Four And Four - Strategies of Inclusive Hermeneutics

I took the time to type out Elizabeth Johnson's description of four assumptions and four strategies for opening up the Bible to women's lives and well-being from the video I posted a couple of weeks ago, mostly because I wanted to recommend them to someone but also I wanted to have them in a form more amenable to consideration.  So I decided to post them here, too. 

Reading The Bible From Womens Perspective

Over the last half century new generations of biblical scholars have emerged who interpret scripture with women's eyes, because most of them are women.  That is, from a perspective which explicitly prizes the human dignity of women and advocates for their well-being. Technically the methods they have pioneered are called "feminist hermeneutics"  from the Latin femina, which means woman and the Greek hermeneua (sp?) which means interpretation.

To interpret the bible through this lens one must begin with certain observations about the bible as a literary artifact and I will give four of them.

The first assumption one uses in this method is that for the most part the books of the bible were written by men, for men, from a male perspective and a in a social and political culture dominated by men.  That's almost not disputable.  And the texts reflect this patriarchal fact. They concern themselves primarily with the doings of men and they promote men's interests.

Second, the flip-side of this cultural reality is the texts pay little or no attention to women, regardless of the role women actually played in historical events, the story is told through the eyes of dominant men, which marginalizes women's experience if not overlooking them outright.

One incident that shows how this works is Jesus feeding the hungry multitudes on the hillside.  In Marks's gospel the story concludes, quote,"And those who ate the loaves numbered five-thousand men,"  end-quote. In Matthew's version we read, "and those who ate were five thousand men not counting the women and children."  Matthew chapter 14 verse 21.  "Not counting the women and children".  So the feeding of the five thousand was a lot more if you go by Matthew.

Now like those women on the hillside, the existence of innumerable women in the biblical story has been erased from the public memory of the written sources except when they were producing male heirs.  In the Bible we hear next to nothing about how the women of Israel or the early Christians discussed debated struggled with God, or found joy or comfort or challenge in their faith.  We get only a glimpse of their minds and hearts behind this veil imposed by the patriarchal shaping of the text.

The third assumption that feminist hermeneutics uses is that not only the original writing of the bible but the later history of the Bible continues in the hands of men within the patriarchal  structure of church and society.  Who decided which books were going to be chosen to be included in the canon or list of approved writings?  Who translated these texts into other languages who wrote the commentaries on the meaning of different passages?  Who preached publicly explaining these texts to lay folk?  All these interpretive moves through the centuries have been made from a male centric point of view.  And the result ensures simply, that a focus on men in the Biblical stories to the exclusion of women comes to seem entirely normal. 

So a fourth and final assumption women biblical scholars make is this, it becomes clear that the word of God itself needs to be liberated in order for  an inclusive world view in order to release its blessing for women.

Now, at times, or course good news for women does break through the biblical text.  Women are created equally as men in the image and likeness of God, we read, they are equally redeemed in Christ Jesus equally filled with the gifts of the spirit equally destined for life in the world to come.  In other words, women are beloved of God. But sociologically, you would never know this. From the little attention given to women in the text and the church that takes the Bible as inspired Scripture.

A principle that women scholars work with that helps liberate the text comes from the Second Vatican Council, The Decree on Divine Revelation.  The Council was discussing the fact that there are scientific errors in the text, at places, and also historical errors.  And they taught these do not have to be taken literally.   The Decree on Revelation says that "what is essential in scripture to be believed," and I quote, "Is that truth that God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation". End quote.   So salvation is the criterion.  And as with science and history, so too with culture.  Many women and men, today, do not consider women's' subordination to men to be the truth that God wanted written down for the sake of our salvation.  Therefore, we need to find a way of reading the scriptures that will release its liberating message. 

This calls for smart strategies that will interpret scripture in ways that are beneficial to all the members of the church.   And feminist hermeneutics has developed quite a few and we're going to present you just four and then work with them for Mary Magdalene. 

