This volume on intercultural biblical interpretation includes essays by feminist scholars from Botswana, Germany, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa, and the United States. Reading from a rich variety of socio-cultural locations, contributors present their hermeneutical frameworks for interpretation of Hebrew Bible texts, each framework grounded in the writer's journey of professional or social formation and serving as a prism or optic for feminist critical analysis. The volume hosts a lively conversation about the nature and significance of biblical interpretation in a global context, focusing on issues at the nexus of operations of power, textual ambiguity, and intersectionality. Engaged here are notions of biblical authority and postures of dissent; women's agency, discernment, rivalry, and alliance in ancient and contemporary contexts; ideological constructions of sexuality and power; interpretations related to indigeneity, racial identity, interethnic intimacy, and violence in colonial contexts; theologies of the feminine divine and feminist understandings of the sacred; convictions about interdependence and conditions of flourishing for all beings in creation; and ethics of resistance positioned over against dehumanization in political, theological, and hermeneutical praxes. Through their textual and contextual engagements, contributors articulate a broad spectrum of feminist insights into the possibilities for emancipatory visions of community.

In highly accessible essays, the book covers the history, achievements, and cutting-edge questions in the area of gender and biblical scholarship, including violence and the Bible, female biblical God imagery, and sexuality."--Jacket.

This volume provides an introduction and essays on the four key sections of the Hebrew Scriptures from the perspective of top female biblical scholars: Part One: Torah/Pentateuch Part Two: Deuteronomistic History (Joshua–2 Kings) Part Three: Prophets and Prophecy Part Four: Writings and the Book of Daniel This volume highlights key issues in the Hebrew Scriptures from the perspective of top female biblical scholars. This includes historical critical and literary textual analysis and exegesis, particularly as viewed through feminist and intersectional interpretive lenses. Intersectional lenses include the racial/ethnic, class, Global South, postcolonial, and so forth, and their interconnections with gender. The introduction to the volume by the editor introduces feminist intersectional biblical scholarship, making the case that this scholarship addresses perspectives that are often missing from even very thorough survey texts: feminist and intersectional issues regarding the women characters, sexual assumptions, sexual and domestic violence, symbolization of women, class and race relations, and so forth. The essays have been created for students who may be encountering feminist biblical and intersectional scholarship for the first time. Other contributors to this volume include Carolyn J. Sharp, Vanessa Lynn Lovelace, Corrine L. Carvalho, Melody Knowles, and Judy Fentriss-Williams.

USA Today Bestseller Christianity Today 2022 Book Award Finalist (History & Biography) "A powerful work of skillful research and personal insight."--Publishers Weekly Biblical womanhood--the belief that God designed women to be submissive wives, virtuous mothers, and joyful homemakers--pervades North American Christianity. From choices about careers to roles in local churches to relationship dynamics, this belief shapes the everyday lives of evangelical women. Yet biblical womanhood isn't biblical, says Baylor University historian Beth Allison Barr. It arose from a series of clearly definable historical moments. This book moves the conversation about biblical womanhood beyond Greek grammar and into the realm of church history--ancient, medieval, and modern--to show that this belief is not divinely ordained but a product of human civilization that continues to creep into the church. Barr's historical insights provide context for contemporary teachings about women's roles in the church and help move the conversation forward. Interweaving her story as a Baptist pastor's wife, Barr sheds light on the #ChurchToo movement and abuse scandals in Southern Baptist circles and the broader evangelical world, helping readers understand why biblical womanhood is more about human power structures than the message of Christ.

Inspired by the current political moment around the globe in which uprisings, protests, revolutions, and movements are on the rise, this book examines the intersections between the Bible and activism. It does this by showcasing intersectional readings of the Bible as an activist act and a tool for activism; historicizing the uses of the Bible within activist/freedom movements around the globe; and offering activist approaches to teaching the Bible.Each chapter in this volume provides a critical and substantive response from the discipline of Biblical Studies to global political trends. International in scope, with contributors from Africa, Asia, Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, Oceania and the United States, they address themes such as gender politics, racial injustices, violence toward women, political resistance, and activist hermeneutics and pedagogies. Together they harness the intellectual energies of minoritized Biblical scholars in a nonessentialist manner to reflect on the Bible as a tool for liberating social and political change. Reflecting on the activist potential of the Bible, this book will be of keen interest to scholars in Biblical Studies, Political Theology, and Religious Studies.

