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25 Shaping the Discipline The Rhetoricity/Rhetoricality of N*T Studies My work1 has sought to integrate and transform elements of the the*logical, historical, and literary paradigms of biblical studies into a fourth paradigm of rhetorical-ethical inquiry and has done so in the framework and interest of a critical feminist hermeneutics and rhetoric of liberation.2 Feminist Standpoint and Theoretical Perspective As John Lanci has so eloquently elaborated in his discussion of my work, I have conceptualized and developed my approach in Rhetoric and Ethic in terms of my social-historical location as one of the first feminist scholars in biblical 1. For this work, see the following works by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983); But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation (Boston: Beacon, 1992); Jesus: Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet. Critical Issues in Feminist Christology (New York: Continuum, 1995); Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Studies (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999); Jesus and the Politics of Interpretation (New York: Continuum, 2000); Grenzen überschreiten: Der theoretische Anspruch feministischer Theologie (Theologische Frauenforschung in Europa 15; Münster: Lit, 2004); Wisdom Ways: Introducing Feminist Biblical Interpretation (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2005); The Power of the Word: Scripture and the Rhetoric of Empire. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007); Democratizing Biblical Studies: Toward an Emancipatory Educational Space (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009); Transforming Vision: Explorations in Feminist The*logy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011); and Changing Horizons: Explorations in Feminist Interpretation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013). 2. “Shaping the Discipline: The Rhetoricity/Rhetoricality of New* Testament Studies.” Also published as “Transforming the Discipline: The Rhetoricity/Rhetoricality of New* Testament Studies,” in Genealogies of New Testament Rhetorical Criticism, edited by Martin W. Troy. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014. 383 studies.3 Hence, I have sought to change and develop the discipline of biblical studies in critical feminist terms. It is significant that the renaissance of rhetoric corresponds to the five decades in which feminist biblical studies emerged and matured. The confluence of both developments has enabled and shaped my work. I understand feminist N*T/early Christian studies4 as an important area of scholarly research that seeks to produce knowledge in the interest of wo/men,5 who by law and custom have been excluded from philosophy, the*logy, and biblical interpretation for centuries. Hence, a critical feminist approach must examine the structures of kyriarchal (i.e., lord emperor, slave master, father, husband, elite educated male) domination that are controlling the production of knowledge in a given discipline. This kyriarchal pyramid of domination is structured by the intersecting social systems of race, gender, sexuality, class, empire, age, and religion, which, taken together, can result in multiplicative effects of dehumanizing exploitation and subordination of the “other.” The study of woman in the Bible was already flourishing when I began to study the*logy in the late 1950s. Virginia Woolf was correct in saying that just as the library shelves were filled with books written by men about wo/men,6 3. I understand feminist/feminism to refer to a social movement and a critical theory that endeavor to make wo/men (the word wo/men includes marginalized men) recognized as responsible citizens with a full set of rights in society and religion. For discussion of the various theories of feminism, see Theorizing Feminism: Parallel Trends in the Humanities and Social Sciences (ed. Anne C. Herrmann and Abigail J. Stewart; 2nd ed.; Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 2001). Feminist studies are not only gender studies but studies of pyramidal intersecting power structures such as gender, race, class, nation, religion, and culture. 4. See, for example, Janice Capel Anderson, “Mapping Feminist Biblical Criticism,” Critical Review of Books in Religion 2 (1991): 21–44; Elizabeth Castelli, “Heteroglossia, Hermeneutics and History: A Review Essay of Recent Feminist Studies of Early Christianity,” JFSR 10, no. 2 (1994): 73–78. For Jewish feminist interpretations, see the work of Esther Fuchs, Ilana Pardes, Adele Reinhartz, Tal Ilan, Amy-Jill Levine, Cynthia Baker, Alicia Suskin Ostriker, and many others. See also Esther Fuchs, “Points of Resonance,” in On the Cutting Edge: The Study of Women in Biblical Worlds. Essays in Honor of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (ed. Jane Schaberg, Alice Bach, and Esther Fuchs; New York: Continuum, 2004), 1–20. For Muslim feminist hermeneutics, see, for example, Amina Wadud, Qur'an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman's Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Barbara F. Stowasser, Women...

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