I wrote this in 2009 as part of my capstone paper. Recently went looking for it and thought it would be worth posting.
Close study is a corrective to the view of the 19th century feminists that the Bible (only) denigrates women. Reading against the grain, placing the text in historical and cultural perspective, we can find traces of the voices of women who played significant roles in the creation of the Jewish people. Women’s stories in the Bible are fascinating and meaningful. Female characters are rich and there is a wide variety of interpretations given both by contemporaries and by the Jewish (male) tradition. The interpretations may be contradictory, but the rabbinic tradition itself teaches us to stretch our minds to find meaning in seemingly opposing interpretations. In the Talmud, when some disciples of the wise pronounce one thing and other disciples pronounce the opposite, a person asks
How in these circumstances shall I learn Torah?….“And God spoke all these words.” Also do thou make thine ear like the hopper and get thee a perceptive heart to understand the words of those who pronounce clean and the words of those who pronounce unclean.[i]
The questioner is confused because he hears from one wise person that an item is clean, and from another that the same item is unclean. He wonders, how can he learn Torah if there isn’t one objectively true answer? He is told to open his hears ears wide like a hopper, to hear all points of view, and to open his heart to understand both sides.
The interpretation of biblical texts involves listening to ancient voices as well as finding one’s own voice in a “circular activity of reading and making meaning. [ii] Halivni writes that we should communicate with the text, ponder over it, mediate on it, and discover its many nuances.[iii] According to Uriel Simon, the prerequisites for getting to the peshat are “philological exactitude, common sense, intellectual honesty, an open mind, and an awareness of the distinctiveness of the ancient text.”[iv] One must “enter into a dialog with the text, and thereby enhance one’s ability to listen to it on its own merits.”[v] Furthermore, “methodological awareness must go hand in hand with hermeneutic awareness that a text may tolerate more than one interpretation.”[vi] Tolbert writes that the idea of an “objective” reading of the text is a “fiction.”[vii] Charles Taylor writes that our grasp of a subject depends not only upon the object being studied, but also upon the student.[viii] We are reading ancient texts whose history is not well-understood, using the lens of our own experience. [ix]
One might ask: is the goal to uncover historical information, hear the voice of the text, discern the purpose of the author, imagine the response of the contemporary audience or draw moral/ethical/theological lessons for the reader and/or contemporary society? [x] Does one read the Bible as Scripture or as literature? Does the study have a normative function, or is the scholar interested in the influence of the Bible as literature upon society?[xi] Interpreters “may never agree on the purpose and function of the text, or on its usability for their different projects,”[xii] but understanding will be enriched by hearing many interpretations, by opening one’s ears “like a hopper” and getting a “perceptive heart.”
[i] bT Hagigah 3b.
[ii] This volume, then, hopes to be a self-critical reflection on the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of studying the Bible. The task of interpreting biblical texts, as we understand it as feminists, involves not just listening for ancient voices of various timbre, but also the discovery of one’s own voice as an interpreter engaged in the circular activity of reading and making meaning. Fontaine, preface to Brenner, Athalya and Carole Fontaine, eds. A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods and Strategies. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997 pg 13.
[iii] There is more to a text than meets the eye. Deliberation, indeed meditation on a text, yields not only new nuances that have not been contemplated before, but may also affect the very direction and purport of the text….Communication with a text means pondering over it long enough until it opens up and reveals the many and varied allusions that otherwise would have remained buried beneath the surface. Ochs, pg 30, quoting from Halivni, David Weiss. “Contemporary Methods of the Study of Talmud,” Journal of Jewish Studies 30 (1979) pp 192-201, at 193.
[iv] Simon, Simon, Uriel. “The Bible in Israeli Life.” In The Jewish Study Bible. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. pg 1998.
[v] Simon, pg 1998.
[vi] Simon, pg 1999.
[vii] I suggest that the fiction of an objective reading of a text asserts itself when the biases guiding the interpreter match closely the biases undergirding the evaluation group. Tolbert, Tolbert, Mary Ann. “Defining the Problem: The Bible and Feminist Hermeneutics,” Semeia, No 28, p 113-126 (1983) pg 118.
