Feminist Uses of Biblical Materials

Katharine Doob Sakenfeld
From Feminist Interpretation of the Bible
by Letty M. Russell.
Westminster press. Philadelphia 1985

As a Christian who teaches the Bible and who also calls herself a feminist, I am often asked, "How can feminists use the Bible, if at all? What approach to the Bible is appropriate for feminists who locate themselves within the Christian community? How does the Bible serve as a resource for Christian feminists?" These are not easy questions to answer, but it is possible to identify several different ways in which contemporary Christian feminists approach the biblical material. This chapter describes some of these ways of listening to the Bible.

Feminism may be viewed as a contemporary prophetic movement that announces judgment on the patriarchy of contemporary culture and calls for repentance and change. How does such a prophetic movement relate itself to its religious heritage? The prophets of the Hebrew scriptures sometimes highlighted forgotten traditions of ancient Israel; on other occasions, they found it necessary to reinterpret traditions that had been skewed or misunderstood; at times they even had to reject time-honored traditions as false in their understanding of God's way. Christian feminists who intend and hope, like the biblical prophets, to work within their religious heritage must address themselves to the authority of the Bible in the life of their community of faith. They must seek faithful ways of recovering, reinterpreting, and discerning God's way in the tradition handed on in the Bible.

Their beginning point, shared in common with all feminists studying the Bible, is appropriately a stance of radical suspicion. In chapter 7 in this volume, Drorah Setel illustrates this way of beginning from radical suspicion as undertaken by a Jewish feminist. Feminists recognize in common that patriarchy was one of the most

stable features of ancient biblical society over the thousand-plus years of the Bible's composition and redaction. Thus, in studying any biblical texts, feminists need to be alert not only for explicit patriarchal bias but also for evidence of more subtle androcentrism in the worldview of the biblical authors. Only such a frank and often painful assessment of the depth of patriarchal perspective in the text provides an honest starting point for considering how the tradition can be meaningful today. If in studying a text feminists discover that some suspicions are unfounded, then there is cause for rejoicing, but in the meantime they have not fooled themselves by refusing to face the problem,

Recognizing the patriarchy of biblical materials, Christian feminists approach the text with at least three different emphases:

1. Looking to texts about women to counteract famous texts used "against" women.

2. Looking to the Bible generally (not particularly to texts about women) for a theological perspective offering a critique of patriarchy (some may call this a "liberation perspective").

3. Looking to texts about women to learn from the intersection of history and stories of ancient and modern women living in patriarchal cultures.

These emphases are not presented as the only possibilities but rather as major categories identifiable in current feminist biblical interpretation. Before I describe them, two important points should be noted about their interrelationship.

First, these three approaches represent options. They do not necessarily occur as a series of stages in the life of a feminist struggling with the biblical text, nor do they represent a chronological history of feminist biblical interpretation generally, One may move from one approach to another in the order described here, but one may also enter into feminist dialogue with the Bible beginning with any one of these approaches. Feminist interpretation moves back and forth among these options.

Second, these three options are not actually mutually exclusive. Many general essays on feminism and the Bible incorporate some combination of them. Some interpreters use different approaches on different occasions, depending on the purpose and the audience. Thus it is important not to associate individual feminists simplistically with just one of these options. Readers are invited to consider what combinations of these options they find in the next four chapters of this volume.

Option 1: Looking to Texts About Women to Counteract Famous Texts Used "Against" Women

The various ways in which the Bible has been and is still used to justify women's traditional place in Western culture have been recounted many times over. Texts and traditions used to bolster the cultural status quo include (among many others) the themes that woman was created second (Genesis 2) and sinned first (Genesis 3 and the reinforcement of this view in 1 Tim. 2:13-14); that women must keep silent in church (1 Cor. 14; 1 Tim. 2); and that they should be submissive to their husbands (Ephesians 5). Feminism as a prophetic movement identifies such texts, or the traditional interpretation of them, as "against" women. Within option 1, feminists offer a twofold response: on the one hand, there is an effort to reinterpret some of these well-known texts; on the other hand, "forgotten" texts that present women in a different light are brought into the discussion.

