This volume offers a broad reflection on women's engagement in ritual and liturgy. The Central Theme section opens with a multi-faith dialogue on women and ritual. Denise J.J. Dijk discusses the Feminist Liturgical Movement in the Netherlands and the US. Teresa Berger explores the implications of the ancient axiom "lex orandi, lex credendi" for women's liturgical practice. Brigitte Enzner-Probst considers the role of the body in worship. Annette Esser encourages dynamic dialogue between women artists and women engaged in liturgy. Gabriella Lettini examines the concept of syncretism in the light of the relationship between gospel and culture. The Forum focuses on translation: Judith Hartenstein and Silke Petersen highlight the problems of inclusive-language translation of St John's Gospel, while Caroline Vander Stichele presents recent discussions of the Dutch translation of JHWH. In Women's Traditions, Rosine Lambin traces the adoption of the veiling of women in the early church. Bettina Kratz-Ritter discusses the decline and modern renewal of ancient Jewish women's birth rites intended to protect the newborn child. From the countries, Angela Berlis tracks the evolution of the German Old Catholic 'Women's Sunday' service from 1920 to the present. Charlotte Methuen reflects on issues of power and authority raised by women's presidency at the Eucharist. Finally, the Book Market lists recently-published works as well as reviews.

Building bridges has been and still is the main task of the European Society of Women in Theological Research (ESWTR). It aims to facilitate theological and academic religious debate transcending the borders between languages and countries, as well as those resulting from religions, confessions, cultures or traditions, in order to offer constructive future perspectives. This volume has now adopted "building bridges" as its main theme. It reflects the contributions to the 11th International Conference of ESWTR held in 2005 in the unique historical and cultural setting of Budapest. European women in the lead of theological research discuss the subject on the basis of their different specialist approaches and thus provide a unique spectrum of contemporary discourse from very varied disciplines in theology and religious studies.

Explore a diversity of feminist readings of the Bible This latest volume in the Bible and Women series is concerned with documenting, through word and image, both well-known and largely unknown women and their relationship to the Bible from the period of the late eighteenth century up to the beginning of the twentieth century. The essays in this collection illustrate the broad range of treatment of the Holy Scripture. Paul Chilcote, Marion Ann Taylor, Christiana de Groot, Elizabeth M. Davis, and Pamela S. Nadell offer perspectives on the Anglo-American sphere during this period. Marina Cacchi, Adriano Valerio, Inmaculada Blasco Herranz, and Alexei Klutschewski and Eva Maria Synek illuminate the areas of southern and eastern Europe. Angela Berlis, Ruth Albrecht, Doris Brodbeck, Ute Gause, and Michaela Sohn-Kronthaler examine women from the German-speaking world and their texts. Bernhard Schneider, Magda Motté, Katharina Büttner-Kirschner, and Elfriede Wiltschnigg treat the subject area of religious literature and art. Features Insight into how women participated in academic exegesis and applied biblical figures as models for structuring their own lives Exploration of genres used by women, including letters, diaries, autobiographical records, stories, novels, songs, poems, and specialized exegetical treatises and commentaries on individual books of the Bible Detailed analyses of women’s interpretations ranging from those that sought to confirm traditions to those that challenged them

This volume collects the key-note addresses on feminist theology and feminist theory given at the international conference of the ESWTR held in Salzburg in August 2001, together with other papers given at that conference and relating to this theme. It explores the interactions between liberation theology and feminist theory in European and other contexts, considering particularly aspects crossing boundaries: gender, national, disciplinary. The papers are complemented by a comprehensive bibliography of relevant literature and by an extensive review section.

The Christian Reception of the Hebrew name of God has not previously been described in such detail and over such an extended period. This work places that varied reception within the context of early Jewish and Christian texts; Patristic Studies; Jewish-Christian relationships; Mediaeval thought; the Renaissance and Reformation; the History of Printing; and the development of Christian Hebraism. The contribution of notions of the Tetragrammaton to orthodox doctrines and debates is exposed, as is the contribution its study made to non-orthodox imaginative constructs and theologies. Gnostic, Kabbalistic, Hermetic and magical texts are given equally detailed consideration. There emerge from this sustained and detailed examination several recurring themes concerning the difficulty of naming God, his being and his providence.

The present volume offers twelve studies dealing with feminine figures in Gnosticism and Manichaeism.In Part One ( Images et symboles ), the Author unveils the hidden meaning of some feminine figures having played a role on the mythical scene of those trends. Some of these figures, borrowed from other traditions, have been deeply reworked by Gnostics or Manichees assuming thereby a new significance. An intermezzo ( Passages ) investigates the presence of women names in titles preserved in the Nag Hammadi Library and the relationship between a female protagonist and a specific literary genre. Part Two ( Histoire et réalité ) reconstructs the portraits of some women, especially Manichaean, to whom the historical inquiry gives life again, thanks to a fresh reading of first hand sources, as well of heresiological or archeological testimonies. Some of these studies have been previously published and have now been significantly updated and expanded. Some others are lectures on Feminine in Gnosticism and Manichaeism given by the Author in Sorbonne, Paris, since 1994.***Les douze études que rassemble ce volume abordent sous différentes facettes le personnage de la femme dans la gnose et dans le manichéisme. Dans la première partie (« Images et symboles »), l Auteur dévoile la signification cachée de quelques figures féminines qui ont joué un rôle sur la scène du mythe. Si les auteurs gnostiques et manichéens ont emprunté certaines d entre elles à d autres traditions, ils ont toutefois remodelé ces figures en profondeur en les chargeant d une nouvelle signification. La deuxième partie (« Passages ») s interroge sur la présence de noms féminins dans les titres conservés de la bibliothèque de Nag Hammadi et sur la relation éventuelle entre une protagoniste féminine et le choix d un genre littéraire. La troisième partie (« Histoire et réalité ») reconstruit les portraits de quelques femmes, surtout manichéennes, dont les traits effacés se précisent grâce à une lecture originale de la documentation directe et des sources hérésiologiques, grâce aussi à l apport de l archéologie.Une partie de ces études, publiée auparavant, paraît ici sous une forme largement amplifiée. D autres reprennent les thèmes de conférences sur la femme dans le manichéisme, données par l Auteur à la Sorbonne entre 1997 et 2002.

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

This volume with its emphasis on "Southern Europe" is devoted now for the second time to theological research by women in a particular region of Europe. Women doing research in France, Italy, Spain and Greece provide evidence of and reflection on the history of women's theological studies in their countries and present the results of their studies. These reveal an impressive spectrum of theological research which sometimes has been and must be conducted in difficult structural contexts and under very different economic conditions. This makes the vitality of the research presented all the more convincing; in the different contexts of the individual countries it demonstrates specific and very varied emphases in academic theory and method. Precisely because of their complex and diverse points of departure, the articles evidence a fundamental, interdisciplinary approach and a creative way of seeing things which is concerned to ensure a fundamental openness for debate and dialogue. This volume thus provides an insight into the fascinating diversity and complexity of theological research in Europe.

This ESWTR Yearbook is the first to be defined geographically. It gathers together articles by Eastern and Central European women theologians, reflecting on their context, their history and their identity. The book gathers papers from Croatia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Slovenia, from Lutheran, Reformed, Orthodox, Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic perspectives. Central for many of the authors is the burning question of how identity is to be defined - for women, for believers, in the post-communist era. To read these papers is to be offered a fascinating glimpse of the multiplicity and complexity of the contexts and traditions which have shaped - and continue to shape - European churches and their theologies.