Liberation Theologies | Bibliography | Women’s Pt. 1
Chapter 9: Women’s Theology, Part 1
Bibliographies
988. Ballou, Patricia K. Women. A Bibliography of Bibliographies. 2d ed. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1986.
Bibliographies for women and religion are treated on pages 93-98.
989. Bass, Dorothy C., and Sandra Hughes Boyd. Women in American Religious History. An Annotated Bibliography and Guide to Sources. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1986.
Books and articles, 568 items, divided into topic by general works, including feminist studies; Protestantism, historically and by denomination; Roman Catholicism; Judaism; African-American religion, native Americans; utopianism. Indexed by name.
990. Cantor, Aviva. The Jewish Woman: 1900-1980. Fresh Meadows, NY: Biblio Press, 1982.
Books, articles, and chapters.
991. Carson, Anne. Feminist Spirituality and the Feminine Divine. An Annotated Bibliography. Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1986.
Books and articles, 739 items, arranged alphabetically. Subject index. An excellent guide.
992. Choquette, Diane. The Goddess Walks Among Us. Feminist Spirituality in Thought and Action. A Select Bibliography. Berkeley, CA: Graduate Theological Union Library, 1981.
A checklist on the library’s extensive holdings in the field. Books and articles are arranged here by topic and then alphabetically by author. Some brief annotation. Includes reference sources, the Goddess in history and myth, new rituals, theory and research, and periodicals.
993. Farians, Elizabeth. Selected Bibliography on Women and Religion, 1965-72. Washington, DC: NOW, 1973.
Typescript, on books, articles, bibliographies, films, packets, reports, newsletters, organizations, and whole issues. Not annotated.
994. Fischer, Clare Benedicks. Breaking Through. A Bibliography of Women and Religion. Berkeley, CA: Graduate Theological Union Library, 1980.
Judeo-Christian, feminist and nonfeminist sources. Arranged by topic, then alphabetically by author. Not annotated.
995. Frazer, Ruth F. Women and Religion. A Bibliography Selected from the ATLA Religion Database. 3d, rev. ed. Chicago: American Theological Library Association Religion Indexes, 1983.
Articles, divided into subject and author sections, and alphabetically within each. Sections on feminist theology (119-21), the Goddess (pp. 134-37), lesbianism (p. 187), Catholic and Jewish women (pp. 379-81), women’s theology (pp. 384-92).
996. Hamelsdorf, Ora, and Sandra Adelsberg. Jewish Women and Jewish Law. Fresh Meadows, NY: Biblio Press, 1982.
Fifty items in English.
997. Heresies.
Volume 2, 1 (1982): 132-34 contains over 100 books on the great Goddess.
998. Kendall, Patricia A. Women and the Priesthood. A Selected and Annotated Bibliography. Philadelphia: Episcopal Diocese, 1976.
Books and articles, study papers and tape cassettes. Alphabetical by author. Annotated.
999. King, Margot. A Bibliography on Women and the Church. Saskatoon, SASK: Shannon Library, 1975.
Materials from 1970 to 1974 arranged by language. 1,000 entries.
1000. Leonard, Harriet Virginia. Women in the Bible. A Bibliography. Durham, NC: Leonard, 1977.
Arranged by books in all languages, in English, French, German, in other languages, with Duke University call numbers. Not annotated.
1001. Loeb, Catherine. Women’s Studies. A Recommended Core Bibliography, 1980-1985. Littleton, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1987.
Items on religion are presented on pages 331-44.
1002. Richardson, Marilyn. Black Women and Religion. A Bibliography. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1980.
Annotated, 867 items, books and articles arranged by author. Subtitles include black women in literature, music, reference materials, autobiography and biography. General index.
1003. Ruud, Inger Marie. Women and Judaism. A Select Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland Publishing, 1988.
Books and articles, 842 items, arranged alphabetically by author, with topographical, subject, and author indexes.
1004. Walker, Barbara G. The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. New York: Harper & Row, 1983.
An excellent source; articles contain bibliographical references. Excellent bibliography on the Goddess. See also Carson (991), item 682.
1005. The Woman in the Church. International Bibliography. 2 vols. Strasbourg: Cedric, 1975-1982.
Arranged alphabetically by author. Books, pamphlets, articles. A general index, and indexes by language.
Women and the Goddess
See also PeaceDocs, Texts, Earth Spiritualities.
1006. Adler, Margot. Drawing Down the Moon. Witches, Druids, Goddess Worshippers and Other Pagans in America Today. Boston: Beacon Press, 1981.
