Again there are some who write us that our work is a useless human expenditure of force over a book that has lost its hold on the human mind. Most intelligent women, they say, regard it simply as the history of a rude people in a barbarous age, and have no more reverence for the Scriptures than any other work. So long as tens of thousands of Bibles are printed every year, and circulated over the whole habitable globe, and the masses in all English-speaking nations revere it as the word of God, it is vain to belittle its influence. I -Elizabeth Cady Stanton 1895, writing about the Bible in her introduction to The Woman s Bible

An eighteen year old feminist on the cusp of adulthood in the technological information age might hear the story of Ruth and Naomi in a Sunday church service and feel disgusted. Yes, she would say, I admire Ruth s loyalty to Naomi and the strength of their friendship but the circumstances! Ruth had to practically grovel at the feet of Boaz implying sexual favors in order for them to be saved. That is degrading for women. This young woman might then move on to thinking, The Bible is so outdated or What do I want to have to do with that book praised by white men? But the fact that the Bible is the best selling book in the history of the world and therefore a formative aspect of our culture, commands it attention. Women theologians of the Judeo-Christian faith are today returning to the Bible for self-affirmation as they hope to reconstruct and better understand lives of the patriarchal past.

Similar to the rebuilding of history, these women are using the historians method of questioning the assumption that men have made history while women have stayed home and had babies. (2) Additionally, these women are questioning translations and the meaning of well-known texts. As poet June Jordan referred to in her essay, Ruth and Naomi, David and Jonathan: One Love, we need to be more acute with our thinking. (3) Speaking to the young feminist mentioned above, Jordan would likely encourage her to reconsider her prejudicial views in hope of understanding the true message within. In context, this woman could discover that the patriarchal circumstances of the story reflect a way of life for Ruth and Naomi which does not diminish the beauty of their revered friendship. The importance of biblical criticism and feminism was early stated by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an abolitionist who helped create the Seneca Falls women s rights convention of 1848. In her introduction to The Woman s Bible, Stanton argued that it was important for women to know and understand the Bible because it was the document which men were using to legitimate the oppression of women: When, in the early part of the Nineteenth Century, women began to protest against their civil and political degradation, they were referred to the Bible for an answer. When they protested against their (4) unequal position in the church, they were referred to the Bible for an answer. According to Stanton, these occurrences spurred a general and critical study of the scriptures. 5 Later, Stanton discusses how women are afraid of critiquing the Bible due to the ideas which it prescribes for women. Most importantly, Stanton (6) believes the Bible contains the impress of fallible men and not simply of an omniscient God . Thus women have begun to look to the past to understand their faith in the present.

The biblical scholarship by women has varied widely in its specific methods and revelations although not in its general purpose. All of the feminists reconstructing the Bible want to return to the text and look for a new and true meaning. If one looks at the titles of many of these essays, the methodology and aim is clear: A Re- Visioning of Sarah, Eve and Adam: Genesis 2-3 Reread, or ... Reimaging Jesus.(7) Ellen Umansky re-visions Sarah, the mother of Isaac via midrash: One further direction that Jewish feminist theologians need to explore is related to but not identical with remythologizing. It involves paying attention to fantasies and dreams that seem to emerge out of our own experience of tradition.(8) Umansky explicates her point-of -view of a biblical passage which is partially drawn from her own past. Theologian Phyllis Trible focuses on translations and precise examinations of the original text as opposed to Umanansky s imaginative, experience related inspiration. In her essay on chapters two and three of Genesis, Trible emphasizes the importance of a translation by revealing that Adam or Adham originally means humankind. (9) Later, she shows the importance of painstaking reading by interpreting that Adham s rule over women after the fall is a perversion of the originally intended equal humanity. (10)

Womanist Delores Williams analyzes the Bible from notjust a feminist approach but from the African American perspective; she connects the black people s struggle from slavery and inequality to the biblical struggles. Williams speaks of Mary as a figure of the poor and of Hagar, the Egyptian wife of Abraham, as representative of black women." In her process of returning to the Bible, Williams initially re-images Jesus to get rid of the racism surrounding him and the idea of a white Jesus. Then she re-reimages Jesus to eliminate sexism and pay attention to Mary s daughter who is representative of black women. Through Williams re-imaging, Jesus becomes a friendly and empowering figure to the black people, very different from the slave boat with the same name during the middle passage. (12)