[viii] Our grasp of the other, construed on the model of coming to an understanding, is doubly party-dependent, varying not only with the object studied but also with the student: with the object studied, because our grasp will have to be true to them in their particular culture, language, and way of being. But it will also vary with the student, because the particular language we hammer out in order to achieve our understanding of them will reflect our own march toward this goal. It will reflect the various distortions that we have had to climb out of, the kinds of questions and challenges that they, in their difference, pose to us. It will not be the same language in which members of that culture understand themselves; but it will also be different from the way members of a distinct third culture will understand them, coming as they will to this goal through a quite different route, through the identification and overcoming of a rather different background understanding. Taylor 1985 ,Taylor, Charles. Philosophical Papers: Volume 2, Philosophy and The Human Sciences. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1985 pg 133.
[ix] Whether our focus is on what the authors or editors intended or on what we understand the text to mean, we are dealing with historical texts in ancient languages that cannot be understood without a knowledge of how the ancients used language. Thus all interpretation of biblical texts must be somewhat historically oriented. On the other hand, all readers view the ancient texts through the lens of their own experience. Thus, all interpretation is, to some degree, reader-response oriented. Nevertheless, some interpreters [30] are more interested in historical matters, others in literary questions, and others still in the psychological, sociological, and other factors that influence readers’ understanding of biblical texts. Bellis, Bellis, Alice Ogden. Helpmates, Harlots, and Heroes: Women’s Stories in the Hebrew
Bible. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994
pg 29.
[x] We consider the fundamental question at stake in the discussion: does the text have a voice of its own, which can be heard only if one suppresses one’s own; or, is the text itself mute, capable of being heard only through the diverse voices of those who read it?…To my mind the answer is not an “either/or.” Rather, it requires a more complex model of the relationship between interpreter and text. Readings from a variety of social locations not only reflect the minds of the readers,…but also bring to light or illumine different aspects of the text. Further, to read out of one’s own identity and social location does not make one incapable of hearing and learning from the readings of others…My own experience in biblical interpretation, and my readings of the work of others, have convinced me that reading from an “invested” perspective does not, in fact, render us incapable of hearing the voice of the text, of imagining the way in which the text might have been heard or read by its earliest audience, or of considering its impact on a contemporary reader who is unlike oneself. Reinhartz: Reading the Bible, Reinhartz, Adele. “Feminist Criticism and Biblical Studies on the Verge of the Twenty-First Century.” In Brenner, Athalya and Carole Fontaine, eds. A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods and Strategies. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997 pg 34.
[xi] To some scholars the Bible is both cultural product and religious literature – that is, Scripture. To them, the text of the Bible offers more than interest, education or entertainment; it exercises a normative function within their lives, thoughts and scholarship. They seek to elucidate the theological relevance of the biblical writings within the framework of their own religious and cultural contexts. To others, the importance of the Bible is located in the influence its texts and their interpretation has on almost all modes of human discourse, personal, socio-political and ideological. They see to lay bare for scrutiny the means by which the texts of the Bible can be used to manipulate human behavior. Their wish is that the Bible will exert authority only where its meaning has been fully understood and accepted. McKay, McKay, Heather A. “On the Future of Feminist Biblical Criticism.” In Brenner, Athalya and Carole Fontaine, eds. A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods and Strategies. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997 pg 60-61.
[xii] A feminist commentary must take into account many of the terms and concepts developed by feminist thinkers concerning the ways in which one can understand the texts that are being critiqued. There is no agreement among feminists as to the most important tool-kit of the feminist interpreter because feminist scholars hail from different disciplines, and are interested in answering different questions when approaching a text. Thus, for example, the literary critic will be interested in exposing the subtle literary techniques used to portray women in the text and to reveal the function of these representations within the literary creation. A social historian, on the other hand, would want to know to what extent these texts represent a historical-social reality, and to what extent they can be used to reconstruct women’s past. The two may never agree on the purpose and function of the text, or on its usability for their different projects. Ilan, Ilan, Tal et al, eds. A Feminist Commentary on the Babylonian Talmud: Introduction and Studies. Tubingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2007 pg 4.