Feminist Theory and the Bible

Esther Fuchs, PhD, is the author of numerous academic books and essays in Hebrew literature, Israel studies, Holocaust studies and biblical studies. She taught for over a quarter of a century at the University of Arizona, as a tenured professor of Judaic studies, and prior to that she taught at the University of Texas in Austin and at Brandeis University. Her interest is focused on the intersection of gender, identity and scholarship in Jewish studies. Among her publications are Cunning Innocence: Ironic Art in S.Y. Agnon’s Work (1985 in Hebrew), Israeli Mythogynies: Women in Contemporary Hebrew Fiction (1987), Women and the Holocaust: Narrative and Representation (1999), Sexual Politics in the Biblical Narrative: Reading the Hebrew Bible as a Woman (2000), Israeli Women’s Studies: A Reader (2005) and Israeli Feminist Scholarship: Gender, Zionism and Difference (2014). She is the co-editor of On the Cutting Edge: The Study of Women in Biblical Worlds (2004), and her latest book is Feminist Theory and the Bible.

• 1. Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible2. Biblical Feminisms: Knowledge, Theory and Politics in the Study of Women in the Hebrew Bible3. The Neo-Liberal Turn in Feminist Biblical Studies4. Jephthah’s Daughter: A Feminist Postcolonial Approach5. Women as Prophets/Women in Prophets: Gender, Nation and Discourse6. Intermarriage, Gender, and Nation in the Hebrew Bible

This compact volume by one of the foremost contemporary feminist scholars of the Hebrew Bible packs a big punch.Feminist Theory and the Bible: Interrogating the Sources contains six well-defined essays, each of which can stand independently, but which together weave into a succinct yet remarkably comprehensive and thought-provoking assessment and interrogation of feminist theory of the Bible.... In the course of this introduction, Esther Fuchs constructs helpful thumbnail sketches and synopses of arguments, but her generalizations are never simplistic; only someone so completely on top of her game can pull something like this off so deftly.... [I] am left deeply admiring this volume and how Fuchs succeeds in being both concise and comprehensive; self-reflective, aware of the big picture, but able to provide insightful and pertinent detail; theoretically informed but also providing concrete examples. This volume distills significant contours and developments in feminist biblical theory and pushes them further, demonstrating in the process the significant contributions of Fuchs herself, which span over three decades. Feminist Theory and the Bible is erudite but accessible, and is consequently a rich resource for both students and scholars.