Introducing the Women's Hebrew Bible: Feminism, Gender Justice, and the Study of the Old Testament

(Paperback, 2nd edition)

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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.

Reviews

[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. * Reading Religion *
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. * Katharina von Kellenbach, St Mary's College of Maryland, USA *
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. * Julia M. O'Brien, Lancaster Theological Seminary, USA *
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! * Deborah Rooke, Associate Lecturer in Old Testament Hermeneutics, Regent's Park College; Visiting Lecturer in Old Testament, St Stephen's House, UK *

Author Bio

Susanne Scholz is Professor of Old Testament at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, USA. She holds a Ph.D. in Old Testament from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, USA. She has published widely on the intersection of feminist, religion, and the Bible.