Ebook
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.
With new revisions and additions, this is an up-to-date overview of the historical, social, and academic developments of reading the Hebrew Bible from a feminist perspective.
This new and revised edition of a highly popular work includes new developments in the study of both the Hebrew Bible and feminist discourse
Reviews and challenges traditional interpretation of the Hebrew Bible through innovative study techniques, including case study review, anecdotal evidence, and international perspectives
Susanne Scholz is a highly respected author, and the first edition was very favourably received
Preface
Introduction
1. From the "Woman's Bible" to the "Women's Bible": The History of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible
2. A Career As a Feminist Biblical Scholar: Four Stories
3. Gendering the Hebrew Bible: Methodological Considerations
4. Rape, Enslavement and Marriage: Sexual Violence in the Hebrew Bible
5. Ruth, Jezebel and Rahab As "Other" Women: Integrating Postcolonial Perspectives
6. Denaturalizing the Gender Binary: Queer and Masculinity Studies as Integral to Feminist Biblical Hermeneutics
7. Essentializing "Woman": Three Neoliberal Strategies in Christian Right's Interpretations on Women in the Bible
8. Conclusions
Bibliography
Index of References
Index of Authors
[A] stimulating, thought-provoking, and passionate sample of current and past scholarly voices by an author who clearly cares and who, by pointing to the androcentric aspects of the Bible, reminds readers that the personal is indeed the political.
Significant and essential update and expansion: in the first edition, Scholz authoritatively established the parameters of the discipline of feminist Hebrew Bible scholarship, its history, methodologies, hermeneutics and founding mothers. In this revised edition, Scholz expands and comments on the rise of neoliberal, conservative publications on women in the Bible, as well as on queer and masculinity studies. Scholz shows the reader an exciting and vibrant field, and whets the appetite for the next ten years to find out where feminist readings of the Hebrew Bible will take us.
Expanded to include masculinity studies, intersectional studies, and publications of the Christian right, Scholz's new edition offers a lively overview of the history of feminist biblical scholarship and sets the agenda for its future. Balancing broad overviews with case studies, this volume belongs not only in undergraduate and graduate classrooms but also the hands of readers seeking to understand why and how feminist (still) matters.
For those who thought that the last word had been said on feminist biblical exegesis as well as for those who have never heard the first word, this Introduction will prove invaluable. It serves the new reader as a comprehensive point of entry and the returning reader as a means to refresh and update one' s sense of the field, and to both it makes uncompromisingly clear what is at stake in the feminist exegetical endeavour. Covering as it does important theoretical questions and including biographical sketches of significant feminist exegetes, this newly updated edition demonstrates that despite the interpretative gains made over the last four or more decades of feminist biblical scholarship, there is no room for complacency. The need to address questions of gender and power as they are played out in biblical interpretation is as urgent as it ever was, and Scholz shows both why this is the case and how it might be done. Read this book and lose your exegetical innocence!