Description:
From the Wisdom Commentary series .
This volume offers a womanist and feminist analysis of the books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, attending to translation and textual issues, use of power and agency, and constructions of gender and its significance for the real and metaphorical women in the texts. The unit on Nahum takes an unflinching look at God's role and rhetoric in the rape of Nineveh and considers implications for the women of Nineveh and Israel and for contemporary readers. Habakkuk is read employing a womanist stratagem, talking back to God. The section on Zephaniah explores the racialized history of interpreting "Cushi" in Zephaniah's genealogy and the figures of Daughter Zion/Jerusalem. The commentary also assesses these texts as scriptures of synagogue and church, their use and utility. A Jewish feminist reading and womanist hermeneutic accompanies each biblical book.?
Brief description:
Barbara E. Reid, general editor of the Wisdom Commentary series, is a Dominican Sister of Grand Rapids, Michigan. She is the Carroll Stuhlmueller, CP Distinguished Professor of New Testament Studies, and president emerita of Catholic Theological Union (the first woman who held the position). She has been a member of the CTU faculty since 1988 and also served as vice president and academic dean from 2009 to 2018. She holds a PhD in biblical studies from The Catholic University of America and was president of the Catholic Biblical Association in 2014-2015. Her most recent publications are Luke 1-9 and Luke 10-24, co-authored with Shelly Matthews (WCS 43A, 43B; Liturgical Press, 2021); and At the Table of Holy Wisdom: Global Hungers and Feminist Biblical Interpretation (Paulist, 2023).
Review Quotes: "Dr. Gafney uses her wide-ranging exegetical skills to make these biblical texts come alive in a new way. Consequently, the questions addressed in these books resonate with our own questions today, making this work indispensable to those who study, teach, or proclaim a word of hope from these ancient texts."Cheryl B. Anderson, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary