Afterword: Sof Davar Hakol Nishma?

Within the context of this volume, it is certainly ironic that the typical phrase for an afterword, , comes from Kohelet (12:13), one of the most misogynistic of all biblical texts. The preacher had earlier proclaimed (7:26) , "I find even more bitter than death the woman-she is composed of traps, nets are her heart, and fetters are her hands. The one who is found to be good by God might flee from her, but the sinner is captured by her." The stereotyping could not be worse in terms of the intensive entrapment imagery representing the woman, who here is viewed as everywoman-. Just as bad, or even worse, she has no autonomy; she is merely a vehicle for divine punishment placed on the earth. No wonder that two verses later, when this preacher is searching for a good person, we are told that not a single woman qualified (v. 28).

The treatment of Kohelet 7:26 in biblical scholarship sheds broader light on the stages of feminist study and on the essays included in this volume, which concern reading Jewish literary texts through the lens of gender. The standard modern American Bible commentary series is the Anchor Bible, and one of the earliest Anchor Bible commentaries published was on Proverbs and Kohelet, in 1965.¹ It does not even bother to comment on this verse. Kohelet is a guy's book, where the male protagonist lives in a rich man's club. The author of this Anchor Bible, like so many of his contemporaries, has bought into this world, where women are invisible, and these verses-which are among the most disturbing in Jewish literature-do not even rate a footnote.

Several years ago, the Anchor Bible volume of Ecclesiastes was redone,² and we entered a different stage of feminist awareness in the (still) predominantly male world of biblical scholarship; we have moved from absence and silence to apologetics. Women are no longer absent, and these verses are no longer ignored. But to this author, "the woman" of Kohelet 7:26 was not a real, flesh-and-blood woman, but the metaphorical "dame folly." Kohelet was no misogynist-he was condemning not real women, but an abstract feminine noun, , "folly." The real woman has again vanished, though she was briefly present. She now exists in metaphor only.

But not all read this section metaphorically or, should I say, apologetically. A recent article tells it as it is, viewing the woman as real, as representing the author's view of all women, who serve as "divine agents."³ This author has moved out of the world of deep religious commitment, which had typified much of religious and biblical studies, so for him, this woman is no angel: "In a sense, Qoheleth's worldview is one in which Eve has ganged up with God against Adam."⁴ This article represents the current state of the study of women in biblical studies: they are no longer invisible or metaphorical; they are discussed in mainstream journals that are not "malestream" journals;⁵ and apologetics, explaining away the problematic depictions of women in the Bible, is no longer the rule.⁶

There are other indications as well that biblical women have made it. Enough has been published for a huge anthology, Women in the Hebrew Bible, of over 500 pages, with a tightly packed, ten-page selected bibliography, to be published by a major publisher.⁷ Even general surveys on biblical literature remember that women, who were approximately one half of the population, deserve to be studied.⁸

The first piece for this volume of Prooftexts, a review essay, reflects the fact that the field of gender in the Bible is a relatively mature one, having recently celebrated its twenty-fifth birthday.⁹ It is old enough for its development to have been surveyed by a journalist in a book,¹⁰ men now regularly contribute to the field,¹¹ and there have even been some joint ventures by male and female scholars.¹² One of the most significant indicators of the field's maturity is its ability to produce the Feminist Companion...