Roundtable on the Future of Feminist Biblical Studies

In response to the invitation to contribute to this roundtable conversation, I took it upon myself, in turn, to gather a roundtable of some of the youngest among our feminist-biblical-studies colleagues: undergraduate and young graduate students who have found themselves drawn to, and excited by, feminist biblical studies. These young, impassioned voices in the field, it seemed to me, might well have important contributions to make to a discussion about the future of the field and about how members of the next generation perceive their stakes in it.

I asked these young scholars to think about what they found most inviting and compelling in feminist biblical studies, as well as what was most challenging or troubling in their encounters with it. We also spoke about the kinds of issues and environments that would draw them into further engagement with this field or that would, conversely, discourage them from continuing to work in it. What emerged from our conversations was a strong sense of desire for collaboration and connection: across lines of gender, of nation and global region, of discipline, and, perhaps most urgent, between scholarly and faith communities. In addition, these young feminist biblical scholars express a longing to be mentored within relationships that model an activist, "feisty feminism" (Ariane) that they attribute to their mothers' and grandmothers' generations—a mentoring that would value their voices and insights among many others and provide a safe, respectful, nondisparaging environment in which to develop those voices and insights, and their own particular modes of feminist activism.

Feminist biblical studies captures the imaginations of my young interlocutors through the ways in which it "opens up breathing room in scriptural texts" (Beth) for both vital critique and creative appropriation. Feminist biblical studies provides tools to "deconstruct the weapons and dangers" (Rose) inherent in texts that "have previously offered only narrow and potentially harmful worldviews" (Christina) used to "justify exclusion . . . and all kinds of oppression" (Lindsey)—texts that, at best, "make it difficult for women to relate to and respect both God and themselves" (Anna) and, at worst, train us to "worship someone who abuses us" (Rose). At the same time, some of these young scholars have found "enormous potential for women's liberation in the Bible" (Lindsey). Through feminist biblical studies, "it has been liberating to learn about how translations of the Bible shape meaning" in conformity with dominant orthodoxies, and that other translational and interpretational choices are possible (Lindsey). "I have learned how much more support some texts give women than I originally thought," offers Lindsey, and Beth speaks of learning to "take comfort in the uncertainty that language grants us while believing in the endless possibilities of meaning that it bestows."

Although these young scholars resonate deeply with the authentic voices and rich potentialities they find in feminist biblical studies, they are also deeply troubled by the chasms and barriers that appear to separate the world of feminist biblical studies from other worlds we inhabit. Rose is excited by feminist critical studies that confront the Bible's "texts of terror," but dismayed by the paucity of resources that translate and make available this critical knowledge to survivors of sexual abuse within progressive—much less, traditionalist—faith communities. Phoebe has surveyed a wide range of "children's Bibles" and is bemused to find that none reveals the least impact of decades of feminist interpretive interventions. Given the scarcity of feminist-biblical-studies materials designed for young students or for religious education and congregational use, it comes as no surprise that many of the youngest scholars in the field echo Lindsey in wondering, "Why did I need to make it all the way to a college where, until this year, I didn't meet one other person who believed in God, to learn [through academic feminist study] these fundamental truths about my faith?" She continues, "It seems to me that religious people will never understand feminism, no matter how much work scholars do, until some of that work makes its way into...