Bible, Gender, and Reception History: The Case of Job's Wife

Katherine Low is Assistant Professor of Religion and Chaplain at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia, USA. She has published articles in JSOT, Journal of Religion and Film and Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, exploring the intersections of religion, gender, and culture.

• Introduction1.Eden's Dunghill and the Wife's Deviant Speech2. The Troublesome Trip of Job, His Wife, and Satan in Medieval Art3. Satan's Disappearance and Job's Wife as Renaissance Shrew4. Job's Wife's Place in the Woman Question, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries5. William Blake's Sublime6. Job and Job's Wife as Emanation7. ConclusionBibliography

Low examines how people understood Job’s wife in various historical periods. Shebegins in late antiquity, covering sermons, commentaries, and art pieces from the medieval, Renaissance, Reformation, and modern periods. The interpretation of Job’s wife through the ages reveals the prejudices of the interpreters, particularly their attitudes toward women and marriage. Over the years, interpreters compared Job’s wife to Eve, Satan, the ideal wife, and the shrewish wife. L. approaches her topic through the lens of feminist theory, or genders tudies, highlighting the woman’s voice in the text, often silenced or displaced by other concerns. She uncovers how patriarchal interpretation diminishes women. She says, “Job’s wife comes to represent a whole package of assumptions about marriage, female vulnerability to satan, and religious expectations of gendered behavior” (p. 23).