Description: This book introduces readers to the diverse field of feminist studies on the Hebrew Bible.
Brief description: Susanne Scholz is Professor of Old Testament at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, USA. She holds a Ph.D. in Old Testament from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. Her research interrogates past and present cultural-political discourses on the Hebrew Bible, with an emphasis on feminist/gendered hermeneutics. She can be reached at susanne-scholz.com.
Review Quotes: "I simply love this book. This book offers precisely those elements that one needs in order to fall in love with a women's readings of the Hebrew Bible. It first takes the reader on a historical train ride visiting the major stops of feminist approaches to the Hebrew Bible. Then, the readers' horizon is expanded by a critical reading of the life stories of four true great ladies: Phyllis Trible, Athalya Brenner, Marie-Theres Wacker, and Elsa Tamez, and how and why they became epigones of Hebrew Bible feminist scholarship. The book then dives into all the sorts of methodologies that Feminists have been using. In the fourth chapter, the author uses "rape stories" to exemplify the hermeneutical issues that feminists have to deal with. The author then takes on the post-modern and post-colonial readings in order to truly contextualize feminist interpretations of the Hebrew Bible. In the last chapter, the author reflects on the future of the feminist approaches of the Hebrew Bible and pleads for creative readings of Biblical texts that connect the Biblical texts with the socio-political, academic, and religious developments in the world."