Theology, Feminist

The Bible and Religious Texts

Feminist theologians have long established that the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, and the Qur'an were written within systemic patriarchal cultures. Patriarchy cannot be limited to sex-gender systems of inequality (i.e., male domination). Rather, the notion of patriarchy has been expanded to include not only sexism but also racism, colonialism, classism, and homophobia. Such oppressive conditions include the use of grammatical gender in religious texts, sacraliz-ing the experience of Man, and making invisible the struggle of all “Others” without power or privilege (e.g., women, racial/ethnic, sexual, and socioeco-nomic minorities). This andocentric language inherently marginalizes women and is designed to protect patriarchal interests in society; namely, property wealth and control over economic conditions. It comes as no surprise, then, that for centuries, the prominent interpretations of religious texts, and the texts themselves, have been male centered. This is partly because these texts are written in a dichoto-mous kyriarchal structure that juxtaposes positions of power and powerlessness (e.g., rich/poor, owner/ laborer). The role of feminist theologians is to subvert patriarchal biblical hermeneutics through methodological suspicion, historical reinterpretation and reconstruction, and recovering a library of religious works written by women.

Abrahamic religions arose within patriarchal social environments. Thus, the patriarchy often associated with these religions is more a product of the social conditions in which the traditions developed than any particular tendency toward patriarchy within the theology expressed in these traditions. A critical feminist approach to a biblical hermeneutics for liberation free from patriarchal tendencies takes its form in deconstructing the ideological inscriptions found in scripture. For example, by placing women and all Others in the center of early Christian struggles and history, a “New Historicism” is created in the spirit of a disci-pleship of equals. Historical positivism is rejected in favor of a “consciously constructed narrative” based on feminist historical reinterpretation and reconstruction. Women are able to act as subjects of interpretation and become resisting readers, choosing not to reinscribe and internalize painful andocentric interpretations. Prominent feminist theologians have argued that biblical hermeneutics are best viewed as rhetorical discourses. In other words, interpretation is based in part on the structural location of the reader.

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