Women and the Bible

The Women’s Bible (1895, 1899)

• In the 1880s the first major translation of the Bible into English since the KJV (1611) was published – The Revised Version (RV). No female scholars were included in the vast team.

• This prompted Elizabeth Cady Stanton to lead a group of female intellectuals in the US to publish their own comments on the Bible, focusing attention on the parts that explicitly focus on women.

• They believed that the Bible was used by men for their own interests, and it was itself the product of male authors who claimed a special relationship with God using this to justify exploitation of women.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902)

She was a leading suffragist (supporting women’s right to vote)

She supported women’s right to divorce, birth control, interracial marriage, etc.

As a young mother

July 20, 1848 The Seneca Falls Convention calls for equal civil and political rights for women.“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal...” —Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments

Now some women want the right to vote. At the Seneca Falls Convention, they demand it publicly for the first time. More than 300 women and men attend, including Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frederick Douglass.

She believed…

• The Bible was not the unquestionable, unerring word of God but a human composition reflecting human concerns.

• Therefore, the Bible can be questioned, analyzed and interpreted.

• She advocated the basic right of every woman to interpret scripture.

• This removed the Bible out of the hands of specialists and into the hands of lay people, women especially, but men too.

• All readers, sensitive to metaphor, allegory, and symbolism have a right to interpret the Bible.

Margaret Crook: Women and Religion (1964)

• [A] masculine monopoly in religion begins when Miriam raises her indignant question: “Does the Lord speak only through Moses?” Since then, in all three of the great religious groups stemming from the land of books of Israel—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—men have formulated doctrine and established systems of worship offering only meager opportunity for expression of the religious genius of womankind.

Feminist ways to read the Bible

• How do women and feminine imagery figure in the Bible?

• Gender in the Bible: 3 questions to ask.1. How is gender involved in the construction of

characters or narrative associations.

2. What are the power relations between the sexes?

3. What is the social construction of sexuality, such as femininity and masculinity?

Place women in the center

• Read the Bible as closely as possible, paying particular attention to– Women (specific characters)– Gendered language (such as pronouns)– Gendered imagery (like childbirth, mothering)

• Read for the interplay between women and the Bible. The following are three ways feminists sometimes read the Bible.

Engage in Careful, Active Reading

• Acknowledge different voices and concerns of ancient writers and modern readers. Acknowledge different world views.

• Ask questions while thinking about gender.1. What character(s) speaks?

2. What character(s) remain silent?

3. What character(s) acts?

4. What does the author say explicitly and implicitly?

5. What ideological agendas lie behind the text?

Consider the Bible as an Androcentric cultural artifact

• Women do not speak directly or they are made to speak against their own interests.

• In this view, the Bible contains no authentic voices of women.

• Read with “suspicion.” This means reading while understanding the Bible is andocentric, the selective words of men to create and support patriarchal social structures and ideals.

• Reading with suspicion means questioning the authors’ motives and always suspecting them to promote a male agenda.

Read to learn how ancient men thought about women

• According to this view, the Bible does not help us to understand much about the lives of ancient women, but only about how men thought about women.

• Even when women in the Bible speak, it is through the pen of the male writer.

• We cannot truly learn about the lives of real women who lived. We can learn only about the ways in which men felt compelled to portray them.

Objections? Yes!

• Many people object to some of these reading strategies, especially the idea that “real women” cannot be found in the Bible.

• This is a kind of resistant reading.• But “resistant reading” or “reading with suspicion” opens

a way for readers to fully engage in the text, to question and ponder it thoroughly, and use it to gain new insights into the cultures that have produced and sustained the Bible.

• Feminist methods are a way to place women back into a conversation they have traditionally been denied.

Consider Mary, Jesus’ mother

Read Matthew 1:18-25• Who speaks?• Who acts?• Who is spoken to or acted upon?• What does all this say about Mary?• What are Mary’s feelings at this time? Why

do you think so?• What is Mary's function in this passage?

Consider Mary, Jesus’ mother

• In the Gospel of John, Jesus’ mother only speaks one time at the Wedding at Cana.

• Read John 2:1-12

• Who speaks? Who acts?

• Who is called by name?

The Wedding at Cana• 2On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of

Jesus was there. 2Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ 4And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ 5His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ 6Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. 8He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. 9When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’ 11Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

• 12 After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there for a few days.

Translation and GenderJohn 2:4. How does Jesus respond to his mother’s request?• Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine

hour is not yet come. (King James Version)• And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with us?

My hour has not yet come.” (American Standard Version)• Jesus said to her, Woman, this is not your business; my time is still

to come. (Basic English Bible)• “Leave the matter in my hands,” He replied; “the time for me to act

has not yet come.” (Weymouth Bible)• “Dear woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied, “My time has

not yet come.” (New American Standard Bible)• Jesus said, “Is that any of our business, Mother—yours or mine?

This isn’t my time. Don’t push me. (Amplified Bible)• Jesus said, “Woman, what do you want from me? My hour has not

yet come.” (New Jerusalem Bible)

Literal translation from Greek

• “O Woman what to you and me? My hour has not yet come.”– The second part is straight-forward, but the first part

requires some interpretation.– Why does it say “woman” and not “mother” and what to do

about it?– Soften it by adding “Dear mother”?– Is Jesus annoyed? Is the request a bad one or ill-timed?– These questions have serious implications for those who

today read the Bible as the authoritative word of God.

Wedding at CanaHieronymus Bosch about 1475-1480Oil on panel, 93 x 72 cmRotterdam, Museum Boymans - van Beuningen

Master of the Catholic Kingsdetail: The Marriage at Cana, c. 1495/1497Samuel H. Kress Collection1952.5.42

The Wedding at Cana by Paolo Veronese. the Musée du Louvre. 1563

Feminine Imagery

• “Yahweh” comes from the Hebrew verb “to be.” The verb is active and progressive and possibly best rendered in the future tense.

• Many Bible translators use “I am”, or “I am that I am.”

• The feminist scholar Mary Daly suggests “Becoming” is a better word.

• “He will be” or “He will cause to be.”• Yahweh’s common roles, warrior, deliverer, ruler,

judge.• He’s often paired with/against goddess “Ashterah”

Feminine Imagery

Isaiah 42:14

For a long time I have held my peace,

I have kept still and restrained myself;

Now I will cry out like a woman in labor,

I will gasp and pant.

This is a strongly maternal metaphor.

God’s love for humankind can be seen as a sort of “womb-love.” Like bringing a child into the world