Currents in Biblical Research 14, 3 (June 2016)

The latest Currents in Biblical Research recently arrived, with titles and abstracts of the main articles as below.

Russell L. Meek

Twentieth- and Twenty-first-century Readings of Hebel (הֶבֶל) in Ecclesiastes

The meaning of הֶבֶל is a crux interpretum for the book of Ecclesiastes. Notwithstanding some variation, Jerome’s vanitas reading of הֶבֶל in Ecclesiastes dominated scholarship for several centuries. Since the rise of modern biblical scholarship, הֶבֶל as ‘vanity’ has been largely rejected; however, little consensus has been reached regarding the word’s meaning. The result has been a rich history of interpretation as scholars develop various suggestions for how הֶבֶל should be understood in Ecclesiastes. This essay briefly sketches the history of interpretation of הֶבֶל, then surveys proposals for the meaning of הֶבֶל in Ecclesiastes during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Amy Erickson and Andrew R. Davis

Recent Research on the Megilloth (Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther)

Until recently, study of the Megilloth as a coherent canonical grouping has been minimal. On the whole, the lateness and fluidity of the collection within the Jewish canon has negated its value for biblical scholars, who have long preferred texts and categories thought to be ‘early’ or ‘original’. The state of the field has begun to shift, however, as scholars are giving more attention to connections between individual books of the Megilloth and the coherence of the collection as a whole. This new interest coincides with the growing recognition among scholars that the later (re)uses of a biblical text are constitutive of its interpretation; thus the lateness of the Megilloth (if the collection really is late) does not preclude interpretation but shapes it. Recent studies in the Megilloth as a coherent collection include canon-historical approaches, which trace the formation of the Megilloth within the Jewish canon; intertextual approaches, which focus on allusions to earlier biblical traditions and on literary connections within the five scrolls; and theological approaches, which adopt a synchronic method that puts the Megilloth in dialogue with contemporary theological discourse.

Garrick V. Allen

Scriptural Allusions in the Book of Revelation and the Contours of Textual Research 1900-2014: Retrospect and Prospects

This article traces the contours of the past century of discourse surrounding the underlying textual form of allusions embedded in the book of Revelation. Special attention is paid to the rapid developments on this issue in the past thirty years, a period in which New Testament scholarship has grappled with the textual complexity of the Hebrew Bible presented by the scrolls from the Judaean Desert. The question of textual form is of foundational importance for analysing the reuse or interpretation of Scripture in the book of Revelation. Despite this reality, it is common to find assumptions or misconceptions in recent studies that obfuscate the textual reality of the Hebrew Bible and its early Greek versions the first century CE. The appraisal of scholarship on this issue allows scholars to better contextualize their own approaches to the text of allusions in the light of previous research. This analysis also highlights the changing methods and approaches by which scholars analyse the text of allusions and suggests some avenues for future research on the allusions embedded in the Apocalypse.

Patrick Schreiner

Space, Place and Biblical Studies: A Survey of Recent Research in Light of Developing Trends

This article surveys developing research on the nature of space and place. It summarizes the arguments proposed by geographers and philosophers outside biblical studies, and then illustrates how biblical scholars have employed these theories in the study of the biblical text. The review focuses on the theoretical underpinning and then examines a number of scholars who have appropriated what they call ‘critical spatiality’ to historical, sociological, and narratival readings. In short, some now describe space in a tri-part division; the physical world in which people exist, the ideological underpinnings of understanding places, and the lived practices of people within those places that sometimes challenge and sometimes reaffirm the expected uses of such places.

Yael Shemesh

Directions in Jewish Feminist Bible Study

The article highlights various possible directions that Jewish feminist Bible scholarship can take. Even though this field has naturally been influenced by feminist scholarship in general, I believe that it does have a number of unique traits, with regard both to content (such as pointing out the Christian source of certain misogynistic interpretations) and form (commentaries oriented to the weekly Torah portion). The first part of the article deals with these unique features of Jewish feminist Bible scholarship. In the second part I look at four goals shared by feminist Bible scholarship in general and the Jewish subgenre, while focusing on the latter: (1) Emphasizing that the Bible is a patriarchal and androcentric – some would say misogynistic – text; (2) highlighting the voices for equality that can be found in the Bible; (3) focusing on biblical women and recounting her-story rather than the traditional his-tory that has been dominant for generations; (4) discovering the female authors of biblical texts, or at least the women’s voices that emerge from it. In the third section I draw on several Jewish feminist Bible scholars’ treatment of three issues to exemplify how the same underlying data led different readers to different and even contradictory attitudes and assertions about the biblical text. Two of these issues relate to narrative – the characterization of Eve and that of Ruth and Naomi and their relationship. The third issue comes from the legal corpus – the laws of menstrual impurity (Lev. 15.19-24). Here we saw not only the different positions taken by different scholars, but also the change over time in the view of Rachel Adler, which corresponds with the change in her religious perspective and move from one religious denomination to another.

