Responding to Reviewers: Let’s Keep Our “good trouble” going!

When a Dominican tells a Protestant that the Pope might agree with this Protestant, the Protestant knows she is in trouble. Could it be “good” trouble that John Lewis (1940–2020), the US Congress representative from Georgia, always urged us to be in?

Allow me to thank the chairs of the two sections cosponsoring this review panel for their willingness to organize this panel. I also thank my colleagues for their time, effort, and thoughtfulness in preparing their reviews and sending them to me. It is a gift and honor to receive your collegial assessment of this anthology that took me almost a decade to conceptualize, put together, edit, and send off to the publisher in August 2019 as a full-blown manuscript of 878 double-spaced pages. I also would like to thank my 36 contributors, a few of them here in the audience, for their collegiality in the editorial process that ensured a coherent and readable book. Foremost, I thank my Oxford editor, Steve Wiggins, who guided me in publishing this anthology. Early on, when he was still working for another publishing house, we had a very different project in mind. After he had moved over to Oxford University Press, he encouraged me to think of the “handbook” format as an outlet for my ideas. When the book came out in 2021, I said at the time I would never edit another book. Of course, this promise was impossible to keep, and so just this month another anthology of mine came out focused on an exegetical area that my Oxford Handbook does not engage, namely biblical masculinity studies.[1]

My respondents picked up on a key idea that inspired me to produce the Oxford Handbook. Yes, Carol, Shelley, Rachel, and Holly, you observe correctly that I do think of my Handbook as the “unofficial” fourth volume to my Retrospective trilogy. My three anthologies, entitled Feminist Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Retrospective (Sheffield Phoenix 2013, 2014, 2016), survey and evaluate the accomplishments of feminist Hebrew Bible scholarship since the 1970s, addressing the biblical canon (volume 1), social locations (volume 2), and methods (volume 3). When I was working on the three volumes, I always wondered why feminist biblical scholarship is so conventional although feminist thinkers have always aimed to break free from androcentric boundaries and some even tried to move into “outerspace” to leave phallogocentric conventions and hassles behind. This “unofficial” fourth volume, the “shimmering diamond” as Carol puts it so generously, aspires to offer encouragement, inspiration, and permission to move beyond text-fetishized, antiquarian, empiricist, and kyriarchal ways of doing feminist biblical research. But have we done it? Carol suggests, perhaps a little bit tongue in cheek, that “this shimmering diamond … would probably receive papal approval” (p. XXX). Her comment scares me a little bit because it makes me wonder if my vision is too small and too limited. Or does her comment merely articulate a hopeful fantasy of a Dominican sister who fears charges of heresy and accusations of having lost her faith, if the Pope were to read her essay that is part of this anthology?[2]

Editing a volume over a ten-year period is a long time. Rest assured, I will not offer a source-critical report on the evolution of the manuscript that changed considerably from its conception in 2014 and long-lasting pregnancy to its eventual delivery to the publisher in August 2019, then a considerable waiting period for the baby (i.e. the proofs) and the final release from the hospital (i.e. the publication in print) in 2021.[3] Sadly, one dear colleague died toward the end of the editorial process. I dedicated the volume to her, our esteemed colleague, Judith McKinlay. She gave me her last written piece, telling me so on November 2, 2018. Three months later, on February 9, 2019, her friend, Sarah Mitchell, emailed that Judith had passed away the previous day, on February 8, 2019. Two years earlier, on March 6, 2017, Judith mentioned to me how delighted she was to be part of this volume because, as she put it, “[f]eminist engagement has been so significant for me, and not the easiest of roads to take.” One makes friends doing this kind of editorial work, although sometimes, alas, one makes non-friends for various reasons. As a sidenote, I advise newcomers to editing books: “Treasure your editorial integrity and do not lose it, no matter what.”

I wish to share with you how I arrived at the four main categories – globalization, neoliberalism, (digital) media, and intersectionality – that structure the 37 contributions of the volume. From the start I knew that I wanted to open up conceptually how feminist, womanist, queer, and gender-oriented Bible scholars might want to think about the possibilities of doing exegetical work in the field. By looking at the current publications, I understood that we are coming from around the world (“globalization”), have begun to interrogate critically the main socio-political, economic, and cultural framework shaping our various societies (“neoliberalism”), invest our exegetical efforts in analyzing digital and analog media appropriation of biblical texts, characters, and issues (“[digital] media culture), and often connect our various gender related research to variously defined intersectional contexts (“intersectionality”). Although my volume does not maintain that these four areas are exclusive, the contributions illustrate the scholarly creativity, energy, and benefits these areas have inspired. Although much of our collective exegetical thought is still heavily invested in a text-fetishized focus, a broadening of the feminist, womanist, queer, and gender-oriented agendas has been achieved, and the anthology reflects this productive methodological way forward. In my view, such a broadening is highly beneficial and intellectually desirable because it offers fruitful horizons for a field that is still largely controlled by literalist-antiquarian and even religiously narrowing ambitions.

