Sharing Her Word: Feminist Biblical Interpretation in Context

The title of Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza's new book, Sharing Her Word: Feminist Biblical Interpretation in Context (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998. 232pp. $23.00 [paper]) alludes to a speech by Wisdom's suitor who seeks, among other benefits, "renown in sharing her words" (Wis. Sol. 8:17-18). The occasion for its writing is the twenty-fifth anniversary of two inaugurating events of feminist studies in religion. Both title and occasion are carefully chosen to achieve two of Schussler Fiorenza's underlying purposes: first, to establish her own position as one of the founding mothers of feminist theology; second, to utilize biblical texts and traditions as tools for empowerment.

In respect to the first purpose, the book is largely a retrospective; Schussler Fiorenza recapitulates many of her earlier themes and theories, refining definitions as she does so, and pointing out the ways in which she feels she has been misunderstood. Over and against a younger generation of postmodern scholars, for example, who consider the term "religious feminist" to be an oxymoron, she insists that "for millions of wo/men [the spelling is intended to include marginalized men as well as all women] religion still provides a framework of meaning that is not just alienating or oppressive but also self-affirming and liberating" (27). This theme, which has been central to Schussler Fiorenza's work from the start, is given new urgency here because it

is directed not only at the postbiblical feminists of the past, but at her current critics.

As she has done before, Schussler Fiorenza defends the biblical texts as a potentially liberating force by stressing their ambiguity. Repeating much of the argument and language of her Discipleship of Equals (New York: Crossroad, 1993), she notes first how both the gospels and the prophets are sources of her own vision of a liberated humanity. She states that "well-being and inclusiveness are the hallmarks of the gospel" (114); she finds in the gospels "a challenge to relinquish all claims to the power of domination over others" (115). She finds behind the Jesus movements "a radical Jewish democratic vision. It is the vision of the basileia, of G*d's alternative society and world that is free of domination and does not exclude anyone" [[The spelling is intended "to visibly destabilize our way of thinking and speaking about G*d."] (115).

Yet Schussler Fiorenza also sees biblical texts as sources legitimating oppression, and for that reason she would separate herself from those religious feminists who, she thinks, simply excuse antifeminist statements in the Bible by calling them "'time-conditioned,' a misuse of scripture, or a false way of quoting the Bible" (52). She thinks they overlook the fact that some texts "were originally written with the intention of inculcating kyriarchal relations of domination ['kyriarchal' is her word for all oppressive relationships] and to legitimate these relations as ordained by God" (52). As a way of recognizing that the Bible works both for and against liberation, she suggests using a method of "dialectical engagement with the biblical heritage" (53).

Schussler Fiorenza thus places herself in a highly tensed position, on the one hand defending the Bible against the postmodernists, and on the other hand refusing to identify herself with those she calls biblical "apologists." In reacting to the latter, she declares that while her vision of emancipation is rooted in the Bible and not the Enlightenment (81), her immediate framework does not come from the Bible but from human experience: "The notion of wo/men's emancipatory struggles for dignity, authority, and self-respect are the key to the epistemological/hermeneutical frame of meaning that determines my work" (79). By way of further nuance, she distinguishes her "critical feminist interpretation for liberation" from an academic "gender studies" approach (79) because she is intent on not merely understanding the biblical text, but on using it.

Although Schussler Fiorenza deplores any division between the women's movement and the academy (13-14), she makes it unmistakably clear that she does not identify with the contemplative focus of the academic, but rather with the advocacy stance of the social activist. She positions her work within the paradigm of liberation theologies, noting that along with them, she seeks a change in the task of interpretation: "the task of interpretation is not just to understand biblical texts and traditions but to change Western idealist hermeneutical frameworks, individualist practices, and sociopolitical relations" (78). The change she sets as the ultimate aim of interpretation is no less than the recreation of the political world, the creation of an "ekklesia of wo/men" [i.e., a fully democratic gathering of all marginalized people]. "The notion of the ekklesia of wo/men seeks to embody the diverse feminist-democratic struggles to overcome kyriarchal oppression traversed by racism, class exploitation, hetero-sexism, and colonialist militarism, and to claim these struggles as the political ecclesial site from which to speak" (131). Specifically she states that her own work "has attempted to reconceptualize the act of biblical interpretation as a moment in the global praxis for liberation" (76).