Helpmates, Harlots, and Heroes, Second Edition

Women's Stories in the Hebrew Bible

Alice Ogden Bellis

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781611644005
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Estudios bíblicos

This best-selling book, now revised and updated, shares the work of many feminist biblical scholars who have examined women's stories for several years. These stories are powerful accounts of women in the Old Testament--stories that have profoundly affected how women understand themselves as well as men's perception of them. Here, Alice Bellis shares the research of feminist biblical scholarship during a quarter of a century, which renders a vast amount of refreshing, exciting, sometimes disturbing material.

Part 1

Background

1

Introduction

This is a story about stories. It is a story about feminist and womanist interpretations of sacred stories. Women’s stories in what Jews call the Hebrew Bible and Christians term the Old Testament¹ are very powerful. They have profoundly affected women’s self-understanding and men’s perception of women. In the nineteenth century, women who dared to speak in public (which was considered unseemly) were labeled “disobedient Eves” or “Jezebels.”² Abby Kelley, a Quaker and radical abolitionist, was especially disturbed when this latter epithet was hurled at her.³ Black women have disproportionately been called Jezebel, suggesting that they are more sexual than other women. Women’s stories in the Hebrew Bible have also been used in positive ways. Angelina Grimké, another prominent abolitionist, held up biblical women such as Miriam, Deborah, Jael, Huldah, and Esther as exemplars for women to emulate.

Even in dawning years of the twenty-first century, biblical stories of women still influence the way women think of themselves and the way the rest of the world thinks about them. Much of this influence is negative. Eve, Jezebel, Delilah, and other female biblical characters represent seduction and evil.

Today both women and men feel liberated when they hear new readings of these stories. Both men and women are disturbed when they hear about some of the more atrocious stories of female victimization. Both are excited when they hear some of the more “feminist” of the stories, especially when they have not been exposed to such readings before. Stories have been used against women, but stories can also provide tools to use in the struggle for wholeness and dignity.

A great deal of work has been done in the last third of a century by feminist biblical scholars on women’s stories in the Hebrew Bible. This research has produced new and exciting readings of the stories, whose traditional interpretations have been foundations for Western negative attitudes toward women. Was Eve really the terrible temptress and was Rebekah the demonic deceiver depicted in many a traditional interpretation? Is Ruth the “sweet little thing” we find in children’s Bibles, or does her story undercut the narrow religious attitudes of its day and perhaps even of our own? These and many other areas have been explored, debated, and reconceived by feminist and womanist scholars. Before the 1990s very little of these discussions had reached the woman or the man in the pew or even the pastor or seminary student, in part because the sources are scattered among various scholarly journals and in part because, until recently, such work was suspect even in academia.

At the time Helpmates, Harlots, and Heroes was first published, I believed the time had come to share with the people in the parish the fruit of the last quarter century of work. Not all questions had been answered, not all problems solved, but enough progress had been made that a vast amount of refreshing, exciting—sometimes disturbing—material needed to be shared broadly, freely discussed, and evaluated by those whose lives are touched by these issues in very practical ways. A dozen years later, the need is still there, and fortunately many voices are now singing in this choir. Before, my voice was soft and in many ways uncertain. Now, I want to sing a little louder and with new conviction.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF FEMINIST STUDIES OF HEBREW SCRIPTURE

The roots of feminist interpretation of Scripture lie in the nineteenth century in the women’s rights movement. Opponents of that movement used the Bible to buttress their opposition to it. They interpreted the story of Eve’s secondary creation from Adam’s rib to mean that woman is subordinate to man. They understood her leading role in eating and sharing the forbidden fruit with Adam as indicative of the evil and subordinate nature of women.⁴

By the 1830s and 1840s some women’s rights activists were becoming articulate about the need for a different approach to biblical interpretation.⁵ Not only were white women active, but African American women were also understanding the Bible in new ways. Jarena Lee, a member of the American Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, felt the call to preach and found biblical support for her position.⁶

In the 1880s, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and a committee of women compiled The Woman’s Bible⁷ in an effort to counteract the oppressive use of the power of the Bible against women. Although it did not use the then-new techniques of higher criticism (based on the assumption of multiple sources of the Bible rather than Mosaic authorship), it was a serious effort at a new understanding of the Scriptures.⁸

