Abstract
This book is both readable and engaging. In her introduction, Gafney explains that this
text is written for those who read the Bible as a religious text, who look to it for teaching and preaching, inspiration and illumination; to offer religious readers an exegetical and hermeneutical resource that delves deeply into the canon(s) and draws on marginal and marginalized women as scriptural exemplars [p. 2].
The book divides into two major sections. About two-thirds is devoted to the Torah/Pentateuch, and one third to “royal” women associated with the monarchy of ancient Israel. To clarify what this book addresses, two definitions are necessary: Midrash, and Womanist.
Midrash is a type of literature, oral or written, which has its starting point in a fixed canonical text, considered the revealed word of God by the midrashist and his audience, and in which this original verse is explicitly cited or clearly alluded to” (G. Porton, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary). “Womanism,” Gafney explains, “is often simply defined as black feminism [2, n. 1].
Elsewhere she writes that most “simply, womanism is black women’s feminism. It distinguishes itself from the dominant-culture feminism, which is all too often distorted by racism and classism and marginalizes womanism, womanists, and women of color” (p. 6).
Gafney explains that
womanist midrash is a set of interpretive practices, including translation, exegesis, and biblical interpretation, that attends to marginalized characters in biblical narratives, especially women and girls, intentionally including and centering on non-Israelite peoples and enslaved persons … womanist midrash offers names for anonymized characters and crafts/listens for/gives voice to those characters.
She defines this “sanctified imagination … as a type of African American indigenous midrash” (p. 3).
Gafney correctly posits that the
Torah is instruction, revelation, and sometimes law. Torah (with a capital T) is the first five books of the Scriptures and all that is in them: story, song, genealogy, geography, legal material, and lessons from the ancestors. Torah (with a little t) is instruction and jurisprudence. So, while there is torah in Torah, not all Torah is torah, and there is torah outside of the five books of the Torah!
She goes on to point out that
Toroth (plural of torah) can be found in any of the many genres of the Torah. Torah then is the first five books, their teaching, in whole or in part, other teaching in other parts of the Bible, and religious teaching from beyond the Bible, in classical or contemporary midrash … The Torah is a locus of divine revelation (and divine self-revelation [p. 17].
There are over 110 “named female characters in the Hebrew Bible. There are hundreds more who are unnamed” (p. 9). “The women in the Torah are distributed unevenly.” Many are named in Genesis, fewer elsewhere, “rather, there are collectives—frequently national groups … Israelite women, Egyptian women, and Canaanite women” (p. 18).
In the first major section, Womanist Midrash on the Torah, Gafney devotes a chapter to each of the books of the Torah, Genesis through Deuteronomy. To highlight just a few from each division, these names include, among many more, Eve, Sarah, Hagar, Rachel, Leah, and Asenath. She mentions Shiphrah and Puah, Jochebed, Miriam, A Pharonic Princess, Women Who Give Birth, Women With a Skin Disease, Women of Moab, Cozbi bat Tzur, Captive Women, and the Slandered Chaste Woman.
In the second major section, Woman-ist Midrash on Women of the Throne, Gafney writes that there “is a surprising number of women in the books of Kings and Chronicles” and that she focuses on the “royal women of Israel and Judah, most of whom are least known…. Bath-sheba and Jezebel are perhaps most commonly known.” She uses the term “royal women” because the title queen is a bit of a misnomer in Israelite/Judean monarchy” (p. 183). She points out that the only woman in royal office who actually served as a queen was Athaliah, “the female monarch who ruled Judah for seven prosperous years. Her reign was longer than a number of her male predecessors and successors” (pp. 184–85).
Gafney approaches her subjects by first quoting a line or more from Scripture itself, words that give the context for her choice of character. She then analyzes this character, showing why she is important, and how she fits into the wider framework of that particular book. In some cases Gafney then writes her own take of the situation. She features this in italics, offering a kind of modern midrash, using her term, her “sanctified imagination.”
