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Introducing the Women’s Hebrew Bible
by Susanne Scholz
Introductions in Feminist Theology. T &T Clark, New York, 2007. $29.95. 142 pp. ISBN 978-0-567-08257-2.
For A wide-ranging introduction to the history, major figures, and key issues with regard to feminist interpretation of the HB, Susanne Scholz’s book is an excellent resource.
In ch. 1, Scholz outlines the development of feminist biblical scholarship by engaging questions of feminist hermeneutics. Chapter 2 describes the life and work of four feminist Hebrew Bible scholars (Phyllis Trible, Athalya Brenner, Elsa Tamez, and Marie-Theres Wacker), offering a glimpse into the “real women” that “stand behind the developments of feminist biblical work” (p. 6). In subsequent chapters, Scholz gives an overview of the diverse methods employed by feminist scholars (historical, literary, and cultural criticism); analyzes use of the term“rape” in the biblical texts as a case study to illustrate some of the central interpretative issues feminist scholars face; and outlines recent developments in postcolonial studies of the HB, showing how the “broadening of feminist biblical studies to include scholars around the world is one of the most energizing and significant developments in the field” (p. 120). In a concluding chapter, Scholz asks critical questions with regard to the future of feminist biblical interpretation, with special attention to its task in light of the challenges facing a new generation of biblical scholars.
The volume succeeds well in the goal Scholz sets for herself, to offer newcomers an entry point to explore the riches of this rapidly growing field. I was particularly impressed by the chapter narrating the respective journeys of key scholars in the field. Even those familiar with the work of these scholars may not always be aware of their unique stories as well as the challenges they faced in becoming the scholars they are today.
While Scholz admits that “her book does not claim comprehensiveness” (p. 8), I was a little surprised to see the absence of works reflecting a more theological interpretation of the HB. For instance, there was no mention in the otherwise comprehensive bibliography of the work of Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, the 2007 Society of Biblical Literature president and one of the early pioneers in feminist interpretation of the HB, or of Jacqueline Lapsley’s Whispering the Word (Westminster John Knox, 2005). Nevertheless, Scholz’s book is highly recommended for its good insight and wide-ranging treatment of important themes in feminist biblical interpretation.
L. Juliana Claassens
Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond
Richmond, Virginia
Our Mother Saint Paul
by Beverly Roberts Gaventa
Westminster John Knox, Louisville, 2007. 218 pp. $24.95. ISBN 978-0-664-23149-1.
Beverly Roberts Gaventa brings to readers’ attention a set of texts in the Pauline corpus that has been largely ignored by modern scholarship. Very few studies have given sustained attention to Pauline texts that employ maternal imagery. The focus here is largely on those places in which Paul refers to himself as a mother to his churches. These include Paul caring for the Thessalonians “like a nurse caring for her own children” (2:7), being “in labor again” with the Galatians (4:19), and feeding the Corinthians with milk because they are not yet ready for solid food (3:1–2).
In Part 1, Gaventa explores each text in turn, uncovering the layers of meaning as she engages history of traditions, socio-cultural context, gender construction, and cognitive metaphor theory. Gaventa’s ultimate goal, however, is to tie these images to Paul’s apocalyptic theology. She argues that these images are not decorative additions, but are rather an essential part of Paul’s theologizing, both about apostolic ministry and about the cosmic battle going on between God and the anti-God forces of the universe. Gaventa sees these maternal images deeply embedded in the context of Paul’s apocalyptic theology, and thus Part 2 contains a series of explorations of this theology, focusing on Galatians and Romans.
The book’s shortcoming is that it consists almost entirely of essays that have been previously published over the last two decades. That these chapters were not originally composed together is apparent at various points. In fact, it appears that the chapters on Paul’s apocalyptic theology were not composed with maternal imagery in mind, and readers may be surprised to find that maternal imagery is not discussed at all after ch. 4 of this eleven-chapter book. They are left on their own to puzzle out how to connect Gaventa’s work on the images in Part 1 with the essays on apocalyptic theology that follow in Part 2.
Still, there are useful insights in both parts of the book, on maternal imagery as well as on Paul’s theology in general. The book is valuable in that Gaventa brings important and often neglected Pauline texts to the attention of scholars and the church, and provides insightful guidance on reading them.
Jennifer Houston McNeel
Union-PSCE
Richmond, Virginia
What We Were Made For
by Sondra Wheeler
Jossey-Bass/John Wiley & Sons, Inc., San Francisco, 2007. 191 pp. $21.95. ISBN 978-0-7879-7738-2.
The literature on love falls into two categories. On the one hand, self-help manuals abound. Their style is accessible but seductive. But falling in love is not like following a recipe. On the other hand, too many theological treatises take refuge in abstractions, offering a cold-blooded analysis of a hot-blooded phenomenon. In the end, neither satisfies.
Steeped in both kinds of literature, Sondra Wheeler creates a welcome conversation. She taps self-help manuals for their insight into the human psyche and its formidable needs. She also probes the classical writings with a focus on love in all its messy particularity. The result is a book that is wise, winsome, and powerfully honest.
The book answers three questions about love: Why do we love? How do we love? Where do we love? First, we love because we are hard-wired to love. Wheeler begins with God’s love and documents a divine love affair in both the Old and New Testaments. Examining the possibility of a creaturely response, she identifies the ways we fail at love and the remedy Christian practices offer. Worship limits self-control; the Lord’s Supper curbs jealousy; prayer soothes the ache of loneliness; confession corrects self-deception; consecration answers fear.
Wheeler’s second approach raises the poet’s question: “How do I love thee?” She counts the ways: affection, friendship, romantic love, and neighbor love. To these four classical forms of love, Wheeler adds a fifth and much-contested love: the love of self. Unlike some theologians, she refuses to write it off. Rather, she argues that a healthy self-regard is essential to loving others and faithful to God’s particular love for each one of us.
Finally, Wheeler treats the places where we love: in the family through being partners, spouses, and parents; in preferential circles of affection with friends; and in the public square through our bearing toward strangers and enemies. Wheeler does not flinch in the face of Jesus’ hardest command to love the enemy. Rather, she shows how we ourselves, though enemies, have been loved by the One who created us. We can never pay that love back; we can only pay it forward. Wheeler’s careful work on this last arena of love, along with her gracious marriage of human frailty and Christian practice, are real strengths of this book.
So much has been written on love that it is rare to find such fresh insight. It would work well in a group, for it calls up readers’ own experiences in loving. It would work well as a college or seminary text, companioned with some of the primary sources Wheeler cites. It would be a fine book to read alone for learning more about love’s complex delights. In any venue What We Were Made For is a book to savor, for it is deceptively simply and deeply wise.
Martha Ellen Stortz
Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary
Berkeley, California
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