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By Barbara Brown Zikmund
From Feminist
Interpretation of the Bible
Edited by Letty M.Russell. Westminster Press,
Philadelphia 1985
Why do people change? Sometimes they are forced to
change by those who are more powerful. Sometimes they change without even
realizing it, growing or evolving along with other developments. Sometimes they
feel injustice or limitation and resolve to overcome these difficulties. And
sometimes they consciously claim new opportunities never before imagined.
In the last several centuries the situation of women has
altered dramatically, especially the circumstances of white women in Western
society — so much so that it is possible to document a rising feminist
critical consciousness. As women have become more self-conscious about
themselves, their relationship to authority, especially religious authority,
has changed. Today, Christian and Jewish women have new understandings of their
place in religious communities and their relationship to scripture. This new
understanding may be called a "feminist critical consciousness."
If we seek to understand what is going on in biblical
scholarship today, if we want to celebrate the varieties of women's gifts in
church and synagogue, if we want to anticipate some of the work of feminist
theologians, it is important to understand the modern history of feminist
consciousness. What are its origins? How has it evolved? What are its most
recent expressions?
Concern for Woman's Role
Until the early nineteenth century, most intellectual
and theological work was done out of a prefeminist perspective. There was no
conscious awareness that women's experience, as women's experience, was
relevant to intellectual work. It was a man's world. Women were part of the
male story. As women they remained invisible. This prefeminist consciousness
acknowledged that women's lives did have some unique aspects, but the
differences were unimportant.
Gradually, however, women came to believe that their
experience was too limited and undervalued. They began to agitate for change;
in the legal system, in politics, in fashion, in social expectations, and even
in the church. Women became self-conscious about themselves as women.
This was very upsetting to many people. Opponents of the
women's rights movement used the Bible to argue that it was not legitimate for
women to name or value their female experience. Women in the churches tried to
reconcile their commitment to the authority of the Bible with emerging feminist
activism. They also became interested in questions of biblical interpretation.
How did the Bible affirm their lives? When a text was insensitive to women's
experience, what was its authority?
Today many biblical scholars believe that the specific
context of interpretation matters. It is important to uncover the ancient cir
cumstances that produced a text. It is also necessary to value the ways in
which people of color, the poor, the aging, and women approach the Bible. These
unique contexts enhance understanding and shape interpretation. In current
biblical study it is almost as important to examine the contemporary situation
of the reader as it is to know the particular milieu that produced a text many
centu ries earlier.
A feminist consciousness in American society, therefore,
has gone through several stages.
First, in the face of the new activities and claims of
women in the early nineteenth century, many people used the Bible to protect
the status quo. They engaged in meticulous literal interpretations of texts to
define all differences between men and women. Sometimes these differences
uplifted women's status; most of the time they did not. Usually the fact that
woman was created second, out of Adam, was treated as evidence that she was
inferior to man. In the minds of many, she was not simply different from him,
she was subordinate, even evil.
Such negative understandings have a long history. There
is an ancient Jewish prayer in which men thank God that they are not women. In
the history of doctrine, women were commonly blamed for succumbing to
temptation and leading the race into original sin. Many taboos and rituals
surrounding women reinforced the under standing that women were unclean and
less than men. Some New Testament texts confirm women as secondary. "But I want
you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is
her husband, and the head of Christ is God.... For man was not made from woman,
but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man" (I
Cor. 11:3, 8); or, "The women should keep silence in the churches. For they are
not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says" (1
Cor. 14:34); or, "Let a woman learn in silence with all submissive-ness. I
permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent.
For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman
was deceived and became a transgressor" (1 Tim. 2:11-14). Woman is simply less
than man.
Sometimes a hierarchical interpretation of woman's
fallen or secondary place in creation and redemption was defined positively.
Women were different. Out of weakness and sinfulness women showed forth the
amazing power of God's grace. If God could save women, God would surely save
men. In her secondary status, woman played a special role in God's
creation.
By the 1830s and 1840s, many women in America saw the
need for different understandings of biblical material. Sarah Grimke, noted
antislavery lecturer and women's rights author, charged that the masculine bias
of biblical interpretation was part of a deliberate plot against women. In 1837
she called for new feminist scholarship. A few years later, Antoinette Brown,
one of the first women to study theology at Oberlin College, examined Paul's
epistles with feminist questions. At her ordination in 1853 (she was the first
ordained woman in Congregationalism), the preacher, the Rev. Luther Lee, noted
that Paul promised new gifts of the Spirit to men and women alike. He
discounted some of Paul's specific admonitions against women and quoted from
Galatians. "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free,
there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal.
