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138

Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 29.2

and environmental factors. Reframing away from the locational politics implied
by knowledge being situated, the notion of knowledge also being situational
notices how our sense of knowing arrives as gusts and magnetisms, forces that
push and pull us.
Reframing away from locational politics is not a recommendation to drop
questions of location entirely in some kind of appeal to absolute social indeterminacy. But it is a provocation to consider how what we call social location
no matter how many social categories we add to the lineupis complicated by
the fuzziness and anecdotal specificity of everyday experience and relationships.
What might happen if this fuzziness and anecdotal specificity were the starting
point for our interpretive interventions? While so much of what are presently
considered political readings begin with an upfront claiming and straightforward execution of an agenda, it could be that the political persuasiveness of our
readings is amplified by more open, oblique, and less certain narratives about
what we stand for and who we are. This might represent one kind of ethically
important vulnerability, but it also might provoke the occasional ambiance shift
or even a much needed relief from the harsh scolding and various claims to
knowledge that constitute so much of political discourse at large.
Such a reframing of feminist epistemologies, such a renewed understanding of feminist practice, might very well sensitize one to the expressive and
relational aspects of interpretation. It can help one attend to the surprising if
also troubling openness of the political field, help one experience more deeply
its disorienting and captivating possibilities, as well as give the futures unknowability its full due. This may end up making feminist biblical studies a much
more diffuse, implicit, and relative enterprise, and thus all the more relevant
and, perhaps, politically effective.

Scriptures and Identity Formation: Transgressing the Boundaries

of Disciplinary Readings
Robin L. Owens
As we look toward the future of feminist biblical studies and remain committed to the fields theoretical and practical concerns, I invite scholars to consider a methodological approach to feminist biblical studies that emphasizes
 Im struck by Jacqueline Hidalgos description of how retrofitted memory assumes the partiality of its own project (125). It seems that this kind of remembering is precisely based on a sense
of incompleteness, indeterminacy, and unknowing; it suits the needs of the moment, even as the
needs of the moment are themselves not fully knowable. The very metaphor of retrofitting (as in
retrofitting a car) bespeaks mobility, not just how do we get this thing to work for us, but how do we
get this thing to move?

Roundtable: The Future of Feminist Biblical Studies

139

the function of scriptures in womens lives and their struggles for justice. This
approach is grounded in the work of religious historians Vincent L. Wimbush,
William A. Graham, and Miriam Levering, who have all challenged scholars of
religion to give more serious thought to individuals and communities and their
engagements with scriptures. Their scholarship undergirds my dedication to a
feminist biblical studies focus that gives serious attention to the work of scriptures in the lives of women and their efforts toward justice.
In addition to this theoretical underpinning, which guides my overall research, I am concerned with issues of praxis and pedagogy as we consider the
future of feminist biblical studies. I am convinced that this roundtable discussion must be held with the questions, concerns, and issues of undergraduate
students in mind. Students, such as those that I have the privilege of teaching
at a small, liberal arts college founded by women, for women, with the purpose
of promoting equality and justice, make up the community for which we must
consider and reconsider the questions of feminist biblical studies.
As you know, Facebook is a social networking site that has taken over life
as we know it. It is wildly popular particularly with undergraduate students, and
students in my recent Hebrew Scriptures course are no exception. Though I
dont interact with them through Facebook, nor do we have a class Facebook
page, a student in my class let me know that there was a Facebook discussion
related to our class. She noted that if I was interested, she would forward the
entire Facebook conversation to me by e-mail. I accepted.
The Facebook conversation reflected some of the hermeneutical challenges
with which my students grapple. Here are a few excerpts from that dialogue. I
have changed the names, but have remained true to their actual words, as you
will hear.
Jennifer: I hate listening to dumb-ass feminist interpretations
of the Bible from people who havent even read it. Using the
word sexist doesnt make you smart. [18 people liked this
comment.]
Jennifer: Like if you read a biblical story and ONLY see evidence
of how the Bible is anti-woman AND you dont see the moralitythen youre pretty small minded.
 Vincent L. Wimbush, White Mens Magic: Scripturalization as Slavery (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2012), 9, and Vincent L. Wimbush, Introduction: Reading Darkness, Reading
Scriptures, in African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Texts and Social Textures, ed. VincentL.
Wimbush with RosamondC. Rodman (New York: Continuum Press, 2000), 20. See also WilliamA.
Graham, Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); and Miriam Levering, ed., Introduction, in Rethinking
Scripture: Essays from a Comparative Perspective (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1989).