I also want to highlight two insights from contributors analyzing the neoliberal impact on (feminist) biblical studies. I agree wholeheartedly with Teresa Hornsby’s observation about the ongoing limiting, and perhaps even silencing, consequences that scholars, especially biblical scholars, face in societies shaped by neoliberal systems of power. She observes in her essay entitled “Neoliberalism and Queer Theory in Biblical Readings” (pp. 213–229) that “[b]iblical interpretation consistently takes a leading role in constructing subservient bodies, normative desires borne of submissive tendencies” (p. 220), by putting itself into the “passive and culturally defined ‘feminine’ role.” As Teresa puts it, many exegetes accept “whatever ‘our Father, who is in heaven,’ dishes out” (p. 220). With examples ranging from Isaiah 53, Judges 7, the book of Job, and the use and translation of the verb “to rape” (înnah), Teresa shows that “biblical interpretation … produces theologies of subservience, submission, and security” (p. 227). This, then, is a current scholarly challenge feminist, womanist, queer, and gender-oriented Bible scholars face: how do we expose, deconstruct, and dismantle exegetical compliance and submission, and how do we resist the neoliberal logic when we analyze biblical texts and interpretations?

Interestingly, Teresa does not specifically examine feminist, womanist, queer, or gender biblical scholarship when she analyzes the neoliberal ideology assumed and advanced in texts and interpretations. I have quibbled with her about this issue, but another essay, entitled “Neoliberal Feminist Scholarship in Biblical Studies” (pp. 159–179) and written by Esther Fuchs, deals explicitly with the neoliberal assumptions embedded in feminist biblical scholarship. Esther focuses on the first generation of feminist biblical scholars who began writing during the heydays of the Second Women’s Movement. Esther asserts that they advanced neoliberalism by “legitimizing feminism as a viable and reliable scholarly project” (p. 159) and by ignoring “a more radical feminist interrogation” (p. 159). According to her, these early feminist works aimed to demonstrate “that women are just as important a topic of inquiry as men,” and they “highlight[ed] biblical women’s religious, historical, or literary significance” (p. 159), but they did not engage with feminist theory. Esther notes:

To the extent that the emerging field has followed the dictates of the liberal market economy according to which traditional academic benchmarks measure competition, productivity (relentless publishing), and success, and to the extent that the emerging field has sought inclusion, approbation, and accommodation within the confines of an already existing broader field, feminist biblical studies has followed a neoliberal rather that transformative trajectory” (p. 159–160).

In her essay, Esther examines the neoliberal tendencies of feminist biblical scholarship published during the 1970s and 1980s. She identifies five hermeneutical strategies in these works: the depatriarchalizing strategy, the historicizing strategy, the textualizing strategy, the mythologizing strategy, and the idealizing strategy. Importantly, according to Esther, this body of feminist biblical research, lacks “clarity about the mission and purpose of feminist exegesis” (p. 177). This point resonates with Holly Morse’s remark toward the end of her review when she asks: “What does it mean to do feminist critical criticism with the Bible?” Like Esther, Holly encourages us to “be able, willing and compelled to articulate why they particularly further[s] the feminist agenda.” As a remedy to this confusing situation, Esther proposes a shift from “the ‘biblical’ to the ‘feminist’,” making women’s studies “the starting point” rather than biblical studies, with the goal of “transform[ing] feminist biblical studies into a radical and transformative interrogation of biblical studies in general” (p. 178). I suggest we ought to follow Esther’s advice. We also need more systematic engagement with the various feminist biblical scholarship and with each other. Esther’s essay serves as a model for how to go about such work.