So, for example, a number of studies of Genesis 2—3 have suggested fresh interpretations that are not so negative toward women. The creation of woman at the end of chapter 2 may in fact mean that she is equal to the man; in the encounter with the serpent, the woman and the man should be viewed as "mutually responsible," united in disobedience. In a similar vein, New Testament specialists point out that Paul's instruction for women to keep silent (1 Cor. 14) is advice peculiar to a disruptive situation in the church at Corinth. The discussion of marriage in Ephesians 5 is often treated by emphasizing the theme of mutual subjection of verse 21, which introduces the section [104-105].

Complementary to such reinterpretation of negatively viewed passages is a new emphasis on those texts which seem to speak positively of women. Galatians 3:28 is surely the parade example: "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." Many Christian feminists ground their view of women's place in family, society, and church on this text, which for them points beyond the generally restrictive practice of the early church and applies to actual living in the world, not simply to personal salvation.

Feminists have also turned to the many stories of Jesus' relationship to women as recorded in the Gospels and to the scattered indications of women in leadership roles that are treated with approval in scripture. The role and actions of biblical characters such as Miriam, Deborah, the women at Jesus' tomb, Priscilla, and manyothers are treated paradigmatically to suggest that women may assume leadership and authority in their communities. Jesus' attitude toward women (speaking with them, taking them seriously) is regarded as exceptional and even revolutionary for his time—an attitude which then informs a critique of patriarchy both in the early church and today . The story of Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4) is often drawn upon; Jesus first announces his messiahship to this symbolic outcast of society—a woman of questionable repute who is also a Samaritan.

This first option—using reinterpreted or forgotten texts about women to counteract texts used "against" women—has its own strengths and limitations. Some of these will be described briefly. Readers are encouraged to reflect on the implications of these for the passages just mentioned or for other texts about women in which they have special interest.

A great strength of this approach, in my view, lies in drawing our attention to the diversity of biblical testimony concerning women, by its recovery of forgotten positive texts and traditions. The very existence of such potentially positive material suggests that the Bible is not necessarily to be rejected out of hand as an instrument of patriarchy. At the same time, the reinterpretation of allegedly negative texts serves as reminder of the ongoing power of patriarchy in biblical interpretation. The reinterpretations, by their very existence, challenge the claim that exegesis is scientifically factual and value-neutral. The prophetic tasks of recovery and rein-terpretation work together to suggest that some parts of the traditional Christian view of women may be false.

But in this strength lurks also a potential limitation. The assumptions which sometimes underlie this option are that the Bible has some clear and explicit teaching concerning the status and role of women, that the locus of this teaching is in texts specifically concerning women, and that it may be (re-)discovered by careful exegetical study. Yet the reinterpretations of texts used against women certainly have not gained universal acceptance. A single agreed-upon methodology yields radically different conclusions in the hands of different exegetes. How is a feminist to deal with the absence of exegetical agreement concerning many, if not all, of the critical passages under discussion? Given the assumption that careful exegesis of texts about women will yield a sure answer about women's proper role in church and culture, the lack of interpretive consensus undermines the very purpose for which many feminists use this approach.

Furthermore, if there remain some negative texts concerning women for which no reinterpretation seems possible(and surely such do remain), what principle of discernment decides which set of texts is authoritative? How does one choose between texts that uphold the status quo and texts that challenge it? Although most careful studies try to suggest some principle (such as New Testament over Hebrew scriptures; Jesus over Paul; eternally valid statements over culture-bound statements), the person struggling with the issue often perceives the situation simply as one in which competing proof texts are at work. Galatians 3:28 is tossed into the ring to compete with 1 Timothy 2, and no real headway is made. And of course any of the principles of discernment just mentioned raise other serious problems, in suggesting that some parts of the Bible are more trustworthy than others or in implying that some biblical material may not be culture-bound.

Each of these two main areas of limitation—exegetical uncertainty and competing proof-texting—points to basic questions about the meaning of biblical authority and the usefulness of the Bible for Christian faith. These questions will be addressed briefly at the conclusion of this chapter.

