The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible, edited by Susanne Scholz, offers a critical yet galvanizing glimpse into the future of feminist biblical scholarship.[1] The 643-page anthology, which features a diverse range of voices and stimulating topics, aims to inspire new “exegetical horizons” and relevant “hermeneutical ideas” in feminist biblical studies, particularly in response to globalization, neoliberalism, analog and digital media cultures, and intersectionality.[2] Scholz and her peers deliver. The volume is a powerful exhortation to feminist biblical scholars to integrate intersectional paradigms into their work, engage one another in dialogic conversations, unite against the obstructions of the academy and the Christian Right, and continue the good trouble of timely liberative biblical analysis.

In this review, I respond to Part II: “The Impact of Neoliberalism on Feminist Biblical Interpretation", which addresses neoliberalism’s impact on feminist biblical interpretation. Contributors include Esther Fuchs, John Fadden, Hanna Stenström, Teresa Hornsby, Judith McKinlay, and Susanne Scholz. Every essay is outstanding in its own right, and I lament my inability to give each individual thinker the time deserved. Nonetheless, I can reiterate their shared concerns regarding neoliberalism and their key proposals for how feminist biblical scholars can resist its influence.

a) Concerns Regarding Neoliberalism

Before addressing those concerns and proposals, it is important to briefly outline neoliberalism, which encompasses a school of thought, an economic ideology, a set of policies, and a mode of governmentality. Its primary motivation is profit. In order to ensure and maximize profit, neoliberalists promote autonomy, consumerism, capitalism, competition, free global markets, deregulation, and privatization. Over the last forty years, proponents of neoliberalism have successfully imposed market rationality from the corporate world upon all other aspects of human society, including health care, education, incarceration, and so on. Consequently, what were once (mostly public) services meant to enhance the wellbeing of society have become businesses preoccupied with efficiency and the bottom line.[3] Feminists have largely denounced neoliberalism as a plague on all our houses, widening the wealth gap and fostering inequity, commodification, and self-interest.

As John W. Fadden recognizes in his chapter, “Justifying (Feminist) Biblical Studies in a Neoliberal Age,” many humanities disciplines at liberal arts institutions have been forced to justify their own existence due to the neoliberalization of higher education.[4] While it is possible to use neoliberal principles to defend biblical studies courses, Fadden relays the implicit absurdity of doing so. The values and aims of the humanities are not the values and aims of neoliberalism. Biblical studies is designed to cultivate empathetic and socially responsible critical thinkers not to increase a students’ marketability or starting salary in a capitalist economy.

Hanna Stenström, whose essay focuses on European feminist biblical scholarship, has similar qualms. She claims the Bologna Declaration, developed in the 1990s by a coalition of education ministers, as another neoliberal process of “quality assurance,” requiring conformity (for the sake of the customer), quantification of research, and ultimately competition.[5] For Stenström, the “neoliberal university” is one more system of oppression, which “challenges the very identity of feminist scholarship and the very existence of feminist scholars.”[6] It rejects solidarity, collegiality, and collective research and isolates individual scholars all the while pressuring them to assimilate into the neoliberal paradigm.[7]

Esther Fuchs exposes how many biblical scholars have submitted to neoliberalism. In “Neoliberal Feminist Scholarship in Biblical Studies,” Fuchs exposes the theoretical flaws of well-known feminist biblical scholars and criticizes the neoliberal presentation of their work as “innovative” and “transformative” even though they “implicitly valorize” their own disciplinary methods and reinforce “traditional norms.”[8] Moreover, they have neglected one another’s work and rarely interrogate the conceptualization of gender or the assignment of different values to gender difference.