The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible brings together 37 essential essays written by leading international scholars, examining crucial points of analysis within the field of feminist Hebrew Bible studies. Organized into four major areas - globalization, neoliberalism, media, and intersectionality - the essays collectively provide vibrant, relevant, and innovative contributions to the field. The topics of analysis focus heavily on gender and queer identity, with essays touching on African, Korean, and European feminist hermeneutics, womanist and interreligious readings, ecofeminist and animal biblical studies, migration biblical studies, the role of gender binary voices in evangelical-egalitarian approaches, and the examination of scripture in light of trans women's voices. The volume also includes essays examining the Old Testament as recited in music, literature, film, and video games. The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible charts a culturally, hermeneutically, and exegetically cutting-edge path for the ongoing development of biblical studies grounded in feminist, womanist, gender, and queer perspectives.

Art as Biblical Commentary is not just about biblical art but, more importantly, about biblical exegesis and the contributions visual criticism as an exegetical tool can make to biblical exegesis and commentary. Using a range of texts and numerous images, J. Cheryl Exum asks what works of art can teach us about the biblical text. 'Visual criticism' is her term for an approach that addresses this question by focusing on the narrativity of images-reading them as if, like texts, they have a story to tell-and asking what light an image's 'story' can shed on the biblical narrator's story. In Part I, Exum elaborates on her approach and offers a personal testimony to the value of visual criticism. Part 2 examines in detail the story of Hagar in Genesis 16 and 21. Part 3 contains chapters on erotic looking and voyeuristic gazing in the stories of Bathsheba, Susanna, Joseph and Potiphar's wife and the Song of Songs; on the distribution of renown among Jael, Deborah and Barak; on the Bible's notorious women, Eve and Delilah; and on the sacrificed female body in the stories of the Levite's wife (Judges 19) and Mary the mother of Jesus.

Chart the development of feminist approaches and theories of interpretation during the period when women first joined the ranks of biblical scholars This collection of essays on feminist biblical studies in the twentieth century seeks to explore four areas of inquiry demanding further investigation. In the first section, articles chart the beginnings and developments of feminist biblical studies as a conversation among feminists around the world. The second section introduces, reviews, and discusses the hermeneutic religious spaces created by feminist biblical studies. The third segment discusses academic methods of reading and interpretation that dismantle androcentric language and kyriarchal authority. The fourth section returns to the first with work that transgresses academic boundaries in order to exemplify the transforming, inspiring, and institutionalizing feminist work that has been and is being done to change religious mindsets of domination and to enable wo/men to engage in critical readings of the Bible. Features: Essays examine the rupture or break in the malestream reception history of the Bible Exploration of the term feminism in different social-cultural and theoretical-religious locations Authors from around the world present research and future directions for research challenging the next generation of feminist interpreters

A work of history, biography, and historical theology, A New Gospel for Women tells the remarkable story of Katharine Bushnell (1855-1946), an internationally-known social reformer and author of God's Word to Women, a startling reinterpretation of the Christian Scriptures that even today stands as one of the most innovative and comprehensive feminist theologies ever written.

This book dismantles every mistruth that you've heard about the role of women in the Bible, her place in the church, and the patriarchal lie of so-called “biblical manhood and womanhood.” In its place, Aimee Byrd details a truly biblical vision of women as equal partners in Christ's church and kingdom. The church is the school of Christ, commissioned to discipleship. The responsibility of every believer—men and women together—is being active and equal participants in and witnesses to the faith. And yet many women are trying to figure out what their place is in the church, fighting to have their voices heard and filled with questions: Do men and women benefit equally from God's word? Are we equally responsible in sharpening one another in the faith and passing it down to the next generation? Do we really need men's Bibles and women's Bibles, or can the one Holy Bible guide us all? The answers lie neither with radical feminists, who claim that the Bible is hopelessly patriarchal, nor with the defenders of “biblical manhood,” whose understanding of Scripture is captive to the culture they claim to distance themselves from. Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood presents a more biblical account of gender, marriage, and ministry. It explores the feminine voice in Scripture as synergistic with the dominant male voice. It fortifies churches in a biblical understanding of brotherhood and sisterhood in God's household and the necessity of learning from one another in studying God's word. Until both men and women grow in their understanding of their relationship to Scripture, there will continue to be tension between the sexes in the church. Church leaders can be engaged in thoughtful critique of the biblical manhood and womanhood movement, the effects it has on their congregation, and the homage it ironically pays to the culture of individualism that works against church, family, and a Christ-like vision of community.