Christian Reflection on Women in the Bible

The latest issue of Christian Reflection, published by the Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University, is now available, this one devoted to ‘Women in the Bible’. The whole issue is available as a pdf here, and an accompanying Study Guide is available here. The main articles, with their abstracts, are as follows:

Robert B. Kruschwitz

Introduction

Studying the stories of women in the Bible can point us to the heart of the scriptural narrative. Without ignoring some of the difficult androcentric passages in the Bible, our contributors show us the liberating implications, for both men and women, of studying the women in the Bible.

Junia Pokrifka

Redeeming Women in the Grand Narrative of Scripture

In light of the biblical grand narrative of redemption and restorative justice, patriarchy and androcentrism can no longer be seen as normative, but as regrettable conditions that God and God’s human agents are working to overcome.

Mary Ann Beavis

Who is Mary Magdalene?

The traditional image of the Magdalene as a repentant prostitute, not to mention contemporary speculations about her being a priestess or goddess figure or bride of Christ, are quite mistaken. They fail to do justice to the biblical and historical woman behind the legend.

Mona Tokarek LaFosse

Women’s Roles in the Letters to Timothy and Titus

The letters to Timothy and Titus reveal a growing consciousness about reputation in early Christian communities. Behavior that outsiders might find distasteful – especially the behavior of women – could be perceived as immoral, compromising the honor of the group. How do these observations (and prescriptions) bear on the present?

Joy A. Schroeder

Deborah’s Daughters

As prophetess and judge, Deborah became a potent symbol of female authority and speech, an obvious exemplar for women aspiring to claim a public voice in the nineteenth century. These women – preachers, devotional writers, suffragists, and abolitionists – were Deborah’s daughters.

Other Voices

Heidi J. Hornik

Biblical Women in Christian Art

Jeanie Miley

Worship Service

Jocelyn Mathewes

Women with Icons

In the Orthodox tradition, icons – like the saints and stories they portray – point to the power of the larger story of Scripture, and show how great a God is our God. The photographs in the Women with Icons project reveal how the icons of patron saints, and the women who hold them close, point to Christ.

Katherine Callahan-Howell

Ripples of Freedom

God desires that the spiritual freedom that we receive in Christ Jesus should cascade into others’ lives. Sometimes this happens in unpredictable ways. In Acts 16:16-34, an unnamed slave woman sets in motion a course of wonderful, freeing events that we remember and celebrate today.

F. Scott Spencer

Preaching about Women in (and on) the Bible

Since women experience and interpret the world differently from men, it would be nice if the viewpoints of women scholars were seriously considered in preaching today – not least in dialogue with women’s stories in the Bible.

Sheila Klopfer

Feminist Scholarship on Women in the Bible

While acknowledging the difficult androcentrism of the Bible, the three books reviewed here also affirm its liberative and authoritative nature. They present a constructive way forward for modern interpreters who are committed to feminism and who maintain a high view of scriptural authority.

Richard Bauckham on Ruth

Richard Bauckham has published essentially the same discussion of Ruth in different contexts:

Is the Bible Male? The Book of Ruth and Biblical Narrative, Grove Biblical Series 2 (Cambridge: Grove Books, 1996).

‘The Book of Ruth and the Possibility of a Feminist Canonical Hermeneutic, Biblical Interpretation 5, 1 (1997), 29-45.

Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 1-16 (‘The Book of Ruth as a Key to Gynocentric Reading of Scripture’).

In short, Bauckham suggests that an otherwise androcentric text (Ruth, in this case) essentially authorises a gynocentric reading of that text.

The book of Ruth, he avers, can play a crucial role in forming a feminist hermeneutic that accepts the normative function of the canon even while resisting much of its androcentricity. Seen from a gynocentric perspective, the social structures evident in Ruth are made to work to the advantage of women and are not as patriarchal as they may first appear.