3:28). A rising feminist consciousness called for discrimination between those
parts of the Bible that were essential and those that were culturally
relative.
In the 1880s, women under the leadership of Elizabeth
Cady Stanton recognized that something needed to be done to counteract the
oppressive power of the Bible. A committee of twenty women examined every major
passage in the Bible that referred to women and wrote commentaries to expand
the interpretive framework. Although the resulting Woman's Bible did not
use the newest techniques of higher criticism, it presupposed that the Bible
ought to be treated like other books, limited by its historical context. Many
readers wanted to discover the biblical message without getting bogged down in
secondary cultural biases that distorted the freedom of Christian women
The project was especially noteworthy because it took
the Bible seriously. In her introduction to The Woman's Bible, Stanton
noted that "there are some who write us that our work is a useless expenditure
of force over a book that has lost its hold on the human mind." Yet, she
continued, "So long as tens of thousands of Bibles are printed every year,...
it is vain to belittle its influence.(1) More and more women craved freedom
from the oppression of the biblical word.
Yet the male scholarly establishment continued to
control biblical studies. In 1894 the Society of Biblical Literature voted to
admit its first female member. According to Dorothy Bass, who documents the
history of women and biblical studies, there was little opposition to the few
women members.(2) Most were professors at women's colleges. They were not
perceived as a threat. In the early twentieth century, women biblical scholars
exhibited strong scholarship but it was never self-consciously feminist. Not
until the 1970s did female members of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL)
assert that an intentional feminist hermeneutic was useful in their work.
During much of the nineteenth century, most women compen
sated for the inequality and marginality they found in society and biblical
interpretation by glorifying women's place. If women were created second and
limited to special spheres, this was their strength. Women were separate for a
reason. God gave women a special calling. Catherine Beecher argued in 1837 that
"heaven has appointed to one sex the superior, and to the other the subordinate
station, [but] it is not because it was designed that [woman's] duties or her
influence should be any the less important." Women in the home had a "sphere of
influence" characterized by peace and love. As wives and mothers they served
society differently. Men used physical force to gain and keep power, whereas
women influenced things in ways that were "altogether different and
peculiar."(3) Women brought superior civilizing and Christianizing principles
into a world which needed their contribution.
This understanding of women's role was called "soft
feminism." It insisted that women were different and that the differences were
good. Vive la différence. It occurred when women refused to let
the negative implications of their supposedly secondary situation dominate
their self-image. Knowing about the "other" experience of women gave women
special strength.
Out of this attitude, women began to study the lives of
great women and to examine the roles of women in the Bible (to capturetheir
unique history and experience). As women came to under stand how they were
different from men, they learned to capitalize on those differences. In some
cases this created a reverse sexism, which declared that the male world could
only be saved if it became "feminized."
Concern About Equality
By the early twentieth century, however, women rejected
soft feminism and began to promote "women's studies" for egalitarian reasons.
They argued that women and men needed to go behind the differences between the
sexes to their common humanity. Ultimately, women and men shared one history
and condition. Women's experience was important, not because it was special but
because women were God's creatures alongside men. Human history was distorted
if the experiences of women remained unnoticed and unappreciated. Through
women's studies, society could expand areas of knowledge that had been
ignored.
At the beginning, the idea of women's studies was not
consciously critical, except in its concern for what had been left out. It
reached out for the unknown riches of women's contributions, past and present.
It sought to capture the totality of woman's history, not necessarily because
it was different from male history but because it was a shared history. Justice
required that women not remain invisible or secondary.
Initially, women's studies added new courses and
programs. Special offerings were created to supplement traditional and classic
fields. Women studied these things to discover more about them selves.
Historians recovered "herstory." Literary critics examined the works of female
writers. Sociologists and psychologists did research on the female life cycle,
on violence, on sexuality, and on maternity. Economists and political analysts
explored the roles of women as consumers or voters.
Some scholars treated women as one among many minority
groups. Women's studies were lumped with Black studies and ethnic studies on
the edges of the academic marketplace. Sometimes they were considered a passing
fad unrelated to the main corpus of knowledge. As a "minority group," women
were not seen to participate fully in the majority culture.
Others argued that women were not a minority. Women were
part of every group. Whereas intermarriage blurred the distinctive cir
cumstances of other minority groups, intermarriage by women with the master
class (men) was actually the principal source of women's oppression. Women's
studies were different from minority studies.
At first women's studies were remedial. They sought to
repair damage and correct distortions. They remembered what had been left out.
They served the needs of women themselves, by giving a sense of importance and
value. They expanded knowledge. Further more, because women's studies had no
vested interests, their dis coveries were freely shared. Women's studies
cultivated a new com munity of persons who celebrated the equal gifts of women
and men in history and culture.
In biblical studies, the advent of women's studies
expanded women's understandings of biblical authority. By helping everyone
appreciate the place of women in the Bible and in the early church, it
stretched orthodox assumptions about tradition. It offered alter native images
of women. It suggested that more inclusive language could be important for the
faith and the church.
Much feminist consciousness-raising is still being done
through women's studies. Women need to see the total picture and claim their
equality in God's world. Women's groups in church and syna gogue appropriately
highlight that which has been overlooked. But the journey toward a feminist
critical consciousness does not stop with new information or supplemental
women's studies. The femi nist interpretive task has a critical and creative
agenda that goes beyond helping women claim their history and see their place
in society. It enables women to praise God in this "strange land," and
it criticizes the distortions perpetuated by the majority. In its full
ness, a feminist critical consciousness strives to develop an authen tic
inclusive interpretive framework for all biblical, historical, and theological
work.
Feminist Consciousness
In the movement from women's studies to feminist
studies, two things happened: first, the new material and methods cultivated in
women's studies became the basis for a critique of past assumptions and
paradigms. Enthusiasm about new knowledge turned into a critique of old
knowledge. Second, a feminist critical consciousness, in relationship with
other liberation movements, began to shape an entirely new interpretative
framework.
Women in the mid-twentieth century came to feel that
reinterpre-tation was not enough. It was essential to deal with patriarchal
tradition itself. How should women and men who accepted the promise of
liberation deal with the Bible and the church today?
Strictly speaking, women's studies cared only about
those aspects of life where women played a part. A feminist consciousness, how
ever, was not limited to women. Inclusive questions needed to beasked about
every biblical text and every event in church history: What difference did it
make that women were or were not included? If women were not taken into
account, why? The answers to these questions challenged many sacred principles
of doctrine and prac tice.
In our times, an emerging feminist consciousness attacks
majority positions and points out the injustices of history. Feminists are
angry, iconoclastic, and revolutionary. A feminist critical conscious ness does
not always state positively what it stands for, but it knows and names its
enemies. Feminism does not simply stretch the hori zons of knowledge, it alters
the landscape by tearing down many of the old patriarchal buildings.
Feminism has to be very careful, however, that its
criticism is not co-opted by an establishment mind-set. For example, if
feminists uncover the importance of women's ministries in the early church and
become highly critical of the contemporary church, they cannot turn around and
insist that women ought to have access to the accumulated power and privilege
enjoyed by male clergy through the ages. Giving power and privilege to women
who have been denied it historically does not do away with the problems of pa
triarchy.
Virginia Woolf wrote about the dilemma women confront
when they try to move into arenas previously dominated by men:
For we have to ask ourselves, here and now, do we wish
to join that [academic] procession, or don't we? On what terms shall we join
[hat procession? Above all, where is it leading us, the procession of educated
men? . . . Let us never cease from thinking,— what is this "civilization"
in which we find ourselves? What are these ceremonies and why should we take
part in them? What are these professions and why should we make money out of
them? Where in short is it leading us, the procession of the sons of educated
men?(4)
The ultimate aim of a feminist consciousness is to make
the expe rience and insights of women available to the entire world, not simply
to know more about women in and of themselves. Yet if we are to include women
in the total picture, we are called to rethink how we interpret everything. A
canon that is inclusive is self-correct ing and constantly reinterpreting God's
ways with this world. A history that is inclusive involves different
periodization, different content, and different emphases. And because our
religious faith is grounded in the historical experience of Jews and Christians
ex pressed through scripture and lived out through history, a feminist critical
consciousness must build a theology by moving beyond criticism to constructive
alternatives.
