Yahweh the Patriarch: Ancient Images of God and Feminist Theology (review)

102 SHOFAR Winter 1998 Vol. 16, No.2 Greek novels and early Christian novels; these comparative works are mentioned but described very briefly, probably too briefly, for the reader who has little familiarity with this body of literature. In addition to a traditional form-critical approach, Wills also asks the more sociologically oriented question ofwhy this particular geme ofliterature developed and became popular at this particular time. If"it is possible that Jewish novels were read by more Jews than any other type ofliterature" (p. 3), they provide a window into popular culture, a separate avenue ofentry from the more halakhic and theological literature of the "religious elite" that is often our basis of study. There is not space here to give a detailed comment on Wills' discussion of each individual book. Each chapter stands relatively independently and can serve as a helpful general introduction to the work under discussion. As might be expected, there is an emphasis on those features that are distinctive to the geme as Wills has defmed it, and a deemphasis on other elements that do not fit quite so neatly. Thus it seemed to me that Wills sometimes undervalued the didactic and religious elements of this literature, especially the significant prayer and hymnic passages in many of these works. In the first sentence ofhis introduction, Wills reminded us ofthe pioneering book of Elias Bickerman (1967) in which he explored Four Strange Books of the Bible, including Esther and Daniel. Wills has included even "stranger" books while at the same time demonstrating that none of this literature is so "strange" when it is placed within the broader context of literary developments in the Greco-Roman world. Eileen Schuller Department of Religious Studies McMaster University Yahweh the Patriarch: Ancient Images of God and Feminist Theology, by Erhard S. Gerstenberger, translated by Frederick J. Gaiser. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996. 168 pp. $16.00. The prominence ofYahweh, the name for God in the Hebrew Bible, in the title does not mean that this book focuses solely or primarily on biblical images of God. Rather, its major concern is for contemporary theological problems, particularly among Protestant Christians in Germany. A distinguished professor of Old Testament and Theology at Marburg, Gerstenberger is acutely aware of gender and class inequality in church and society, and he argues valiantly for egalitarian structures in contemporary religious and political institutions. Nearly 40 percent of the book addresses itself to such issues. Yet Gerstenberger is fully aware of how contemporary sexism is grounded in western cultural history, going back to biblical times. Hence his scholarly approach to Book Reviews 103 the flaws in contemporary institutions is to ferret out the biblical patterns of sexism, particularly in the gendered attributes of the single god Yahweh worshiped in ancient Israel. At the same time, his diligence in assessing the time-bound and historically contingent nature ofbiblical images for God frees him to reject the authority ofIsraelite ideas about God that do not serve contemporary theological needs and also allows him to value as meaningful for today the ways in which both women and men experienced religious life at certain epochs in Israelite society. An importailt and widely accepted premise of Yahweh the Patriarch is that biblical monotheism almost certainly did not emerge until the exilic period (sixth century BCE), even though postexilic biblical writers and redactors attempt to project monotheism back into the earliest periods of proto-Israelite and Israelite history. Archaeological data, extra-biblical sources, and biblical texts together reveal that female and male deities-including Baal, EI, Milcom, Asherah, Astarte, and the Queen of Heaven (Ishtar)-were worshiped by many Israelites, including even members of the royal family. Furthermore, women apparently participated fully in the cultic activities associated with those deities and probably were in control ofthe rituals for at least one of them, namely Ishtar. Concomitant with multiple deities of both genders and with women' roles in religious life were several instances ofpublic female leadership as well as ofdomestic female importance in preexilic Israel. But, according to Gerstenberger, the emergence of Yahweh as a sole deity, represented almost exclusively by male language drawn in large part from military images of divine power and victory, while...