Option 2: Looking to the Bible Generally for a Theological Perspective Offering a Critique of Patriarchy

This approach does not set out to avoid texts mentioning women but, unlike the first option, it does not focus upon such texts as the sole or even primary basis for developing a Christian perspective on the role and status of women. It approaches the Bible in the hope of recognizing what the gospel is really all about and then works from that recognition toward a specificity about women.

At the most general level, this option is illustrated by the understanding of the Bible as words that bear witness to the incarnate Word of God, Jesus Christ. This view of scripture suggests that the Bible is not an instruction book but that the test of any situation would be an understanding of God's way with the world made known in Jesus of Nazareth. The problem, of course, within this option is to discern some central witness of scripture that can be identified as what Christianity is all about.(1) Feminist efforts in this direction tend to set their reflection within the larger context of liberation theology.

Letty Russell, for example, emphasizes the theme of koinonia as partnership and the many ways in which people are partners together in God's liberating action. To live out this partnership, she suggests, Christians need to develop the "art of anticipation" so that they may think from the context of God's future, discern the signs of liberation, and act on the basis of that hope. It is by such theological anticipation that feminists see "both male and female in community as God's intention for New Creation." This New Creation perspective is grounded in Jesus Christ as Prince of Shalom and witnessed to in the biblical traditions of unexpected deliverance from oppression and unexpected establishment of a new covenant. God's horizon is always out ahead of people, challenging them to transform their worldview.(2)

Rosemary Ruether's chapter entitled "Biblical Resources for Feminism: The Prophetic Principles" in her book Sexism and God Talk provides a second illustration of this approach. For Ruether, the prophetic principles "imply a rejection of every elevation of one social group against others as image and agent of God, every use of God to justify social domination and subjugation" (3) In Ruether's view the application of this prophetic message of liberation must be pressed beyond the content of the Bible itself in order to apply it to women. Old Testament Israel, imbued with patriarchy, simply never noticed that women were among those oppressed and in need of liberation. And despite first-century Christian glimpses of a transformed relationship between women and men, the early church quashed nascent change in this direction. Ruether's approach involves regarding the "egalitarian, countercultural vision" (which must be read between the lines of the New Testament) as the "true norm of Christianity [so that] the authority of the official canonical framework is overturned."(4)

In common, Ruether and Russell look to the biblical message overall, not in the first place to texts about women. The range of biblical texts appropriate to the task thus conceived is wide indeed. Possibilities range from the exodus to the jubilee year, to Zacchaeus, to the abundant life, to Paul on freedom.

One great strength of this approach is that it can look beyond the reactive side of feminism as antipatriarchalism and move to (even start from) the more positive and constructive side of feminist emphasis on shalom, wholeness or salvation in the broadest and deepest sense of the term. Because this shalom encompasses all people, both women and men, in all conditions of life (race, ethnicity, class), this option puts feminist use of biblical materials concretely in touch with the concerns and quests of other oppressed groups. It provides a basis for affirming the solidarity of the whole human community and for questioning any arbitrary prioritizing of the needs of one group over another. The attempt to start from an understanding of "what the Christian thing is all about" (gospel as humanization; prophetic critique of oppression) also has the advantage of reminding us that each particular biblical passage takes on meaning in the light of many others. The range of texts offering good news for women is vastly expanded by comparison to option 1.

But as with option 1, so here also strength is at the same time limitation. "The gospel" is very general, and for many people encounter with the general message of Christianity is vague and diffuse by comparison to encounter with specific texts. And when this option turns to consider specific texts, the encounter with the liberation theme in general may still be experienced as diffuse despite its application to the condition of women.

Elisabeth Schiissler Fiorenza has pointed to two other potential limitations of this option.(5) While they are not in my view inherent in the approach, they do represent concerns that should be considered by those focusing on this option.

First, this approach runs the risk of concealing patriarchy in the biblical witness itself. Those who use this option are quick to agree that radical suspicion is necessary and that the whole Bible is infused with patriarchy. In fact, they use this option in part because they do see patriarchal bias even in the many texts about women that can be remembered or reinterpreted to challenge the status quo. And yet there is a danger that the patriarchal character of the liberation texts as they were written will be forgotten. Ruether's radicalizing of the biblical critique of oppression to include women would then be lost, and one would fall into the false assumption that biblical authors speaking against oppression had in mind women as well as other oppressed groups..