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Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 29.2

Karen: How is the Bible flattering to women?
Jennifer: Uhmm Esther, Jael, Rahab, Ruth. . . . There are lots of
examples of women who trust God and are used to help other
Israelites. (Implied and there are other women who do good.)
Mary Jesuss mother, Elizabeth mother of John the Baptist.
Karen: Every single woman that you listed is valued for their
side-kick contribution to a man or their ability to procreate.
Sorry, but I would rather not be applauded for being especially
great at breeding or honoring a patriarchal God.
Jennifer: But, there are so many examples.
Karen: Note the way you described and qualified who the women
were based onthe men they gave birth to; a perfect example of
the way that the Bible has brainwashed centuries of readers.
Jennifer: Esther didnt give birth to anyone. She influenced the
king to save all of the Jewish people.
Karen: Influenced the king. Listen to the language in your
comments. Cant you realize how desensitized years of privateschool education has turned you toward such horrendously sexist
speech?
Jennifer: See this is what I hatearguments (by girls) that fail to
acknowledge the stories in the Bible that dont illustrate this idea
that the Bible is sexist.
Jennifer: I dont get how you cant appreciate the fact that
yeahwomen were stuck in a patriarchal society but that they
were capable of doing good anyway.

This Facebook excerpt reflects opposing interpretive views expressed

through a type of contemporary discourse. On the one hand, Jennifers comments suggest that she opposes biblical interpretations that focus primarily on
issues of patriarchy and privileges interpretations that highlight the theological
and moral perspectives about women in the biblical texts. On the other hand,
Karens comments suggest that she views the biblical text as one that uses rhetoric that privileges men and marginalizes women. Karen is convinced that Jennifers misreading of the text impacts her self-understanding and her rhetoric.
Students like Jennifer and Karen, who at the time of this particular Facebook conversation were nearing the end of their first semester of the academic
study of the Bible, were beginning to understand and struggle with the questions and issues of patriarchy, androcentricity, and hegemony that feminist biblical studies has grappled with since one of the pioneering works of Elisabeth

Roundtable: The Future of Feminist Biblical Studies

141

Schssler Fiorenza, Bread Not Stone. In that work, Schssler Fiorenza indicated that biblical texts must be understood as androcentric, not only written
in the words of men but also serving to legitimate patriarchal power and oppression insofar as it renders God male and determines ultimate reality in male
terms which make women invisible or marginal.
Like Jennifer and Karen, many of my students wrestle with the portrayals
of women in biblical texts. They realize the importance of considering the texts
immediate and historical settingthey know the place of sitz im lebenand
also know that because of the Bibles historical, cultural, and religious authority,
it has been one of the most prominent avenues through which a womans purpose, possibilities, promise, and place in society have been defined. However,
what they want to know is how to translate their new knowledge, information,
and education into their respective places in culture and society.
The majority of my students are Latina and first-generation college students whose parents immigrated to the United States in order to provide their
families with new opportunities. As such, many of my students want to make
connections between their educational experiences and the daily experience
of their lives, communities, and cultures. As I consider the students quests for
praxis and the future of feminist biblical studies across disciplines, I look to my
research for hints, clues, and insights.
As a way to consider the issue of praxis, I direct attention to reading how the
Bible functions in the lives and work of African American women public speakers,
specifically those from the nineteenth century, such as Maria W. Stewart, Sojourner
Truth, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and Anna Julia Cooper. In researching their
speeches, I observed a pattern wherein speakers made the biblical text work as a
linguistic resource to help them negotiate social and political power. The Bible, as
such, served to authenticate the womans identity as a type of political propheta
term I coined to indicate that the women were speaking out for justice based on
a divinely authorized mandate to consciously advance a political agenda. Here, I
highlight excerpts from the life and speeches of one of the women, Maria Stewart,
to illustrate the work she made the Bible do for her political agenda.
Maria W. Stewart
In Stewarts early years, the Bible made an indelible mark on her life that
would later influence her religious and political identity as well as her public
speaking. As the first American woman of any race or ethnic group to step onto
 Elisabeth Schssler Fiorenza, Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1984), xi.
 Maria W. Stewart, Meditations from the Pen of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart (Boston: Garrison
and Knapp, 1832), quoted in Marilyn Richardson, ed., Maria W. Stewart: Americas First Black
Woman Political Writer (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 1415.

