15 - Feminist readings of the Bible

Summary

This chapter presents the genealogy of contemporary feminist readings rather than the broad spectrum of personal names, examples and locations. The term gender-critical includes all these variants that feminist exegesis has engendered. The presupposition will be that it is epistemological changes that have made possible changes in feminist readings and inspired struggles for women's equality and liberation, not the other way round. A focus on past women's experiences gave feminist readers the key to unlock the biblical texts filtered by andocentric and access the social reality behind them, a reality far more complex than the texts allow for. The chapter focuses on how the development of mainly Western Christian feminist readings has been driven forward by changes in the reading subject, the reading position and changes in the status of the Bible. The Bible has been a political tool, a site of contestation and struggle, a weapon and a shield.