Along similar lines, in “Neoliberalism and Queer Theory in Biblical Readings,” Teresa J. Hornsby explicates how the Bible and its interpreters have prepared submissive human bodies for the demands of neoliberal capitalism with theologies of suffering and redemption.[9] The theological cue that one must yield to the dominant force to be of value or to earn the reward accommodates neoliberal exploitation, which encourages individuals to make themselves small, even submit to dehumanization, to earn financial security. According to Hornsby, it is the illusion of security, not false binaries, that ultimately holds society captive today. To get that security, individuals eagerly submit their “queer bodies, which are in fact, all bodies,” to masculinized neoliberal capitalist oppressors.[10]

Fadden, Stenström, Fuchs, and Hornsby all convincingly demonstrate how higher education in general and feminist biblical studies in particular have been challenged by or complicit with neoliberalism. Its ubiquity makes it difficult, if not impossible to escape. If a scholar is working in a university setting, then they are part of the academic industrial complex, bending to their customers’ demands,[11] competing for enrollment of bodies, and branding, marketing, and advertising themselves to increase consumption. So, what is a feminist biblical scholar to do in such an environment?

b) Proposals for Resistance

According to the writers under discussion, feminist biblical scholars can subvert neoliberalism by widening their scope to cultural and intersectional analyses, which engage contemporary issues and critique unjust systems. Stenström identifies critics who have already begun to blaze the trail of resistance and serve as models for other feminist biblical scholars. These including Esther Fuchs, Susanne Scholz, Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, and Caroline Vander Stichele.[12] Fuchs, herself, recommends that feminist biblical scholars follow the lead of the broader field of women’s studies and become an autonomous field rather than a sub-field relegated to the margins of biblical studies. In order to do so, feminist biblical scholars must codify a common discourse, replace method with feminist theory, and unite around a shared agenda.[13] Doing so would increase the likelihood of collectively exposing patriarchy, its intersections with other means of oppression, and generating “revolutionary social visions.”[14]

Fadden like Judith E. McKinlay and Susanne Scholz propose increased commitment to intersectionality. The latter two advocate for specific types of intersectional lenses that should be employed to address wicked problems, like climate change, border conflict, and migration, all of which are precipitated by neoliberalism. McKinlay advocates for the use of postcolonial feminist criticism, since its practitioners are generally committed to “ethical relations, justice, and equity.”[15] Additionally, they treat the Bible as cultural artifact,[16] which creates a space where critics can not only name and deconstruct colonialist notions in the texts and their interpretations but also read against patriarchal ideologies, which often (if not always) overlap with colonial ones. The instructive posture of postcolonial feminists is one of resistance, exemplifying what it means to lift up the marginalized, pursue justice, problematize entrenched thinking, and decolonize the text and reader’s mind.

Scholz’s proposition resonates with McKinlay’s. She discusses the development of a feminist biblical hermeneutics of migration, arguing that feminist biblical scholars cannot ignore the “exegetical problem” of massive social dislocation.[17] In order to take a more comprehensive approach to reading the Bible as migration literature, Scholz proposes a sociological framework for feminist exegesis. She, like all the other contributors, believes it is necessary for feminist biblical scholars to recognize, analyze, and evaluate how biblical interpretations transmit ideological claims that affect “geopolitical, cultural, and religious discourses and practices,” including migration. It is not enough to do textual analysis; one must engage in cultural analysis and expose how meaning-making – especially in relationship to the Bible – is contextual, socially located, and not value-neutral.[18]  The feminist’s reason for being is to challenge the status quo, resist patriarchy, expose unjust systems, and refuse to be “silent about or complicit with the various expressions” of neoliberalism or authoritarianism, including the “pervasive acceptance of migratory injustice.”[19]

Both McKinlay and Scholz remind feminist biblical scholars that the task at hand is personal and political. Though resisting neoliberalism can feel like an impossible task, every single feminist must persist[20] on the “stony but indispensable path” that is laid out in Part II of The Handbook and summarized here.[21] Feminist biblical scholars must:

