The Bible as Political Artifact: On The Feminist Study of the Hebrew Bible

by Susanne Scholz

Overview

Biblical studies and the teaching of biblical studies are clearly changing, though it is less clear what the changes mean and how we should evaluate them. In this book, Susanne Scholz engages some of the issues as she has encountered them in the field over the last twenty years. She casts a feminist, class-critical eye on the politics of pedagogy, in higher education and in wider society alike, decrypting important developments in "the architecture of educational power." She also examines how the increasingly intercultural, interreligious, and diasporic dynamics in society inform the hermeneutical and methodological possibilities for biblical exegesis, whether the topic is rape in ancient Near Eastern legislation or Eve and Adam in the American Christian right‘s approaches. In bold strokes, Scholz lays out a program for biblical scholarship and pedagogy that connects to current events and ideas, such as the Title IX debate, inclusive language, or film. Taken as a whole, the fourteen chapters demonstrate that the foregrounding of gender, placed into its intersectional contexts, offers intriguing and valuable alternative ways of seeing the world and the Bible‘s place in it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781506420479
Publisher:	1517 Media
Publication date:	10/15/2017
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Susanne Scholz is professor of Old Testament at the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Abbreviations xiii

Introduction: Feminist Readings of the Bible as a Political Artifact xv

Part I The Pedagogical Politics in Academia and Society

1 Redesigning the Biblical Studies Curriculum: Toward a "Radical-Democratic" Teaching Model 3

2 Occupy Academic Bible Teaching: The Architecture of Educational Power and the Biblical Studies Curriculum 29

3 Standing at the Crossroads with Räisänen's Program: Toward a Future of Biblical Studies in Postbiblical Societies 49

Part II The Politics of Method

4 "Tandoori Reindeer" Exegesis: On the Limitations of Historical Criticism and Two Alternatives 69

5 "Back Then It Was Legal": The Epistemological Imbalance in Readings of Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Rape Legislation 93

6 Lederhosen Hermeneutics: Toward a Feminist Sociology of German White Male Old Testament Interpretations 123

7 The Forbidden Fruit for the New Eve: The Christian Right's Adaptation to the (Post)modern World 143

8 Tell Me How You Read This Story and I Will Tell You Who You Are: Post-Postmodernity, Radicant Exegesis, and a Feminist Sociology of Biblical Hermeneutics 167

Part III The Politics of Hermeneutical and Cultural Alternatives

9 Discovering a Largely Unknown Past for a Vibrant Present: Feminist Hebrew Bible Studies in North America 193

10 Was It Really Rape in Genesis 34? Biblical Scholarship as a Reflection of Cultural Assumptions 223

11 "Belonging to All Humanity": The Dinah Story (Genesis 34) in the Film La Genèse (1999) by Cheick Oumar Sissoko 239

12 How to Read Biblical Rape Texts with Contemporary Title IX Debates in Mind 259

13 Biblical Studies Is Feminist Biblical Studies, and Vice Versa: About the Conceptualization of Feminist Biblical Studies as the Core of Biblical Studies 279

14 Barbaric Bibles: The Scandal of Inclusive Translations 295

Index of Authors 315

Index of Ancient Sources 323