The feminist critical consciousness in the late
twentieth century has been greatly influenced by the development of the
so-called "woman's liberation movement." In that context women have explored
together the realities of women's oppression, found support for a growing
conviction that the personal is political, and celebrated the power of
consciousness-raising experiences. Feminists in secular and religious studies
build upon this common context to reshape their disciplines.
Contemporary feminists approach reality with new
questions and formulate new interpretations. The motive is not simply to
reform; it is to reconstruct. A mature feminist critical consciousness is
revolutionary. It challenges method and upsets assumptions. Very early in the
evolution of feminism, Mary Daly predicted that this would happen, because
the tyranny of methodolatry hinders new discoveries.
It prevents us from raising questions never asked before and from being
illumined by ideas that do not fit into pre-established boxes and forms. . . .
Under pa triarchy, Method has wiped out women's questions so totally that even
women have not been able to hear and formulate our own questions to meet our
own experiences.(5)
As a critical feminist consciousness comes of age, the
situation is further complicated by the fact that religion is different. We do
not just study religion, we live it. Changes in religious questions and
assumptions affect people deeply. With religion the personal is not just
political, it is ontological: that is, it informs our entire way of being and
relating to God, not simply our situation in the sociopolitical order.
Against this reality, feminists in religion are
developing new methods for liberating their faith from patriarchal patterns.
Feminists are seeking alternative interpretive frameworks for biblical,
historical, and theological work. Feminists are using different materials to
enrich their faith. And in all cases, feminists are trying to do this in an
uncompetitive collegial style.
Two patterns of feminist work have emerged in religious
studies. The scholars in this book represent those feminists who refuse to give
up on the liberating power of the scriptures. They seek new ways to understand
the normative authority of the Bible in their faith. Other feminists fear this
is impossible. Both groups agree that patriarchy must be overcome, but they
differ in their understanding of how.
Jewish and Christian feminists use new interpretive
principles to liberate God's word in scripture. They are willing to risk, out
of a belief that God has promised liberation to all creation. They are
redefining authority to celebrate the resources of community in interpreting
God's Word. By allowing women's experience to in form the task, they are
discovering new theologies and leaving behind old oppressions.
Feminists who feel that the Bible and its
theological/ecclesiastical traditions must be left behind focus upon the
sacrality of women and seek to recover the rich religious insights of Goddess
traditions. This approach may be called pagan. Yet even for those who want to
stay within the Jewish and Christian legacy, the work of neo-pagan or
nonbiblical feminist spirituality is important. Goddess religions have powerful
symbols that stretch our understanding of religious practice and human
experience.
Both groups emphasize that feminist perspectives in
faith and practice enrich religion. They name oppression, celebrate the
personal, and explore the nature of community. They believe that only when the
patriarchal repression of women and women's religious experience is replaced
with religious faith and practice affirming a healthy relationship to the holy
can the human religious spirit be truly free.
The development of a feminist critical consciousness has
moved from the innocent assumption that women's experience was irrelevant to
the conviction that it is normative. There were (and are) those who insist that
differences between men and women forced women into separate spheres of life
and responsibility. Women were viewed as subordinate. Sometimes, women's
situation (though separate) was considered equal and even superior. Women's
studies took society beyond this double standard and invited women to discover
the unknown and unexplored parts of their story. Women's studies presupposed
that men and women were equal. Eventually, new knowledge led to a critique of
old assumptions, which in turn shaped a new feminist critical
consciousness.
Dealing with the Bible through all of this has not been
easy. Sometimes it has been common to ignore scripture and avoid ques tions of
authority. Many women of faith, however, are not willing to give up. They
believe that the Bible offers a liberating word for our times and that the
feminist critical consciousness which has emerged over the last century can
unlock new meaning in scripture. Contemporary feminists are asking new
questions and forging new theories to enrich the religious understanding of all
women and men.
Notes
1. The Woman's Bible, p. 11. 2. Bass, JSOT 22:6-12.
3. "An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism with Reference
to the Duty of Females," reprinted in Rosemary Radford Ruether and Rosemary
Skinner Keller, eds., Women and Religion in America, vol. 1 (Harper
& Row, 1981), p. 311.
4. Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas (Harcourt, Brace
and Co., 1938, 1963), pp. 62-63 of 1963 edition.
5. Daly, Beyond God the Father, pp. 11-12.
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