them, not for any of the animals, is sexuality designated as male and female” (Page 15)

“Procreation is shared by humankind with the animal world (1:22, 28); sexuality is not” (Page 15)

“the mother embracing her sons with tears and with speech” (Page 49)

Praise for the Print Edition

Trible’s brilliant rhetorical criticism, her diligent study of the Hebrew text, and her clarity about feminist hermeneutics, have indeed uncovered the lost token of faith within Scripture.

—Sojourners

Product Details

• Title: God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality
• Author: Phyllis Trible
• Publisher: Augsburg Fortress
• Publication Date: 1986
• Pages: 206
• Christian Group: Evangelicals
• Resource Type: Collected Works
• Topic: Biblical Studies

About Phyllis Trible

Phyllis Trible, an internationally known biblical scholar and rhetorical critic, is a professor of biblical studies at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. A past president of the Society of Biblical Literature, she began her collegiate teaching career at Wake Forest University in 1963. After leaving in 1971, she taught at Andover Newton Theological School in Massachusetts until she went to Union Theological Seminary in New York in 1979 as a professor of Old Testament. From 1981 until her appointment to the Wake Forest School of Divinity 1998, she was the Baldwin Professor of Sacred Literature at Union Theological Seminary. Trible has been a visiting professor at several other theological schools, including Vancouver School of Theology in British Columbia, Canada, and Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado. Trible, considered a leader in the text-based exploration of women and gender in scripture, has lectured extensively, including abroad. She is the author of the books God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narrative, and, most recently, Rhetorical Criticism: Context, Method, and the Book of Jonah, published in 1994 by Fortress Press. She also has written numerous articles and book reviews for magazines and scholarly journals and provided expert commentary for Bill Moyers’ public television series, “Genesis: A Living Conversation.”