Susanne Scholz

This is the first of a set of three volumes reviewing the progress of feminist Hebrew Bible scholarship over the last 40 years. In it, fourteen essayists focus on the feminist work on each of the biblical books. Each essay explores the range and depth of feminist exegesis, presents substantial yet easily digestible trends, preferences and perspectives in feminist scholarship, and demonstrates that feminist biblical approaches are not monolithic but diverse in feminist conviction, hermeneutics and method. The result of this collaborative task is a comprehensive though selective survey, which includes suggestions for future feminist engagement. What feminist biblical scholarship has accomplished during the past forty years is no small feat. But it becomes clear from this volume that much remains to be done in the pursuit of dismantling structures of gender domination in Hebrew Bible exegesis and beyond.

This is the third of a set of three volumes reviewing the progress of feminist Hebrew Bible scholarship over the last forty years. In this third volume, eighteen contributors focus on the wide range of exegetical methods as they have been productively employed in feminist biblical interpretations. More specifically, each essay investigates how feminist Hebrew Bible exegetes have worked with exegetical methods. Each essay surveys the method under consideration as it has emerged in academic discourse generally and in biblical studies in particular. Each essay also explains how feminist uses of the various exegetical methods have been deeply embedded within the theological, cultural, and even political expectations and assumptions of readers of the Bible. This volume asks readers to come to terms with the following question: What are the best methods for feminist exegesis in the light of past and present socio-political, theological, or hermeneutical developments in reading the Bible? After all, feminist theorists have come to recognize that methods are always already situated within powerful epistemological and methodological structures that have their roots in vast arrays of historical, political, economic, social, and religious factors. This volume encourages feminist debate on these complex issues that stand at the heart of biblical exegesis.