A second limitation lies in the possible claim that there is some timeless or eternal truth to be identified in scripture, while all the actual writers and texts fall short of that truth. Indeed, for many people this is precisely the assumption underlying this second option, so that their goal in using this approach is to shake off the culturally conditioned parts of the Bible and find that timeless truth. But many who work from this assumption discover that seeking for something free of historical conditioning is like peeling an onion: There is no core. I do not find that either Russell or Ruether, carefully read, succumbs to this peeling-the-onion approach, although I appreciate Fiorenza's concern. To identify key elements of a tradition is not necessarily to remove the tradition from the context in which it was hammered out, but avoiding this consequence requires deliberate attention to the problem.

Again, as with option 1, the limitations of option 2 call into question the ultimate usefulness of the biblical materials and direct our attention to issues of authority.

Option 3: Looking to Texts About Women to Learn from the History and Stories of Ancient and Modern WomenLiving in Patriarchal Cultures

I have tried to state this third option to open up in principle any biblical text dealing with women as one that can have meaning for modern feminists. In contrast to option 1, in which texts about women are categorized as for or against women, in this third option all these texts are taken to address the condition of women as persons oppressed because of their sex and as persons yearning to be free. Within this option it does not ultimately matter whether a given text can be proved exegetically to support feminist concerns. It does not matter because here the Bible is not (in contrast to option 1) looked to as a source of direct and specific rules for living. Rather, the Bible is viewed as an instrument by which God shows women their true condition as people who are oppressed and yet who are given a vision of a different heaven and earth and a variety of models for how to live toward that vision.(6) The work of two biblical specialists who make use of very different exegetical styles and skills also illustrates this option.

Phyllis Trible's Texts of Terror gives close literary attention to narratives portraying women as victims, some of whom nonetheless find ways to declare their personhood. Trible describes this task as retelling biblical stories of terror in memoriam. She interprets the story of the rape, murder, and dismemberment of an unnamed woman (Judges 19), the story of a daughter offered as human sacrifice because of her father's foolish vow (Judges 11), and other stories "on behalf of their female victims in order to recover a neglected history, to remember a past that the present embodies, and to pray that these terrors shall not come to pass again."(7)

A historical rather than literary focus characterizes Elisabeth Schiissler Fiorenza's contribution within the scope of this third option. As a historian of earliest Christianity, she seeks to reconstruct the life and practice of Christians and congregations in the earliest church. In this task she examines New Testament texts against women not in order to rehabilitate them (as in option 1) but rather to reconstruct the practices that the New Testament authors were rejecting so as to clarify our picture of church life in the New Testament period and to describe women's role in that church life. Recognizing that the Bible is thoroughly androcentric, recorded and canonized by men, Fiorenza moves the locus of revelation beyond the text itself to the reconstructed ministry of Jesus and the life of the early church, in which at every stage the picture is one of "struggle for equality and against patriarchal domination."(8)

Despite significant differences in critical method and in presupposition about the place of the biblical text in the life of the church, both Trible and Fiorenza are focusing on the "intersection of history and stories of ancient and modern women living in patriarchal cultures." One strength common to their work is the possibility of facing the pervasive androcentrism of the biblical material head on, without excuse or evasion. Women may appropriate the tradition by identifying with biblical women both in their oppression and in their exercise of freedom.

Yet, like the other options, this one too has its limitation as it brings its user up against the question of authority. How does one know that, insofar as a text perpetuates violence and oppression against women (or against anyone), it is in that respect not authoritative? The problem is that, for option 3, the discernment of what is authoritative must come from somewhere outside the option itself, whether from biblical reflection done from the perspective of option 2, or from the personal and communal experience of the person approaching the text, or perhaps most fruitfully from some combination of these.

To Give Up on the Bible -or to Understand Its Authority in a New Way?

Whichever option they find most congenial, Christian feminists sometimes assume that if they use the Bible in that particular way, patriarchy will be undone in their own lives; and that if enough others follow their use of the Bible, patriarchy will disappear. But if and when they find that the systemic pervasiveness of patriarchy is such that patriarchy will not disappear in their lifetime or even in the next generation, then attention to the Bible begins to seem futile, for the Bible is no longer seen as the key to "solving the problem" of patriarchy. Indeed, the continuing power of the Bible to support the patriarchal status quo underlines its seeming uselessness. With the question "Why would God let such a book become the church's book?" these women and men begin to give up on Christian faith as well.

In addition to this general reason for giving up on the Bible, each of the three options may lead in its own way to rejection of the Bible as not authoritative or not useful in any positive way for the feminist struggle.

The person who comes to see option 1 as merely a proof-texting game may well conclude that the Bible cannot function normatively if it disagrees with itself. The recognition that expert scholars cannot agree on the meaning or significance of given texts will serve only to reinforce this conclusion. To make the Bible worth using, some new conception of authority would need to be offered that could replace the old assumptions about the function of the Bible in the life of faith.

Similarly, with option 2, the Bible's minimal and marginal critique of patriarchy itself may become a stumbling block. What warrant is there, someone will ask, for extending the Bible's general critique of oppression to a critique of patriarchy that is not in the text and seems even to be counterindicated by much of the text? Or the Bible's general attitude toward women may appear so incongruous in light of the central gospel witness to Jesus Christ that the very usefulness of the Bible is thereby called into question.

Finally, option 3 may also lead to abandonment of the Bible as not useful. In this option, the explicit emphasis on the depth and continuity of patriarchy simply highlights the many painfully oppressive portions of biblical material and makes clear that the church has often perpetuated precisely those oppressive emphases. The undercurrent of women living freed and freeing lives within the context of patriarchy has always remained just that—only an undercurrent. In the face of such overwhelming patriarchy, how can one say that this undercurrent should rightly be viewed as the mainstream of the good news of God? Unless feminists find some understanding of how women's rejected history and untold story can be regarded as authoritative, even those using this third approach may in the end give up on the Bible.

Thus no feminist use of biblical material is finally immune to the risk of finding the Bible hurtful, unhelpful, not revealing of God, and not worth the effort to come to grips with it. Regardless of approach, feminists may find that the Bible seems to drive them away from itself (and sometimes from God), rather than drawing them closer. At the heart of the problem lies the issue of biblical authority. The chapters in Part III will provide further discussion of this critical issue.

Notes

1. See Da1. See Paul Ricoeur, Essays on Biblical Interpretation, ed. by Lewis S. Mudge (Fortress Press, 1980), p. 95.

2. Ibid., pp. 49-72.

3. See, for example, Beverly Wildung Harrison, Our Right to Choose: Toward a New Ethic of Abortion (Beacon Press, 1983), chapter 3; James M. Gustafson, The Contributions of Theology to Medical Ethics (Marquette University Press, 1975), pp. 84-90; Richard A. McCormick, How Brave a New World: Dilemmas in Bioethics (Doubleday & Co., 1981), p. 9; Thomas W. Ogletree, The Use of the Bible in Christian Ethics (Fortress Press, 1983).

vid H. Kelsey, "The Bible and Christian Theology,"Journal of the American Academy of Religion 48:400-401 (1980). Kelsey argues that scripture itself, even carefully read and rigorously studied, cannot ultimately adjudicate disputes over the basic character of Christianity. A certain commonality of perspective ("imaginative construal") is required, Kelsey suggests, before the Bible can function normatively in resolving faith differences or in approaching contemporary issues.

2. Letty Russell, Growth in Partnership, esp. pp. 88-103. The quotation is from p. 98.

3. Ruether, Sexism and Cod Talk, p. 23.

4. Ibid., p. 34.

5. Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, pp. 14-20.

6. Letty Russell's recent study guide for Ephesians develops the use of this option for group study. See Imitators of God: A Study Book on Ephesians.

7. Trible, Texts of Terror, p. 3.

8. Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, p. 92 .

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