I am highlighting these two essays of the Handbook not only because I consider them “essential” reading, but also because I do agree with Teresa and Esther that feminist, womanist, queer, and gender-oriented biblical scholars are facing extremely dire times in the field of biblical studies, in academia at large, and surely in the world. When I organized the Handbook into the four major areas (globalization, neoliberalism, [digital] media culture, intersectionality) in February 2014, my main concern was to move the field of (feminist) biblical studies away from the text-fetishized conventions so dominant in the field. When I first started thinking about my response for this panel, I checked my earliest files of this project to see how it all started. I found the guidelines for the Oxford Handbooks that Steve emailed me in January 2014. The document explains how Oxford University Press defined this “exciting new initiative,” stating in the top paragraph:

Oxford Handbooks is an exciting new initiative from Oxford University Press. With contributions from leading scholars in a field, these high-profile and authoritative volumes are designed to fulfill a growing need across the humanities and the social sciences, with each handbook presenting the “state of the art” for scholars and graduate students in a key subject area.

How is that for an intimidating paragraph: “leading scholars,” “state of the art,” “key subject area[s]”? I thought long and hard how to fulfill this requirement, as I was not merely aiming to rehearse the field’s contributions but intended to include contributions that will move the scholarly discourse beyond the exegetical, hermeneutical, and methodological status quo of (feminist) biblical studies.

In other words, ten years after my initial conceptualization of the Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible, I again wonder how to expand further our feminist biblical interrogations even beyond the four areas of “globalization, neoliberalism, (digital) media cultures, and intersectionality.” The reason is that everything changed for me in March 2020, the year when my Handbook was patiently waiting for its publication release. Since then, I have come to understand that we are heading globally into the biotechnofeudal era, which includes the biopharmaceutical-corporatized-military-industrial assaults of the past four years. These developments have, of course, been going on for much longer, but I woke up to this global predicament only in 2020.[4] Today, in November 2023, I am convinced that feminist, womanist, queer, and gendered biblical scholarship, in its intersectional manifestations, must reorient itself to the vastly changed socio-cultural, political, economic, and religious dynamics in the world. We are not in 1971 anymore when mostly US-American white feminist religion and Bible scholars came together at the Annual Meeting of the AAR and SBL, humbly asking for an additional section on “women and religion.”[5] In my view, back then our intellectual mothers, whom I love dearly and to whom I owe so much, were far too humble with their demands.

My major question in response to my reviewers is this: What do we as (feminist) biblical scholars have to say in these dire times of ours? Or asked differently: why are we doing what we are doing? I assert that this question ought to be our central question, and my Handbook aims to offer some answers, but we might already need to add further issues to our agenda due to the global crisis we all have experienced since 2020. I suppose we need to keep searching for more answers and still more ways of doing feminist biblical scholarship. I am wondering, as we are moving deeper and deeper into the biotechnofeudal era, what kinds of feminist biblical investigations need to be added to our scholarly to-do lists?

Still, my hope is that my Handbook encourages colleagues, friends, and even foes to keep working their exegetical “magic” in ways that engage with the world filled with wars, bombings, death, pain, and enormous injustice. The sun is still shining and plants are still growing, but panic and fear are pervasive today and weapons of mass destruction keep being produced and used. Perhaps this is also what the Pope had in mind in his newest “Apostolic Letter,” called “Motu Proprio,” in which he calls Catholic theologians – no Bible scholars yet, Carol – “to prophetically interpret the present and glimpse new itineraries for the future” (p. 1). In my view, my Handbook offers ideas, directions, and bridges to develop such itineraries for (feminist) biblical studies, as my reviewers outlined in great detail and with considerable enthusiasm. Thank you for your careful reading of this volume and for being on board in continuing to charter a path into our feminist biblical scholarly future. Let’s keep our “good trouble” going!

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[1] Susanne Scholz, ed., Doing Biblical Masculinity as Feminist Biblical Studies: An Exploration (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2023).

[2] Carol J. Dempsey, OP, “Catholic Androcentric Bible Translations Global Missionary Tools?,” in The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible, ed. Susanne Scholz (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 37–52.

[3] The e-book was released on December 31, 2020 (see https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-feminist-approaches-to-the-hebrew-bible-9780190462673?cc=us&lang=en&), but the copyright page of the hardcopy of the book gives 2021 as the publication date.

[4] For an expanded discussion of my position, see, e.g., my essay “Discursive Interventions toward Gender Justice in the Academic Study of the Bible: A Success Story of the Neoliberal Age?,” in Religion, Women of Color, and the Suffrage Movement: The Journey to Holistic Freedom, ed. SimonMary Asese A. Aihiokhai (Series Feminist Studies and Sacred Texts; Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2022), 279–301.

[5] For a description of this request, see Judith Plaskow, “Movement and Emerging Scholarship: Feminist Biblical Scholarship in the 1970s in the United States,” in Feminist Bible Studies in the Twentieth Century: Scholarship and Movement (Bible and Women 9.1), ed. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2014), 21–34.