One of the basic tenants of feminist methodology in religion is the recovery of women’s history. There are many ways to approach such a task. In religions with sacred writings, one avenue for recovery may be reinterpreting them. This… Read More ›
Textual Interpretation
Ruminations on Emor by Ivy Helman
This week’s Torah portion is Emor, or Leviticus 21:1 – 24:23. It details purity and the priesthood including whose funeral a priest can attend, who can marry a priest, bodily blemishes and temple services, and under what circumstances daughters of… Read More ›
Shariah is not a Law by Esther Nelson
I will never forget the day Nasr Abu Zaid (1943-2010), an Islamic Studies scholar and teacher extraordinaire, told me, “Shariah is not a law.” In spite of his assertion, many people—both Muslims and non-Muslims—are convinced that Shariah is synonymous with… Read More ›
Divine Physics: A Poetic Reflection on Ecclesiastes 3:14 by Lori Stewart
Ecclesiastes 3:14 – I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all that should stand in awe before him. Nothing can be added… Read More ›
The Dog and the Divine by Ivy Helman
When I was in high school, I once gave a speech summarizing what I had learned about G-d through my dog. I still chuckle at the idea. I cringe sometimes and wonder what others thought of the piece. Oh, the… Read More ›
Garden of Eden Retold by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir
Today, I came up with a less patriarchal Garden of Eden story: Endelyn (age 7): “When I think of my soul, in my name “fire-soul,” I think of a powerful wind.” Me: “That makes sense, since one of the names… Read More ›
Plato’s Diotima as a Symptom of Psychosis by Stuart Dean
As I mentioned in my January 30, 2016 post, Grace Jantzen in Foundations of Violence makes a compelling case that Diotima is a fictional figure. She does not, however, adequately distinguish her from the poetizing female figures Parmenides and Boethius… Read More ›
Caroline Schelling’s 4th Letter by Stuart Dean
Caroline Schelling (‘Caroline’) wrote the fourth letter of hers that survives (the ‘4th Letter’) on October 7, 1778, shortly after she had turned 15, to a girl she met at boarding school who was to become her lifelong friend (Luise)…. Read More ›
Feminist Interpretations by Elise Edwards
I’ve written a few posts recently referencing biblical themes or stories. I’m not a biblical studies scholar; I’m an ethicist and theologian. So I know that ways I use the texts disturb some people who study them from a historical… Read More ›
“Dear Terrorist: Keep Up the Good Work” Said NO ONE by Valentina Khan
How much longer do I as a Muslim American female, have to deal with the “gang-buster,” terrorizing, “Satan” worshipers high-jacking my faith for the sake of trying to supposedly ‘preserve’ it? Who are these wackos and why do they seem… Read More ›
ISIS and the Larger Muslim Crisis by Hanadi Riyad
It is heartening to hear the many condemnations Muslim scholars have issued of ISIS and its methods and actions. One of the latest attempts comes in the form of an open letter addressed by a coalition of one hundred and… Read More ›
Painting Tiamat/Tehom by Angela Yarber
Today I am honored to give a lecture on “Queering Iconography: Holy Women Icons from Sappho to Pauli Murray” at the North Star LGBT Center in Winston-Salem, NC. So, I want to continue the theme of featuring some of my… Read More ›
The Declaration of Independence: A Misogynistic Mash-up of Greek Philosophy and Roman Law
Regardless of political identity in America there seems to be an almost religious reverence for the Declaration of Independence (DI). By far the most quoted sentence from it is the one that begins “We hold these truths to be self-evident,… Read More ›
Whose Sharia Is It? by Kecia Ali
It has been a lousy month for Islamic law. First, there was the kidnapping and threatened sale of Nigerian girls by Boko Haram, which claimed religious acceptability for their acts. As Muslim theologian Jerusha Lamptey opined, this is not my sharia. Then,… Read More ›
The Physician Luke, the Virgin Mary and the Poet Sappho by Stuart Dean
Since my last contribution to Feminism and Religion my interest in Sappho and her influence has led me to a detailed analysis of Luke 1:27-45 (hereafter, the “Conception Story”). I want to share two observations from that analysis that I… Read More ›
Dr. Debbie Downer Discourses on the Lives of Early Pious and Sufi Women by Laury Silvers