In the late nineteenth century many feminist Christian voices dealt with the Scriptures and debated traditionalists. Few of these women were trained biblical scholars, although some of their arguments foreshadow later, more sophisticated versions of their approach.⁹ It was not until 1894 that the first woman became a member of the Society of Biblical Literature, the biblical scholarship “establishment.”¹⁰

In the early part of the twentieth century women made significant contributions to biblical scholarship. Nevertheless they were not advocating new approaches that we would today call feminist.¹¹ Treatments of women in the Bible came from women outside the profession. Dr. Katherine Bushnell, medical missionary to China and Women’s Christian Temperance Union leader in the late nineteenth century, wrote¹² God’s Word to Women.¹³ Reverend Lee Anna Starr, a Methodist minister in the early twentieth century, wrote The Bible Status of Women. Both believed that the Bible, when properly translated and interpreted, presents a vision of the equality of the sexes.¹⁴

In the 1960s a few more voices were heard. In 1964, Margaret Crook, professor of religion and biblical literature at Smith College and thirty-nine-year member of the Society of Biblical Literature, published Women and Religion. She raised the issue of the male domination of the Judeo-Christian tradition and urged women to take an active role in reshaping the faith.¹⁵

In 1967 Elsie Culver, a professional lay church worker, wrote Women in the World of Religion. She pointed out the lack of research by modern biblical scholars on women’s status and roles in the biblical culture and suggested the importance such research would have for contemporary women.¹⁶

Feminist hermeneutics did not really develop momentum until the 1970s, often considered the beginning of the second phase. At first, the approach was to restore the proper meaning of biblical texts by exposing the masculine-dominated and often misogynist interpretations of Scripture. In books such as The Liberating Word,¹⁷ by Protestant theologian Letty Russell, interpreters assumed that once the veneer of patriarchal interpretation was removed, the Bible would be liberated from sexism.

Soon it was recognized, however, not only that past interpretations were sexist but that many of the texts themselves also presented serious problems. For example, how do we handle the difference between the way God reacts to Sarah’s and to Abraham’s incredulity at the news of an impending old-age pregnancy (Gen. 17:17; 18:12)? How do we deal with the fact that for many purposes women were viewed as little more than chattel? These and other questions raised the issue of biblical authority. How could a book that included so much that ran directly counter to feminism be accepted as authoritative, religiously or culturally? In one form or another, this question has dominated much feminist biblical thought in what some view as the third phase of feminist biblical criticism, beginning in the 1990s. Before considering this crucial question, we will first define what is meant by feminism and womanism and related terms.

DEFINITION OF FEMINISM

Feminism has a long history. No one definition would satisfy all feminists; rather, a range of understandings is needed. Nevertheless feminism may be broadly defined as a point of view in which women are understood to be fully human and thus entitled to equal rights and privileges. In no sense can they be considered subordinate or inferior.

Most feminists would agree that differences exist between men and women. Clearly, reproductive and other physical differences exist. Growing scientific evidence also shows that the female brain and the male brain develop differently because of differing hormonal influences.¹⁸ In addition, it is evident that culture has provided different sets of experiences for women and for men. Perhaps differently developed brains, different experiences, or some combination of these has resulted in different perspectives. Although not all women have had precisely the same experiences and women’s brains are not all identical, there is some commonality, as well as some important differences, in the experiences that have shaped women of all races, creeds, and social classes.

Many people, both men and women, agree on a theoretical level with the proposition that men and women are morally equal.¹⁹ Being a feminist usually involves something more than assent to this principle. Feminism includes an awareness that society’s norms are masculine and that to be a woman in such a society involves marginality. Since humans are adaptable, women are able to identify themselves with the masculine norms, just as members of ethnic minorities often identify with white norms.

As a child growing up in North Carolina, I was not aware that I had an accent. I heard the national commentators on television, and they sounded normal. I thought I sounded normal too. Therefore I reasoned that I sounded just as they did. Only when I went to college in Massachusetts did I become truly aware of my southern accent. Once recognized, it quickly disappeared. I cannot even imitate it anymore!