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Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 29.2

a public political platform and speak to a so-called mixed audience of both men
and women, Stewart was a pioneer.
Stewart was born Maria Miller in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1803a freed
person born during a time when most others of her race were still enslaved.
Orphaned at age five, she worked as a domestic servant for a minister and his
family until fifteen, recalling, I had the seeds of piety and virtue early sown
in my mind; but was deprived of the advantages of education, though my soul
thirsted for knowledge. During the years she lived with the ministers family,
she attended Sabbath schools and learned to read the Bible. In 1831, as a young
adult, she had a conversion experience that resulted in a divinely inspired mission about which she stated, I made a public profession of my faith in Christ.
In response to her faith, she made a declaration to fight against injustice and to
resist oppression as a form of service. She became impassioned about committing her life to the work of promoting equity and justice for African Americans.
In her essay Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, The Sure Foundation on Which We Must Build, she wrote, From the moment I experienced
the change, I felt a strong desire, with the help and assistance of God, to devote
the remainder of my days to piety and virtue, and now possess that spirit of independence that, were I called upon, I would willingly sacrifice my life for the
cause of God and my brethren.
Stewarts conversion and sense of divinely inspired mission led her to become the first American woman (black or white) who left extant copies of public
lectures on political issues. In her speeches, Stewart addressed well-known
sociopolitical issues of the early nineteenth century, including politics, race,
morals, slavery, labor, and the future of the black community. Throughout her
public-speaking career, Stewart used the biblical text as a linguistic resource
to authenticate and authorize her identity as a political prophet. As such, she
spoke out of a sense of a divinely authorized mandate to advance a conscious
political agenda, as excerpts from a speech she delivered to the Boston community in 1833 indicates.
In this speech, Stewart was responding directly to challenges she faced
 The US census of 1800 listed a black population of 1,002,037 or 18.9 percent of the total
population; 893,602 were slaves and 108,435 were free. See Peter M. Bergman, ed., The Chronological History of the Negro in America (New York: New American Library, 1969), 82.
 Dorothy Sterling, We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the 19th Century (New York: W. W.
Norton, 1984), 153.
 Stewart, Meditations, 29.
 Maria W. Stewart, Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, The Sure Foundation on
Which We Must Build, Liberator 8 (October 1831), reprinted in Richardson, Maria W. Stewart, 29.
 Sterling, We Are Your Sisters, 154. Sterling reports that British-born Frances Wright was
the first woman to deliver a public speech, in 1828, and in 1832, Stewart became the first American
woman to deliver a public lecture.
 Maria M. Stewart, Mrs. Stewarts Farewell Address to Her Friends in the City of Boston,
Liberator 28 (September 1833), reprinted in Richardson, Maria W. Stewart, 6574.

