This question was put to me on Facebook by someone who is neither a Christian nor a feminist. After all, he said, the primary authority figures central to Christianity (those of the Trinity) are all male; males occupy virtually all church roles; the image of the Father is strongly invoked; […]
There’s been an interesting discussion about the story of Jephthah’s daughter over at Feminism and Religion. I enjoy the opportunity there for people from different places on the feminist spectrum to exchange ideas. I’ve found it particularly fruitful for helping me to understand different hermeneutics i.e. different ways of reading […]
In our Pentateuch class, I was struck by Genesis 22, the story of Abraham’s would-be sacrifice of Isaac. Surely this would be the passage to compare with Jephthah’s daugher in Judges 11! Both involve the notion of child sacrifice, yet the boy is spared and the girl killed. That’s rich fodder for any […]
Exum raises a number of questions about how we read biblical texts that seem to oppress women. One question is what they say about women. Another is what they say about God. One problem is that there is no perfect culture. All human interactions are tainted by sin. But what […]
In The Pleasure of Her Text Alice Bach counters those who believe that gender is too narrow a lens for re-interpreting the bible: “Resistance comes usually from those who have never thought of gender as influencing reading. The male gender has dominated the voice of the text, including also its […]
