The Women of Genesis: From Sarah to Potiphar's Wife (review)

Hebrew Studies 32 (1991) 146 Reviews THE WOMEN OF GENESIS: FROM SARAH TO POTIPHAR'S WIFE. By Sharon Pace Jeansonne. pp. xi + 152. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1990. Paper. This book is a very sympathetic reading of the biblical narratives regarding women in Gen 12-50. Jeansonne begins by arguing that "until recently most modem interpreters of the Book of Genesis have displayed patriarchal bias" (p. 1). In particular, previous readers of Genesis have considered women "chiefly in their function of supporting men." Her book is an attempt to correct these previous patriarchal misreadings through focusing on the inherent significance of biblical portraits of women's lives. In order to do this she draws heavily on the work in literary approaches to biblical narrative by Robert Alter (The Art of Biblical Narrative) and particularly Meir Sternberg (The Poetics ofBiblical Narrative). Most of the first chapter is useful summary of her methodology, narrative criticism. This includes short, well-written sections on the following topics: characterization and dialogue. perspective and authority. ambiguity and gaps, repetition, combination and sequence of narratives, type scenes and conventions, names and epithets, and diction and setting. Chapters two through eight are each devoted to interpretation of biblical texts regarding women in Genesis: Sarah. the daughters of Lot, Hagar. Rebekah. Rachel and Leah. Dinah, Tamar. and Potiphar's wife. In each case Jeansonne argues that the biblical "narrator" leads the "reader" into a portrait of these women as (1) central and (2) at least as worthy of respect as the men in the story. Sarah. Rebekah, Rachel, Leah. and Tamar emerge as resourceful matriarchs, protectors of the promise, and recipients of God's blessings. Likewise, the narrator portrays Lot's daughters sympathetically , while depicting Lot himself as a brutal and neglectful father. Though Hagar appears in Genesis as the mother of an enemy nation, she is not caricatured, but rather portrayed as a powerless woman receiving divine blessing and protection. Dinah is a central character in a tragic and yet nuanced portrayal of rape and revenge. Even the negative portrayal of Potiphar's wife is partially explained by her status as "foreigner," and its xenophobic tendencies are balanced by the account of Joseph's subsequent marriage to an Egyptian woman, Asenath, the mother of Ephraim and Manasseh. Many interesting readings are interspersed throughout these chapters. For example, Jeansonne radically reinterprets the story of Sarah's laughter at overhearing God's promise that she would have a son (Gen 18:9-15). Hebrew Studies 32 (1991) 147 Reviews Many previous interpreters have seen this as a story about Sarah's doubting laughter and her denial of that doubt. Jeansonne (pp. 23-24), however, argues persuasively that when seen in the context of Abraham's prior reception of the promise (Gen 17), this story can be read as God's confrontation of Abraham for failing to tell Sarah of the promise (18:13-14) and Sarah's attempt to defend him (18:15). The above example illustrates some of the possibilities opened up by Jeansonne's decision to read the biblical narratives in their final form. In the above case she coordinates a story traditionally assigned to "J" (Gen 18:9-15) with one assigned to "P" (Gen 17). But such a focus on fmal form is not the only virtue of the readings in the book. Rather, it is full of interesting observations about narrative repetition, gaps, characterization, allusions, and other literary characteristics. Moreover, she judiciously refers to the Hebrew of her passages (transliterated and translated) in order to point out nuances, word-plays, and connections between stories. Finally, her special focus on female characters in their own right makes it possible for her to observe a number of new things about biblical characterizations of women in Gen 12-50. Within the context of that overall positive evaluation, some reservations are in order: (1) The entire book seems built on the presupposition that the Bible can say no wrong about women. As such it is most appropriate for those interpretive contexts where some kind of theological inerrancy of the Bible is presupposed. (2) At a number of points she is only able to secure a reading of these texts as...