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Women, Theology and the Christian Tradition.
Edited
by Janet Martin Soskice
Published by Collins Marshall Pickering, 1990
1.
Feminist exegesis of the Old Testament, Some
Critical Reflections
1-9
2.
10-37
3.
38-61
4.
62-72
5.
73-88
6.
The Influence of Saint Jerome on Medieval
Attitudes to Women
89-102
7.
103-118
8.
Richard Hooker and the Ordination of Women to
the Priesthood
119-137
9.
138-154
10.
156-178
The collection falls into three sections
on a historical basis: Biblical, Patristic/Medieval, and Modern.
Paul Joyce provides an introduction to
feminist reading of the Old Testament, both its goals and its pitfalls. He
guides one clearly through the central literature and makes particular
reference to the issue of biblical authority.
Robert Morgan shows, with reference to
the New Testament, that interpretations of the Bible are aspects of the wider
task of 'doing theology'; that all interpretations of Scripture are theological
interpretations. He discusses the relationship between belief and values,
particularly in the case of feminist interpretation, although he insists that
his own is not a piece of feminist theology. Special attention is devoted to
Paul.
Leonie Archer's essay is an example of a
critical scholarly approach to some difficult biblical material on the relation
in Judaism between blood and purity. She charts, within Judaism of her period,
a developing exclusion of women, both social and religious, and makes an
original connection between the shedding of blood in circumcision and in
menstruation.
Timothy Radcliffe has written a clear and
delightful exposition of 1 Corinthians 11.2-6, a passage focused on bodiliness,
sexual identity and grace, using recent New Testament material. The article is
an excellent example of how a scholar can bring the fruits of scholarship to a
non-scholarly audience.
The same can be said lor Sebastian Brock,
The word for 'spirit' is feminine in Semitic language, a grammatical fact that
had theological repercussions for the Syriac churches of the first four
Christian centuries. Notably, the third person of the Trinity was regularly
personified in female terms. Dr Brock discusses this, and the reasons for
change in practice in the fifth and sixth centuries.
Jane Ban gives a useful and sympathetic
account of one of the most influential and misogynistic of the Church Fathers,
Jerome. Jerome was the translator of the Vulgate, the chief version of the
Bible in use throughout medieval Europe. He made a few mistakes, but a
disproportionately large number of these come in passages dealing with women
where inevitably Jerome's direction was to make the text harsher. His
embellishment of Genesis 3.16 is of 'almost unquantifiable importance' to
subsequent Catholic discussions of female subordination.
None the less, as Benedicta Ward's paper
illustrates, the medieval period saw a number of outstanding women mystics and
religious. Such female 'visionaries' were often contrasted to male
'theologians'. Sr Benedicta contrasts one such visionary, Hildegard of Bingen,
with the more analytic mysticism of Teresa of Avila four hundred years later,
and asks what accounts for the changes.
mRichard Hooker wrote his influential
works in the sixteenth century from within the newly reformed English Church,
yet his works have continuing importance, especially within Anglicanism. The
Bishop of Ely, Stephen Sykes discusses directions Hooker provides for a
distinctly Anglican way forward on the ordination of women. Hooker, despite the
negative views on women he would have shared with Elizabethan contemporaries,
shows a vision of a 'discipleship of equals' to be at the heart of the nature
of the Church.
Paul Fiddes brings us to the twentieth
century with discussion of the Reformed theologian, Karl Barth, some would say
the most important theologian of the century. Barth is (in)famous for remarks
on the subordination of women, but Fiddes shows that Earth's views are not
crudely hierarchical, and that much of value remains with his use of the
category of 'covenant' between male and female, God and man. This more positive
assessment of Barth is welcome although certain to be controversial.
Ann Loades writes about 'Mary' and the
cult of Mary from a feminist and detached perspective. Her discussion, however,
is both ecumenical and judicious, considering Papal Encyclicals and recent
Catholic texts, before discussing the feminist literature on Mary and reaching
her own conclusions.
Editor's
Introduction
Women are writing about theology - this
much many people know. But what have theologians written about women? A glib
answer would be that, in nearly two thousand years of Christian history, women
have been discussed relatively rarely. While great theologians of the past
might have written volumes on the Trinity or atonement, or the inspiration of
scripture, 'woman' arises only incidentally as a topic in their works. And this
one might expect, for the important focus when talking specifically about human
beings has been on what has been called until recently, 'the Christian doctrine
of Man', with 'man' understood as a term embracing both sexes. What goes for
men in theology then would seem to go for women and there is no need to discuss
women separately.
But does what goes for men, go for women?
Not always, apparently. Where one finds 'woman' discussed in the historical
literature it is often to express the view that although jot the most part men
and women are the same 'in the sight of God', in some important ways they are
not. As to why women are different, or how they are different, or how they
should be different there is much disagreement - not least today. What then
does it mean to be a woman in the Jewish or Christian tradition, a woman 'after
Eve'?
The essays in this collection are not for
the most part essays in feminist theology, at least not in the sense of overtly
advancing the cause of women. They are, however, essays by scholars persuaded
of the importance of the issues raised by modern feminist thought, and able to
display some of the richness and ambiguity of the western religious traditions
to which we, whether we be religious or not, are heirs.
The essays are arranged in a loosely
historical order, but need not necessarily be read in that order. Indeed, the
first two essays, by Paul Joyce and Robert Morgan, might as easily have been
last since both deal with contemporary feminist biblical
interpretation.
Readers unfamiliar with the topics under discussion may
wish to start with the essays of Jane Barr or Timothy Radcliffe, both of whom
with a light yet scholarly touch, help to show the problems unavoidably present
in our inherited traditions of reading and even of translating the biblical
books.
The historically inclined may look to the
essays of Leonie Archer, Sebastian Brock and Benedicta Ward which show, in one
way or another, that far from being a constant, the place of women and the
appraisal of the feminine within the Jewish and Christian religious traditions
varies considerably over time - sometimes in directions hostile to women's
equality, and sometimes in directions favouring it.
Those interested in contemporary
responses, and in ways in which a modern theologian might try to re-evaluate
(and even challenge) the tradition in which she or he stands, will find in
Stephen Syke's essay a lively defence of the Anglican tradition as grounded in
the past but free to act in ways fitting to new circumstances; free for
instance to ordain women. Paul Fiddes pushes Karl Barth further down an
egalitarian road than that author might have intended or wishes, basing his
argument on Barth's own doctrine of the Trinity. And Ann Loades, in an amusing
and perceptive essay, looks through non-Roman Catholic feminist eyes at the
place of Mary in Christian thought and devotion, and comes to the conclusion
that, with certain caveats, Mary may still have something to offer to the
feminist quest.
I very much hope that those readers who
are not students or teachers of theology may enjoy this opportunity to join the
historian, or linguist, or theologian in their work shops and see how
unexpected areas of academic expertise may be brought to bear on contemporary
problems and especially our chosen one of women after Eve.
Janet Martin Soskice Jesus College, Cambridge
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