The biblical text is fundamentally androcentric and regularly (though not exclusively) patriarchal. Yet there are texts in which God or the narrator addresses women directly, texts in which … vulnerable people are the primary concern of God and the text [p. 83].
Still, there are many passages that chronicle the “experience of female slaves in ancient Israel,” which presage the “experience of enslaved African girls and women in the Americas and subjugated women and girls around the world.” Gafney then asks rhetorically, “How are these texts Scripture? … What enduring Word is there in these words?” (p. 82). Her answer to those questions is at the core of this fine work. The book is enhanced by appendices, references and indexes.
This commentary on Ecclesiastes is another volume in the Earth Bible Commentary Series, edited by Norman Habel. This series reads the biblical text from an ecological perspective that promotes “eco-justice,” an attempt to recognize Earth’s priority over humankind in order to save both planet and human race. In these commentaries the authors attempt to move beyond the discussion of ecological themes to a “process of listening to, and identifying with, the Earth as a presence or voice in the text” (p. 2), a principle avowed initially by the series editor. Earth must be allowed to interpret the text, as though it were the author of the commentary, and texts must be read from the perspective of Earth’s pain (p. 118).
The word, Earth, must always be capitalized in these commentaries. The Voice of Earth is to be heard in the text and sometimes placed in tension with the Voice of Economy, or the testimony of the rise and fall of peoples’ fortunes, wealth, or security. Throughout the series “Green texts” in the Bible are those wherein nature, creation, or the Earth community is affirmed, whereas “Grey Texts” are those which devalue, oppress, or deprive the Earth community (p. 3). In Turner’s opinion, the book of Ecclesiastes has no “Grey texts.”
Throughout, the book is called Ecclesiastes, but the author of the book is called Qoheleth. The series probably mandated the use of the title Ecclesiastes, but Turner, like many First Testament scholars and myself, prefers the name Qoheleth. In her exposition of the book Turner focuses on classic themes found in Qoheleth (oops, Ecclesiastes). These include: vanity, enjoyment of work and the produce of our labors, fragility of life, injustice of human existence, distance of God, inevitability of death, victimizing of the poor, and the limitation of wisdom itself. At times she relates these themes to ecological issues, but in most of her discourse she interprets the thought of the author as she deems appropriate. The book is short; so she selects certain themes to discuss at greater length than others, sometimes leaving out some of my favorite passages. But overall, the book is a good reading of Ecclesiastes.
The overall guiding message of the book is that all is vanity. This is Qoheleth’s statement that the Economic Voice cannot truly bring stable prosperity, a reflection of the social instability in the Hellenistic age in which Qoheleth lived. As we appropiate this message, the realization that all is vanity should not paralyze us from undertaking the daunting task of attempting to save the Earth. “Or does the voice of Earth in Ecclesiastes insist, against the prevailing economic wisdom, that it is possible to create life in the desert? … Where the ecological crisis at times threatens to engulf us, quite literally in some areas, the continuance of the cycles of life offers hope and encouragement” (p. 36).
She returns to the theme of work in Ecclesiastes frequently. In Ecclesiastes we are called upon to enjoy work and the relationship to the ground that it brings. We must find pleasure in our work, otherwise our lives will be miserable (p. 71). We must enjoy the produce of the earth we toil upon, says Qoheleth; but not be wasteful, Turner quickly adds, for the earth will not produce endlessly (which Qoheleth did not know). Enjoy life, says Qoheleth, and do not brood over uncertainly.
The inevitablity of death also receives her attention. Qoheleth declares that death comes to all, not that the great cycles of life will cease—but we today know otherwise. Turner observes that death is the way that “custodianship” of earth passes into new hands each generation, and we must prepare for this transition so that there will be an Eternal Earth for future generations.
It is fascinating to observe that as you read the commentary you will hear the voice of Qoheleth speaking vividly to you, but sometimes it is the voice of Turner. Her personal experience as scholar and sometime “farmer” in New South Wales enables her to speak dramatically. Her Australian background allows her to brings to the fore some of the severe environmental issues faced by that island continent, where, like America, deniers of climate change and global warming seem to have their say in the political arena in spite of the crises they face. The book is a good read on a critical subject. Tragically in America, where over half of our population denies global warming, the message of this book would not be welcome in the ears of most laity. But Turner encourages us not to despair in the struggle.