He agrees with recent studies on Ruth which hold that the story speaks with a female voice, providing a woman’s perspective on ancient Israelite society, making visible what would otherwise remain invisible. This is true throughout Ruth, he holds – except for the genealogy at the end, which speaks with a male voice. But the male voice does not undermine the female perspective of the rest of the book; rather, it is ‘exposed by the female voice of the narrative as pitifully inadequate in its androcentric selectivity’ (Gospel Women, 11).

According to Bauckham, set against the rest of the book, the genealogy in 4:18-22 effectively says:

‘This is how the usual men’s perspective views the history of this period of David’s ancestors. This is the way you readers are accustomed to thinking of this period. Everything the narrative you have just read has taught you to see as important is here left out’ (Is the Bible Male?, 17).

He concludes:

‘In effect this gives Ruth an important canonical function, that is a function in relation to the rest of the contents of the canon of Scripture… By revealing the Israelite women’s world which is elsewhere invisible in biblical narrative it makes readers aware of the lack of this women’s perspective elsewhere, expanding the hints and filling in the gaps which they can now see to be left by the narratives written purely or largely from a male perspective’ (Is the Bible Male?, 17).

According to Bauckham, such a gynocentric perspective may be found in other biblical texts, including the gospels, in which the dominant perspective is more or less androcentric.

This does not result in establishing a canon with the canon, he holds. Rather, it means that gynocentric texts have the role of relativising the androcentrism of texts, not in overturning androcentric texts in every respect… so that the canon itself can be seen as ‘correcting’ or subverting androcentrism in Jewish and Christian thought and practice, instead of promoting such androcentrism.

Danna Nolan Fewell and David M. Gunn on Ruth

Danna Nolan Fewell and David M. Gunn, Compromising Redemption: Relating Characters in the Book of Ruth, Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1990), 141pp., ISBN 9780664251352.

A flurry of books appeared in this series – Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation – in the early 1990s, often written by those drawing from outside the traditional disciplines of biblical criticism to find theoretical models which could be adapted to the interpretation of the Bible. The result was some provactive readings of biblical books, including this one by Fewell and Gunn on Ruth.

The traditional reading sees Ruth as a story of loyalty, kindness, and love.

Fewell and Gunn seek to subvert this traditional reading.

In the first part of the book, they retell Ruth as ‘a leaner, tougher story’. Their retelling is effectively an expansion of the biblical story which, according to one reviewer, loses the style and terseness of the original account, and effectively stacks the deck in favour of their own approach. Another reviewer described their retelling as ‘somewhat stilted’. Even so…

The second part provides a reading of the three main characters of the book of Ruth – Naomi, Boaz, and Ruth – seeking to present them ‘as complex people, not merely built around a single primary trait, like loyalty, altruism or generosity’. Fewell and Gunn explore what they take to be the selfish motives of the lead characters, which shows how this story of redemption is ‘compromised’ by suspect behaviour.

Sexual overtones bubble to the surface in their reading. So, for example, mention of vessels, drinking, and eating are said to be subliminal sexual references, and ‘sheaves and grain can be seen as phallic’. Ruth’s request that Boaz spread his garment over her brings his religiosity down ‘to the most basic level of human interaction – sexual intercourse’.

Ruth’s statement of loyalty to Naomi in chapter 1 is said to be hyperbolic, and not without mixed motives. Naomi, for her part, plans (through Ruth) to trap Boaz, the man of substance, on the threshing floor, for ‘sexual intercourse, if not pregnancy, will enforce either marriage or a pay-off’. Boaz is fearful that in his inebriated state, he and Ruth may have had sexual intercourse, and so he marries Ruth as much out of a desire to protect his reputation as out of love or compassion for Ruth.

One reviewer praised the authors of the book for ‘walking the line with apparent ease between celebrating indeterminacy on the one hand and reading for ideological subversion on the other’, and for giving us ‘a provocatively playful reading of the Book of Ruth’. Indeed.

By contrast, in a 1998 Christianity Today article on literary approaches to the Bible, Leland Ryken wrote:

‘Literary criticism can follow other paths than this, but here we find in microcosm the current state of literary criticism of the Bible: iconoclastic and subversive of traditional interpretations, debunking of received views of biblical characters and events, preoccupied with sex and with the human element in the Bible to the relative neglect of the divine.’

Of course, we need to hear the challenge that comes from readings more subversive of the text than we have been used to…

Of course, we need to enquire what subtextual messages there may be about gender and sexuality…

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time that the line that would lead to David and eventually the Messiah has been propagated by sexual subterfuge and less than completely honourable means…

But… sometimes a sheaf of grain is just a sheaf of grain.