On Gendering Texts
Female and Male Voices in the Hebrew Bible
Published on 1. January 1993
Book
Leather / fine binding
XIII, 211 pages
978-90-04-09642-4 (ISBN)
Description
On Gendering Texts is a wonderful book in a field that demonstrates its maturity by this publication. It discusses the important and traditional issue of authorship. Whereas the idea of a unique and divinely inspired biblical author has long been abandoned, the issue of authorship itself has not.
The possibility that women might have contributed to the production of the Bible has not been taken seriously and yet the idea that everything is male unless otherwise proven is hardly acceptable. What can one do? The two authors of this book shrewdly displace the question. Rather than worrying about unprovable historical authors, they consider gender-positions; authority; gendered textuality and attributions of gender within the text; voice; world-view and ideological content. Each of these issues is important, and the gesture of raising them in connection with that of authorship alone makes this book worthwhile.
This book is both unique and in line with a growing tradition; a climatic point in the developing area of feminist biblical study. [from the Foreword by Mieke Bal]
The possibility that women might have contributed to the production of the Bible has not been taken seriously and yet the idea that everything is male unless otherwise proven is hardly acceptable. What can one do? The two authors of this book shrewdly displace the question. Rather than worrying about unprovable historical authors, they consider gender-positions; authority; gendered textuality and attributions of gender within the text; voice; world-view and ideological content. Each of these issues is important, and the gesture of raising them in connection with that of authorship alone makes this book worthwhile.
This book is both unique and in line with a growing tradition; a climatic point in the developing area of feminist biblical study. [from the Foreword by Mieke Bal]
Reviews / Votes
'...a most interesting, stimulating and highly provocative book.'R.P. Carroll, SOTS, 1994.
'...it does offer a useful partial strategy...their text remains valuable...it offers a powerful model for...'
Laura Levitt, Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 1994.
'The authors maintain separate identities...the writing is lucid and the approach sophisticated, and there is a lot of fine exegesis.'
PRD, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 1995.
'On Gendering Texts raises many questions and objections, but it is an eye-opener and a way-opener. Reading this book makes reading itself different. Any biblical exegete who takes his/her craft seriously will benefit from it.'
Arian Verheij, Bibliotheca Orientalis, 1994.
'This is a valuable addition to biblical studies from a feminist point of view, a stimulating corrective to traditional reading with a male-dominated and filtered viewpoint.'
Leona Glidden Running, Andrews University Seminary Studies.
'Die Studie stellt aufgrund ihres genderspezifischen Ansatzes einen wichtigen Beitrag zur rezeptionsorientierten Exegese dar.'
C. Maier, Zeitschrift fuer die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft.
More details
Persons
Athalya Brenner, Ph.D. (1979), University of Manchester, is Senior Lecturer at the Technion, Haifa, Israel and Professor of Feminism and Christianity at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. She has published widely on feminist exegesis of the Hebrew Bible.
Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes, Ph.D. (1992), University of Amsterdam, was Lecturer in Old Testament and Women's Studies at the University of Utrecht until her untimely death in 1994. A volume of essays is her memory has recently appeared: On Reading Prophetic Texts. Gender-specific and Related Studies in memory of Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes, edited by Bob Becking & Meindert Dijkstra (Brill, 1996).
Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes, Ph.D. (1992), University of Amsterdam, was Lecturer in Old Testament and Women's Studies at the University of Utrecht until her untimely death in 1994. A volume of essays is her memory has recently appeared: On Reading Prophetic Texts. Gender-specific and Related Studies in memory of Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes, edited by Bob Becking & Meindert Dijkstra (Brill, 1996).