This month’s blog post marks my 10-year anniversary writing for feminismandreligion.com (FAR) and my 122nd post. I would just like to take a moment to acknowledge this milestone and thank the community for both its dialogue with me and support… Read More ›
Textual Interpretation
Vayechi’s Take on Fertility, Women and Theodicy by Ivy Helman.
This week’s Torah portion is Vayechi, or Genesis 47:28-50:26. It is the last part of the Joseph saga (For my thoughts on two other parshot relating to Joseph, see Mikeitz and Vayigash). While there is much that could be said,… Read More ›
Heart Vibration: Biblical Poetry by Janet MaiKa’i Rudolph
My inspiration for biblical verses this month comes from the lovely and soulful translations of Rabbi Yael Levy in her book Journey through the Wilderness (subtitled: A Mindfulness Approach to the Ancient Jewish Practice of Counting the Omer). She has… Read More ›
Biblical Poetry, 5th Installment
This is the 5th in a series of work I have been doing to translate passages of the bible into poetry that strips out the patriarchal overlays. You can read the previous posts. In this installment I am grouping together… Read More ›
On Devarim: From a Feminist Perspective Problematic, but not Irredeemable by Ivy Helman
This week’s Torah portion is Devarim (Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22). In it, the Isrealites are preparing to enter the Promised Land, as the last of the sinful generation have died. Most of the parshah consists of Moses recalling the divinely sanctioned wars… Read More ›
Biblical Poetry, Continued by Janet Maika’i Rudolph
This is the 4th in a series of work I have been doing to translate passages of the bible into poetry that strips out the patriarchal overlays. You can read the previous ones here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part… Read More ›
Breathing Life into the Women of Chayei Sarah by Ivy Helman.
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 ›
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 ›
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