• Collectively craft a focalizing political agenda and a codified common discourse
• Organize, and consult with feminist and gender critics in other disciplines, in order to create truly collective scholarship, researched and written together[22]
• Resist patriarchal, androcentric, colonial, and heteronormative structures of domination
• Counter binaries and read against naturalized or essentialized views of gender and sexuality
• Promote intersectional analysis
• Recover and implement alternative readings
• Bring minoritized and marginalized voices to the table (including the voices of Nature and our more-than-human siblings)
• Connect with various religious and intellectual traditions
• Nurture empathetic thought and practice
• Encourage justice, equity, and peace (in collaboration with other global powers)
• (Advocate for sustainable [e.g., circular, steady state] economies and sustainable practices)

I have added (in parentheticals) my own additions to the path. They could arguably fall under other bulleted actions, particularly, “Resist patriarchal, androcentric, colonial, and heteronormative structures of domination.” Nonetheless, I want to draw special attention to ecological concerns. As we spin dreams of a better, queerer tomorrow, we need to heed the cries of the earth too.[23] “Queer bodies” are not the only bodies that are feminized, colonized, oppressed, and exploited in the neoliberal context.[24] “Mother” Nature’s “body” is too. Similarly, homo sapiens are not the only migrants displaced by the negative impacts of neoliberalism. Millions of other animal species are too.[25] We, humans, must remember that we are not the only ones suffering in the Anthropocene.

So that we do not forget, I suggest that feminist biblical scholars expand their frame of reference even further to a sustainable, global framework. We ought not mistake anthropocentrism as the antidote for androcentrism. We cannot save the humanities, without saving the earth’s ecosystems. We cannot achieve justice for the marginalized communities without achieving justice for all biological communities. We cannot address migration without addressing the land and the human-made borders that hinder survival. If feminist biblical scholars genuinely want an alternative world, with more equitable social and economic structures, then we must situate our work within the bigger picture of planetary wellbeing, which requires balance within and between the social (people), economic (prosperity), and ecological (planet) spheres.

A sustainable framework also complements intersectional feminism since both recognize the complexities of identity and hope to intervene in the interlocking systems of oppression that exacerbate injustice. As sustainable development becomes a critical imperative internationally, feminist biblical scholars have an opportunity to collaborate with global powers, such as the United Nations, on these shared objectives. According to the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, they are working to eradicate poverty, combat inequalities, build peaceful, just, and inclusive societies, protect human rights, promote gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, and ensure the protection of the planet and its resources.[26] Feminist biblical scholars can and should participate in these larger global campaigns and offer our unique expertise to the collective effort.

c) Concluding Remarks

The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible will have a lengthy shelf life. The whole volume is impressive, and Part II skillfully balances critique and resistance with prophetic imagination and hope. The Handbook is a monumental and thought-provoking work that I will return to again and again.

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[1] Susanne Scholz, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021).

[2] Scholz suggests readers view the tome as a complement to and “unofficial fourth volume” of her Feminist Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Retrospect. 3 vols. (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2013–16), xxv.

[3] To advance their own interests, neoliberalists has fostered distrust in, if not vilification of, government-run services and public institutions.

[4] In Susanne Scholz, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 181–98.

[5] Hanna Stenström, “European Feminist Biblical Scholarship in the Neoliberal Era,” in The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible, ed. Susanne Scholz (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 199–212; here 201.

[6] Stenström, “European Feminist,” 200.

[7] Stenström, “European Feminist,” 206.

[8] Fuchs, “Neoliberal Feminist Scholarship,” in The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible, ed. Susanne Scholz (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 159–79; here 168.

[9] For example, the suffering servant in Isaiah 53, who is like a lamb led to the slaughter, becomes an exemplar, or Gideon, who makes himself dangerously vulnerable to earn God’s protection in Judges 7 is celebrated (Hornsby, “Neoliberalism and Queer Theory,” in The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible, ed. Susanne Scholz (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 213–29; here 220–27.

[10] Hornsby, “Neoliberalism and Queer Theory,” in Susanne Scholz, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 228.