This latest book by Nasrallah, formerly Professor of New Testament at Harvard Divinity School and now newly Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale Divinity School, attempts to be part of three conversations: the History of Religions school of the early twentieth century, feminist and postcolonial criticism, and the “New Perspective” on Paul within Judaism—all at the same time incorporating archaeological insights to support that wider conversation. The organization of the book does not follow that of the Pauline letters, but rather a thematic approach that takes up in turn Philemon, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Corinthians, Romans, and 1 Thessalonians.
An introductory chapter on method reviews briefly the history of the relationship between archaeology and biblical studies, discussing several problems with which biblical scholars contend. The first is the assumption that archeology can “prove” the Bible, e.g., if it can be proved that the proconsul Gallio heard cases in Corinth, does that prove that Acts 18:2 is historical? The second is the Orientalist/colonial framework that has shaped much of Western biblical study and approaches to archaeology, as well as, e.g., reproductions of the “Holy Land” as a static entity to illuminate the biblical stories. A third problem is the assumption that the archeological landscape is obvious with no further interpretation needed. A final problem is that biblical scholars want archaeology to present hard evidence that will illumine biblical texts in obvious ways.
Subsequent chapters take up the themes. Chapter Two, “On Slaves and Other Things,” reads Philemon in the context of the slave market of Ephesos and specifically the Tetragonos Agora, the large market space adjacent to the harbor, dedicated not too long before by two Augustan freedmen, and because of a nearby dedicatory inscription, probably the location of a slave market. The commentary moves from Philemon to the Agora, to Paul’s use of slavery metaphors like the freedperson imagery of 1 Corithians 7:22–23. The chapter then moves to the ambivalent status of freedpersons in Roman society, then back to archaeology with the sacral manumission inscriptions of Delphi.
The third chapter takes up the theme of travel and hospitality in view of Galatians, suggesting the figures of Paul and companions as “heroic travelers” in Acts and Galatians 1–2. A reminder of the brisk travel activity in the area is an inscription of 14–19
The fourth chapter, On Poverty and Abundance, explores economic aspects of Paul’s letters, especially the language in Philippians about sufficiency (4:11–12), exchange (4:16–19), and koinonia, the business term for partnerships. Financial aspects of Roman rule and studies of the Roman economy are brought into play, along with inscriptional lists of donors to the cult of Silvanus on the ascent to the acropolis of Philippi and details of the excavations of the Roman city and its civic identity.
Chapter Five, On Grief, focuses on 1 Corinthians and Roman Corinth, suggesting that the uprooting of the destruction of 146
Chapter Six, On Time, Race, and Obelisks, associates Rome with “the Jewish question” in Alexandria and forward in history, as Paul’s letter to the Romans grapples with ethnic identity and practice. Augustus’ building of the Ara Pacis and his mausoleum after the conquest of Egypt two generations earlier set the stage for a trajectory from him to Mussolini via Romans and Luther.
The final chapter takes us to Thessalonikē and the issue of Pauline pseudepigraphy, the many things written “out of love for Paul,” as the presbyter protested in Tertullian’s report about authorship of the Thecla stories. There is a thorough discussion of the state of scholarship on how Paul was remembered and represented in the following centuries, beginning with Acts 17 and 2 Thessalonians, and including Thecla, the Letters of Paul and Seneca, the local Thessalonian heroines, Agape, Irene, and Chione, and many more.
There is much more to all the chapters than a review can present. Sometimes transitions from one part of a chapter to another are leaps not easy to follow, and the order of topics within the chapter is sometimes baffling. Some chapters simply take on too much to handle together. Nevertheless, such reflections give us “a place to reflect about our own world by wandering an ancient one that is familiar and strange by turn” (p. 262)