We might think that people would automatically experience life and literature from their own particular vantage point. In reality, the dominant culture trains everyone to identify with white males. For example, one of the Ten Commandments prohibits coveting a neighbor’s wife. In spite of the fact that the norm is male, the Ten Commandments are accepted by Jewish and Christian women as authoritative. Many women do not even notice that they have to edit this commandment in order to make it fit their situation. The continual process of translating directions to fit their concepts may result in women’s alienation from themselves. It is analogous to the experience of ethnic minorities who rarely see positive role models from their ethnic group. Many are trained to think of themselves as unattractive, poor, and criminal. As a result, both ethnic minorities and women often must learn all over again how to be themselves.

A few years ago I read a very good book on the ministry. I assigned it to one of my classes at Howard University School of Divinity. Some of the students also liked it very much, but two women students noticed how sexist it was. Once they pointed it out to me, it was obvious, and I regretted that I had assigned the book. I had simply focused on the main points the author was making and ignored the sexism. I identified with the male norm so easily that I didn’t even see the problem.

Feminists want to change the way people experience both life and literature. We want everyone, men and women, to be aware of the sexual codes in life and in books, even in the Bible. We want readers to notice not just the Moseses, the Davids, and the Solomons. We want them to consider also the Miriams, the Bathshebas, and the queens of Sheba. We want to unmask sexism and any other codes that are oppressive.²⁰

Some feminists view the goal of the feminist movement as the ascendancy of women. Others take the position that equality and reconciliation are the aims for which we should fight.²¹ The former group includes many separatists. Men are excluded, and most Christians in this camp reject existing religious institutions as hopeless. Mary Daly, a former Roman Catholic, is a good example.²² Very few feminist biblical interpreters today share this perspective, in which both men and traditional organized religion are completely rejected. More now may be termed post-Christian, or culturally rather than religiously Jewish. These feminists are not closely identified with a confessing faith tradition but still view the Bible as their cultural heritage. As Carole Fontaine puts it,

[W]e must continue to deal with the Bible because it is ours. That may sound too self-evident to be meaningful, but, restated the Bible is part of the religious and literary heritage of Jews and Christians. To jettison it because we see it with all its pits and valleys, all its byways into oppression, is to lessen our understanding of how we got where we are and what we are up against on the paths that we now choose to travel. Give up the loving intimacy and restored paradise of the Song of Songs? Do without the active, compassionate women of the book of Exodus? Throw aside the first successful slaves’ rebellion in recorded history? Live without the creation celebrated in Proverbs 8 or Job 38–42? Give up Jesus, the Jew who envisions a new humanity, demonstrating that there may be another paradigm of maleness, another way to be human, perhaps even another way to understand God than by the traditional means of structures of domination and submission? Never.²³

These feminists are also open to men with feminist perspectives, who believe in and are also working toward sexual equality and reconciliation. Although most of the commentators whose views are discussed in this book are female feminists, a few male feminists are included because their work, in my view, has contributed substantially to the work of feminist criticism. André LaCocque and David Gunn are examples of male feminists.

A significant portion of the work of all feminists is the analysis of present and past cultures regarding their failure to recognize women’s full value and their oppression of women. Only as problems are named and their dynamics understood in detail can we develop strategies for overcoming them. At the same time, some of this analysis has been marred by a tendency to judge ancient cultures by modern standards in a way that does not take into account the economic, social, technological, and other constraints that shaped the peoples of the past (and the present, for that matter).

As early as 1982, but especially in the 1990s, the term “postfeminism” gained prominence. Like feminism, postfeminism is complex and multifaceted, but in general views feminism as no longer relevant. Some postfeminists criticize feminists for forcing women into a victim mentality; others suggest that many women agree with feminist goals but do not identify themselves as feminists, perhaps because of the stridency of some feminist voices; still others believe many women have become disenchanted with feminism and want traditional domestic roles. There is some truth in each of these critiques, even though they may be criticized for being simplistic. At th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Part 1: Background
• Part 2: A Story about Stories
• Part 3: Reflections
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Suggestions for Use in Religious Education Classes