[11] These include job training and marketable workplace skills alongside a “vacation-like” experience (with state-of-the-art classrooms and dorms and an abundance of extra-curricular activities).

[12] See, e.g., Esther Fuchs, “Reclaiming the Hebrew Bible for Women: The Neoliberal Turn in Contemporary Feminist Scholarship,” JFSR 24.2 (2008): 45–65; Susanne Scholz, ed., Introducing the Women’s Hebrew Bible: Feminism, Gender Justice, and the Study of the Old Testament, 2nd ed. (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017); Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, ed., Feminist Biblical Studies in the Twentieth Century: Scholarship and Movement. The Bible and Women 9:1 (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2014); ibid., “Feminist Remappings in Times of Neoliberalism,” in The Bible and Feminism: Remapping the Field, ed. Yvonne Sherwood with the assistance of Anna Fisk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 170–85; Caroline Vander Stichele, “Is Don Quixote Fighting Windmills? Gendering New Testament Studies in the Netherlands,” lectio difficilior: European Electronic Journal for Feminist Exegesis (1/2013): http://www.lectio.unibe.ch/13_1/vander_stichele_caroline_is_don_quixote_fighting_windmills.html.

[13] Fuchs, “Neoliberal Feminist Scholarship,” 162.

[14] Fuchs, “Neoliberal Feminist Scholarship,”164. Stenström concurs.

[15] McKinlay, “Biblical Border Slippage and Feminist Postcolonial Criticism,” in The Handbook, 231–46; here 245.

[16] That is, as a text infused with the prejudices of its authors, who rarely gave authentic voice to women or the subaltern (McKinlay, “Biblical Border Slippage,” 233–35).

[17] Scholz, “On the Development of a Feminist Biblical Hermeneutics of Migration,” in The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible, ed. Susanne Scholz (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 247–62; here 247.

[18] Scholz, “Hermeneutics of Migration,” 256.

[19] Scholz, “Hermeneutics of Migration,” 258. Scholz also proposes a radicant methodological position for a feminist biblical hermeneutics of migration. She borrows the term radicant from Nicholas Bouriard, who claims that it is a characteristic feature of our post-postmodern era. Technically a radicant is a plant, like ivy, that takes root on or above ground, and grows new roots from the stem as it creeps outward. Bouriard likens humans and our current migratory tendencies to the radicant, wandering from place to place and rarely putting down sedentary roots. “Radicantity” can disrupt one’s sense of identity if unwillingly uprooted, but it also presents the opportunity to engage in multiplicity and embrace a fluid sense of culture and identity. For Scholz, the beauty of radicantity is its “dynamic sensibilities” that “unbind from essentialist notions of monolithic origins and pre-determined end points.” When applied to Bible reading, a radicant position affirms plurality and not essentialism, potentially nurturing an ethical opposition “to the globalizing forces” of neoliberalism that instigate mass migration (The Handbook, 260).

[20] As a great teacher once advised, “It is not [our] duty to finish the work, but neither are [we] free to neglect it” (Pirkei Avot 2:16).

[21] Susanne Scholz, “Reading the Hebrew Bible with Feminist Eyes: Introduction,” in The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible, ed. Susanne Scholz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), xxiii–lii; here xliv; li–lii.

[22] Both Fuchs and Stenström also emphasize that feminist biblical scholars ought to call upon their scholarly foremothers, which they have tended to ignore.

[23] Ecofeminists and ecowomanists have already been doing this good work.

[24] See Hornsby, who claims that queer bodies are all bodies, and all bodies are “enveloped into and reiterated as submissive femininity serving masculinized power” (“Neoliberalism and Queer Theory,” 228).

[25] Animals have always migrated. What is distinctive at present is the increased quantity of migrants, their unusual patterns of movement, and the causes of such changes. Mass and itinerant migrations beyond typical patterns are primarily due to human-induced climate change and human-induced conflict over land and its plenty.

[26] “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” United Nations. https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda.