Feminist Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Retrospect. III. Methods

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 contribu¬tors focus on the wide range of exegetical methods as they have been productively employed in feminist bibli¬cal interpretations. More specifically, each essay investigates how feminist Hebrew Bible exegetes have worked with exegetical methods. Each essay surveys the method under con¬sid¬eration as it has emerged in academic discourse gener-ally and in biblical studies in particular. Each es¬say also explains how feminist uses of the various exe¬getical methods have been deeply embedded within the theo¬logical, cultural, and even political expecta¬tions and as¬sumptions 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 method¬ological structures that have their roots in vast arrays of histori¬cal, political, economic, social, and religious factors. This volume encourages feminist debate on these complex issues that stand at the heart of biblical exege¬sis.