Among the many biblical feminists, Jewish Judith Plaskow most clearly outlines the process of biblical analyzing. Although her approach is intended for Jewish women, many parts of her inquiring process could be effective for Christian women. Plaskow seeks discovery of women s role during the long past of her religion: The Jewish community today is a community of women and men, and it has never been otherwise. It is time, therefore, to recover our history as the history of women and men, a task that will both restore our own history to women and provide a fuller Jewish history for the Jewish community as a whole. (13) Plaskow defines her purpose well when she says, We too were there. (14)

Plaskow calls her people godwrestling because they constantly struggle with the Torah, a process which causes one to emerge with a greater faith-based lucidity. Plaskow also stresses that the Torah is a living memory as well as that history is a major part of the identity of Jewish people since their religion is based on the actions of ancestors.(15) The first method for Jewish women to recover their lost past is through historiography: it assumes ... that the original revelation ... is not sufficient, that there are enormous gaps both in tradition and in the scriptural record, that to recapture women s experience we need to go beyond our records and add to Torah... (16) In order to add to the gaps, one has to study the history of the Jewish people, their day to day life, or archaeology. For example, Chava Weissier studied tekhines, or petitionary prayers of Eastern European Jewish women which revealed their unique religious perspective. When studying the herstory of Jewish women, Plaskow states that this process unearths the actions of women, something which is not always accessible via the Torah. (17)

Since many existing historical texts are often, prescriptive rather than descriptive of reality, one is forced to look to another method for the illumination of women in Judaism. (18) This second method is midrash, a process which rabbis have meditated upon for years. It involves taking parts of unclear passages and writing them out with inspiration, telling one what occurred or what that person felt. On midrash, Plaskow says, It stands on the rabbinic insistence that the Bible can be made to speak to the present day. If the Torah is our text, it can and must answer our questions and share our values; if we wrestle with it, it will yield meaning. (19)

The final method for Jewish women to connect with their lost herstory is through speaking/acting or liturgy and ritual . 20 By taking an active role women complete the circle of connection to their herstory because during the moment of reading Torah aloud, they are reaching into the past and bringing it to the present. Plaskow gives the example of Rosh Hodesh, a woman s celebration of the new moon as a ritual .2 1 The biblical analyzing process is significant because it gives clearly outlined steps toward recovering the lost herstory of women: historiography, midrash, and liturgy/ritual. The frustrated young feminist of this introduction could complete Plaskow s steps with the story of Naomi and Ruth. She could emerge from this biblical scholarship with a keener understanding of the multiple, intertwined layers of a cultural past. Frustration would be replaced by comprehension, giving way to an expanding curiosity.

Since this past year, I have believed in the importance of biblical scholarship. Ideas inspired by the Bible permeate English literature and the American consciousness. As women struggle to become feminists, they need to address the best-selling book in the history of the world. We need to be Godwrestling. 22 Although I have been skeptical of certain processes of recovering women s lost biblical voice (like midrash), all of these methods, when combined together, help one gain a better understanding of her past.

Notes
1 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Wise Women (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996),138.
2 Judith Plaskow, Weaving the Visions (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1989), 44.
3 June Jordan, Wise Women (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996), 25 1.
4 Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Wise Women (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996), 13 5. 5 Ibid.
7 From Wise Women, 359, Weaving the Visions, 195, and Delores Williams audiotape
8 Ellen Umansky, Weaving the Visions (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1989),195.
9 Phyllis Trible, Wise Women (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996),360
'0 Ibid., 365
11 Delores Williams, Weaving the Visions (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1989), 185 and audiotape
12 Delores Williams, A Womanist Re-Imaging of Jesus, audiotape.
13 Judith Plaskow, Weaving the Visions (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1989), 41.
14 Ibid., 48.
15 Ibid., 39 and 42
16 Ibid., 43-44
17 Ibid., 45
18 Ibid.
19. Ibid., 46.
20 Ibid, 47.
21 Ibid., 48.
22 Ibid. 42.

Works Cited:
Cahill, Susan, ed., Wise Women, New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1996. Plaskow and Christ, ed., Weaving the Visions, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1989.

Williams, Delores, A Womanist Re-Imaging of Jesus, audiotape of lecture at a Minneapolis conference, 1993.