I’ve been called a downer because I take what seems like a jaundiced perspective on the early history of pious and Sufi women. There is a tendency in some scholarship, and nearly all contemporary popular treatments of these women’s lives,… Read More ›
Give Away All That You Have, and Then You Shall Receive…by Natalie Kertes Weaver
One of the loudest refrains I perceive in the Bible is the message that good spirituality means giving everything away. It is a radical concept that begins in an obvious way with material things, especially those that we have in… Read More ›
Jesus, the Woman at the Well, and the Meaning of ‘Man’ by Stuart Dean
The story in the Gospel of John of the encounter Jesus has with a Samaritan woman (hereafter, ‘the Samaritan’) at Jacob’s well (4:7-29) has attracted considerable scholarly attention. For an overview of some of the interpretive issues raised by it… Read More ›
On Reading, Not Reading, and Disagreeing by Linn Marie Tonstad
The theology blogosphere in all its glory has been alive in recent days with furor sparked by a blog post from Janice Rees at Women In Theology, where she discusses not reading Karl Barth, the heavyweight German 20th-century Protestant theologian,… Read More ›
Rescuing Martha from the Dishes: A Challenge of Retrieval and Proclamation by Mary Grey – Part III
Rescuing Martha – A Hermeneutic of Retrieval This is the last part of a three part post. Read Part I here and Part II here. Discovering another tradition means being open not only to artistic witnesses but to myth, legend,… Read More ›
Rescuing Martha from the Dishes: A Challenge of Retrieval and Proclamation by Mary Grey – Part II
What do the Gospels of Luke and John tell us? This is the second part of a three part post. Part I is here and Part III is to follow tomorrow. I now return to the story of Mary and… Read More ›
Rescuing Martha from the Dishes: A Challenge of Retrieval and Proclamation by Mary Grey – Part I
Introduction and Martha – Patron Saint of Housewives Here I explore a troubling issue for feminist biblical interpretation, namely the interpretations of Luke 10, 38-42, with specific reference to the figure of Martha, and the questions that arise when we… Read More ›
Imagine a Catholic Church that Loved as only a “Woman” Loves by Michele Stopera Freyhauf
I came across an abhorrent display of ignorance Saturday when reading an article quoting the Pope’s theologian, Dominican priest Wojciech Giertych, on why women cannot be ordained. This man is in charge of reviewing speeches and texts submitted to the Pope… Read More ›
The Ferryman by Daniel Cohen
She’s changeable in Her ways. She is power, love, justice, mercy, and also rage, anger, sometimes even despair and misery, and more besides. She once said, “I am all that is, was, and ever will be”. ~~~~~~~~~~ Would I like… Read More ›
There’s Something about Mary by Kecia Ali
Scholarly life – like life in general – requires balancing one’s own priorities with involvement in others’ project and plans. Say yes too frequently and you’ll never get anything written; say no too often and you miss the excitement give… Read More ›
Translations of the Bible (and Translators) are Important to Women by Jennifer Sharp
One of the most interesting topics is the theory that YHWH’s roots may be found in information about the ancient Goddess IO, and that YHWH is an inclusive name for an inclusive deity. Some years ago I read the Bible… Read More ›
“From Teshuvah to Justice: Jonah’s Call to Change” by Ivy Helman
(I offer here an abridged version of the sermon I gave on Yom Kippur (5773) at Temple Emanuel in Lowell, MA. The full version will be available on their website soon. The book of Jonah is always read on Yom… Read More ›
IN THE NEWS: Wives – Silent, Hidden, and Unnamed
“Jesus said to them, ‘My wife…’” It is now public news that there is a fragment of ancient text in which Jesus makes reference to a wife. Based on testing of the papyrus fragment the text is calculated to have… Read More ›
THE INTERPRETER; or An Introduction to Hermeneutics by Daniel Cohen
He showed us that every text contains two messages, one formed by the ink and the other by the spaces left between the inked letters, the material included and that which was excluded, and that the message was never complete… Read More ›
Working to Bring about the End by Elise M. Edwards
I was reminded that the idea of eschatological reversal can be a powerful image in the promotion of justice if we believe that we already are, or that we should be moving towards the ultimate end that remedies current injustices…. Read More ›