The first strategy . . .I call it the tip of the iceberg strategy.  The idea here is if women are in a biblical text at all, they must have been even more powerfully present in the original event, given the assumptions we've already looked at.   What we are dealing with in these instances are memories that are so strong that they simply cannot be erased even in the patriarchal retelling.  As you know with an iceberg they see ten percent of the berg and ninety percent is under water.  So, tip of the iceberg, there's much more in the event than we get in the text.  So whatever the texts report should be read as signaling even more significant activity by women at the time

A key example is Mary Magdalene and other women disciples at the end of Jesus' life.  They keep vigil at the cross,  they follow Jesus'  body to the tomb,  they go back to anoint Him on Easter morning, they discover the tomb is empty,  they are gifted with appearances either of angels or of the risen Christ Himself.  They receive from him the commission to preach this good news to the others.  You stop and think about it.  The men have run and hid out of fear.  I don't blame them, to tell you the truth.  The courageous presence and initiative of these women throughout the pivotal pascal events are foundational for the church.  They are the moving point of continuity through the text in all those scenes.  Without their witness, we would not know what happened. Their significance can hardly be overestimated.  So say, "tip of the iceberg"?

A second strategy is how to interpret absence.  If women are not mentioned in a biblical text, this does not necessarily mean they were absent from the original event.   They might have been but you can't automatically conclude that, you have to figure it out a different way.  As we've seen it was not at all unusual for a dominating perspective to overlook the presence of those considered of less importance and to omit them from the story that you're telling. We've already seen how Mark omits the women and children from the loaves and fishes story and if we had only his version we would not even see the uncounted women and children in our minds eye.  But their erasure is not necessarily historically accurate.

This strategy comes into play in the interpretation of the story of the Last Supper.  Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting has given us the picture of Jesus sitting in the middle of the table with the twelve men.   But remember this, throughout his ministry in Galilee Jesus hosted meals with the most diverse people sitting together at table as a foretaste of the Kingdom of God. Tax collectors, sinners, prostitutes, Pharisees, lawyers, along with his own disciples, both men and women.

Since the Gospels note that the women disciples followed Jesus on his last journey up to Jerusalem and then they were present at the crucifixion the burden of proof lies on those who would argue that they were absent from this last meal of Jesus with his disciples.  I personally cannot imagine Jesus saying to the women, "Ah, you go on outside and wait while I come in here and have this meal with my male dis. . . " he just never was like that.

At least one evangelist, Luke, seems to assume the presence of women in the way he depicts the group gathered in the supper room, Jesus with quote "His own" which always meant all of them.  And in the way he recounts Jesus teaching there which implies the presence of a group of disciples larger than the twelve.

So, absence, what do we do when women aren't mentioned, right?

A third strategy holds that women should be read into inclusive words.  By that I mean words that are not gendered one way or the other. And scripture already does this by reading women into male gendered words.  For example, Paul writes, in Romans, quote, "All who are led by the Spirit of God, are the sons of God."  He uses the Greek word "uioi" which means "sons".  But he's writing to the whole baptized community, not just the men.  Thus, women are to be included as "sons" of God.  With even more cogency, therefore, we should consider women to be included in words which are not intrinsically gender specific.  So we have words such as "apostle," "disciple," deacon," "preacher," "prophet," "missionary," "leader of house church," and "worker for the Gospel".   There are examples in the New Testament of women holding all those roles so we need to read them into those words when we see them generically.

This yields a wide-ranging picture of the participation of women in the ministries of the early church. 

A fourth strategy looks for the description behind prescriptive statements. Oftentimes rules are made to prevent a practice only because it is already taking place.  You don't make rules to stop something that isn't happening.   Thus a prohibition about women's behavior reflects the ideas of the men in the church  about how women should behave.  But such rules do not portray the historical reality of what women are actually doing.  For example, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, quote, "Let women be silent in the chruches for they are not permitted to speak but should be subordinate even as the law says," end quote.   Now, this text reveals what Paul would wish, interpreted with this fourth strategy, however, it reveals that, in fact, women were not keeping silent in the churches. They were speaking up, prophesying, preaching, and interpreting prophesy, since they too had been filled with the spirit of God.   The text is prescriptive, yes, but it opens a window to what women in fact are doing.   And let it be noted, we have no idea how the women in Corinth, in fact, responded to Paul's order.

So, these strategies, tip of the iceberg, interpreting absence, using gender inclusive words, and the descriptive-prescriptive distinction, these are some of the strategies that women's interpretation of the Bible is using.  It's turning women scholars into a kind of detectives, you get a detective idea that you have to dig in and figure out what's going on there that isn't immediately present on the surface.