Roundtable: The Future of Feminist Biblical Studies

143

from within Bostons black community. Although scholarly opinion varies on the
reasons for the tension between Bostons black community members and Stewart, scholars agree that Stewarts final speech reflects the discord. Dorothy Sterling and Shirley Yee suggest that some black men in her audiences would not
tolerate a womans public critique of their leadership.10 Others argue that some
black women in Stewarts audiences shunned her for acting counter to nineteenth-century notions of feminine propriety.11 Though these opinions vary, it is
known that during the time of Stewarts speech, a broader societal debate was
taking place over the proper uses of female influence. The domestic sphere was
largely seen as the place of female influence, with most Americans agreeing that
womens domestic and moral influence was a powerful tool in the battle to take
off reproach,12 and that women who spoke in public were out of bounds.
By speaking publicly, Stewart may have stepped too far beyond the parameters of female influence for many black Bostonians, and her audience, perhaps,
took issue with the questions she raised about black womanhoodprovocative
questions at a moment when most of Bostons black community lacked the interest, language, and sense of necessity for such a conversation.
Whatever issues black Bostonians had with her, Stewart responded to them
pointedlyusing the biblical text as support for her political agenda. This is
evident throughout her speech, which began with a lengthy introduction that
recounted her religious convictions then moved into a comparison of her own
conversion experience to that of the apostle Paul: And truly, I can say with St.
Paul that at my conversion I came to the people in the fullness of the gospel of
grace.13 She quoted directly from Rom 15:29, as she combined her words with
Pauls.
By joining her words and Pauls, Stewart not only united his voice with
hers but also likened the authenticity of his experience to her own. She came
to the people of Boston to work for justice in the fullness of the gospel of
grace. In a similar rhetorical strategy, she also used Jesuss words in Luke 2:49
as if they were her own, referring to Jesuss response to Mary and Joseph where
Jesus suggests that they should have known that he would be doing Gods work.
In order to strengthen her argument about the divinely inspired nature of her
work, she asserted that my soul became fired with a holy zeal for your cause;
every nerve and muscle in me was engaged in your behalf. I felt that I had a
10 Sterling, We Are Your Sisters, 157; and Shirley J. Yee, Black Women Abolitionists: A Study
in Activism, 18281860 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992), 115.
11 Elizabeth McHenry, Forgotten Readers: Recovering the Lost History of African-American
Literary Societies (New Americanists) (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), 6979.
12 Martha S. Jones, All Bound Up Together: The Woman Question in African American Public
Culture, 18301900, John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 26.
13 Stewart, Farewell Address, 6667.

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Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 29.2

great work to perform; and was in haste to make a profession of my faith in

Christ, that I might be about my Fathers business (Luke 2:49).14
As she continued the speech, she expressed that she had faced challenges
in her work. However, despite the challenges, she persevered by reflecting on
the fact that it was only through divine intervention that she received the ability to speak out against injustice. She justified her divinely authorized mandate
with words from Isa 55:9: For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are
his ways above our ways, and his thoughts above our thoughts. She then added,
I believe, that for wise and holy purposes, best known to himself, he hath unloosed my tongue and put his word into my mouth, in order to confound and
put all those to shame that have rose up against me.15
Stewart reinforced her message and claimed to have spiritual weaponry,
echoing words and imagery from the book of Revelation: For he hath clothed
my face with steel, and lined my forehead with brass. He hath put his testimony
within me, and engraven his seal on my forehead. And with these weapons I
have indeed set the fiends of earth and hell at defiance.16 She then argued
for womens general right to speak in public and for her own role as political
prophet. She established her case for a womans right to speak by asking a series
of rhetorical questions about the leadership and accomplishment of well-known
biblical women, such as Deborah, Esther, Mary Magdalene, and the unnamed
woman of Samaria: What if I am a woman; is not the God of ancient times the
God of these modern days? Did he not raise up Deborah, to be a mother, and
a judge in Israel? Did not queen Esther save the lives of the Jews? And Mary
Magdalene first declared the resurrection of Christ from the dead? Come, said
the woman of Samaria, and see a man that hath told me all things that ever I
did, is not this the Christ?17
She then refuted Pauls claim against a womans right to speak in public by
asserting that Jesus, our great High Priest, would prove Paul to be in error:
St. Paul declared that it was a shame for a woman to speak in public, yet
our great High Priest and Advocate did not condemn the woman for a
more notorious offence than this; neither will he condemn this worthless worm. The bruised reed he will not break, and the smoking flax he
will not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory. Did St. Paul
but know of our wrongs and deprivations, I presume he would make no
objections to our pleading in public for our rights. Again; holy women
ministered unto Christ and the apostles; and women of refinement in
all ages, more or less, have had a voice in moral, religious and political
subjects. Again; why the Almighty hath imparted unto me the power of
14 Ibid., 67, emphasis added.
15 Ibid.
16
Ibid., 6768.
17 Ibid., 68.

Roundtable: The Future of Feminist Biblical Studies

145

speaking thus, I cannot tell. And Jesus lifted up his voice and said, I
thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these
things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes:
even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.18

Although the particular cause of Stewarts contention with the Boston community is uncertain, the above excerpts indicate that she responded to them
pointedly, using the biblical text to do so. She authenticated her mission by
using the words of Paul and Jesus as if they were her own, making a type of prophetic admonishment and claiming precedent for her work by placing herself
in the vocational lineage of well-known biblical women in order to support her
argument for women as vehicles of divine communication. She established her
credibility by using the Bible to identify herself as a type of prophetic political
figure who has received divine support, guidance, and strength to engage publicly in the challenges of the 1830s black community in Boston.
While my research focuses on African American womens uses of scriptures in particular, it contributes to a type of praxis that can be used to explore
the function of scriptures in the lives and work of women in general as well as
women (like my students) who are Latina. While the existence of culturally
influenced and nuanced scriptural practices is inevitable, the commonality of
African American and Latina womens experiences with the wider issue of intersecting oppressions of race, class, and gender provide an inclusive framework
through which to approach a critical feminist interpretation of womens scriptural engagements.19 As students like Jennifer and Karen continue to struggle
with issues of patriarchy, androcentricity, and hegemony, I encourage them to
consider how Latina women use biblical textstexts written in the words of men
serving to legitimate patriarchal power and oppression while rendering women
invisible or marginalto negotiate social and political power. This pedagogical
praxis lends itself to a critical feminist interpretation for liberation.20 Moreover,
related to the broader issues of feminist biblical studies I invite scholars to consider and reconsider the work that women (whether they are African American,
Latina, or not) make scriptures do in the struggle against injustice. To Maia
Kotrosits, I offer that a consideration of the work that women make scriptures
do supplements epistemological understanding that is both situational and situated. The universality of this emphasis on the function of scriptures is pertinent
to Kathleen Gallagher Elkinss case in favor of incorporating interdisciplinary
18 Ibid.
19 For a discussion on the paradigm of intersecting oppressions to analyze black womens experiences, see Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the
Politics of Empowerment (New York: Routledge, 2009), 11.
20 See an in-depth discussion on critical feminist interpretation for liberation in Elisabeth
Schssler Fiorenza, Changing Horizons: Explorations in Feminist Interpretation (Minneapolis:
Augsburg Fortress Press, 2013), 12.

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Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 29.2

connections in order to grant agency to children. It has significance for Melissa

Reids concern with the theology of the household and Jacqueline Hidalgos
attention to reading practices concerned with politicization of authorization. In
each of these compelling cases, I encourage renewed feminist collaborations
through continued deliberation on the functionality of scriptures in negotiating knowledge, advocating for the rights of children, reshaping memory, and
reimagining essentialist gender understandings of theology.

Biblical Studies and Childhood Studies: A Fertile,

Interdisciplinary Space for Feminists
Kathleen Gallagher Elkins
Dont you know about people this first and most crucial fact: every single
one is, and is painfully every moment aware of it, still a child. To get beyond the age of about eight is not permitted to this primate. . . . Its something people dont discuss, because its something most people are aware
of only as a general crisis of sense of inadequacy, or helpless dependence,
or pointless loneliness, or a sense of not having a strong enough ego to
meet and master inner storms that come from an unexpected angle. . . .
At every moment, behind the most efficient seeming adult exterior, the
whole world of the persons childhood is being carefully held like a glass
of water bulging above the brim. And in fact, that child is the only real
thing in them. Its their humanity, their real individuality, the one that
cant understand why it was born and that knows it will have to die,
in no matter how crowded a place, quite on its own. Thats the carrier
of all the living qualities. Its the centre of all the possible magic and
revelation.
Ted Hughes

In a letter to his adult son, poet Ted Hughes asserts that every adult is, in
some important respects, still a child; in the same way, an academic field, like
feminist studies in religion, remains shaped by its own childhood even as it has
grown and come of age. From its infancy, feminist biblical studies has been an
interdisciplinary fieldeven though certain narratives about the development
of feminist studies in religion suggest that interdisciplinarity came later, these
are fields that by necessity and by definition have been interdisciplinary (even if
there have also been learning curves and missteps along the way). Intentional,
committed, and sustained interdisciplinary conversation is a strategy to resist
 Ted Hughes, To Nicholas Hughes, in Letters of Ted Hughes, ed. Christopher Reid (New
York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008), 51215.