A fundamental work on the lost tradition and reemergence of the Goddess among feminists and those seeking a spirituality more in harmony with the earth. See Carson (991), item 5.
1007. Bachofen, J. J. Myth, Religion, and Mother Right. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967.
Basic research on the women-guided culture and mythology of the stone age that strongly suggests that the role of the earth and of its divinity was seen in feminine terms, and that these terms, the language of metaphor and myth have since been lost to linear, patriarchal forms of talking about divinity.
1008. Budapest, Zsuzsanna E. The Feminist Book of Lights and Shadows. Los Angeles: Luna Press, 1976.
Not seen.
1009. —. The Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries. Los Angeles: Luna Press, 1979. Reissued, 2 vols. Oakland, CA: SBA Coven, 1986.
See Carson (991), item 91.
1010. Cady, Susan, Marian Ronan, and Hal Taussig. Sophia. The Future of Feminist Spirituality. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986.
A survey of the nature and role of Sophia in wisdom literature. Topics include Sophia's place in feminist spirituality, in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, in the postbiblical era, in socio-historical context of the wisdom tradition, and Sophia's role in the future of feminist spirituality. Well annotated.
1011. —. Wisdom’s Feast. Sophia in Study and Celebration. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990.
Sophia, the Greek word for Wisdom, is the symbolic language used to describe the preexistent creative force of divinity that continues to guide creatures and creation: it is the Sophia spoken of in the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Bible, the Word in John’s theology of the Logos. In classical mythology Sophia is also the attribute of Athena, the ungenerated wisdom of Zeus, born of nothing and preexisting with God.
1012. Campbell, Joseph. The Masks of God. 4 vols. New York: Penguin Books, 1988.
—. Vol. 1: Primitive Mythology, pp. 299-354 et passim.
The religion of the cave-dwellers of Europe, and of Africa and central Asia, were bound together in the worship of the image of the Goddess who gave both life and death: the regenerative image of the earth, its bounty and the gifts of the hunt. For the earliest humans God was a woman.
—. Vol. 2: Oriental Mythology.
“Oriental” here means the mythological systems of the “nuclear Middle East,” originating in Mesopotamia, which Campbell takes as the originator of almost all current world mythological systems, via diffusion of peoples and archetypes. Intrinsic to these Oriental mythological systems is the predominance of celestial cults that either displace or transfigure the preexisting cults of the earth, associated with the Goddess.
Campbell’s loyalties are clearly with the latter, as they survived in the various cults of Goddesses in India, in Egypt, and in the Celtic and Greco-Roman myths of the classical and pre-classical periods.
—. Vol. 3: Occidental Mythology, pp. 3-93 et passim.
Campbell demonstrates clearly how the mythology of the pre-heroic age, that of the original planter societies, was one of the nurturing, yet also death-dealing, Goddess. The societies built upon this mythological world found their fullest expression in the life-loving, and apparently non-violent society of the Minoans and Anatolians before the arrival of the Indo-European and Near Eastern sky gods, including Zeus and Yahweh, and their lusts for power and domination over the older female principals. Good background.
—. Vol. 4: Creative Mythology.
Focuses on the legend of Tristan and Isolde, and of the related historical lives of Abelard and Heloise as paradigms of the modern age’s liberation from the bondage of old religious systems. Heloise’s frank, and heroic, embrace of her love for Abelard is a keystone in the recognition of the erotic. In the modern world these mythological archetypes and profound truths have been spelled out again in the fictions of Joyce and Mann.
1013. Christ, Carol P. Laughter of Aphrodite. Reflections on a Journey to the Goddess. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989.
The journey is that of the author: from the patriarchies and dominations of Christianity with its religious equation of sinfulness and earned salvation, to that of the Goddess and its embrace of creation, life, and a deep spirituality that integrates spiritual, physical, and emotional spheres.
1014. —, and Judith Plaskow, eds. Weaving the Visions. New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989.
An important, and excellent, collection of essays on women’s religious heritage in Jewish and pre-Christian religious systems; on the feminine divine, sexism and religious language, varieties of feminist theology, and feminist theology’s commitment to social transformation.
Contributors include the editors, E. Schüssler Fiorenza, Gimbutas, Spretnak, Alice Walker, Nelle Morton, McFague, Ruether, Delores S. Williams, Mary Daly, B. W. Harrison, Naomi Goldenberg, Carter Heyward, Thistlewaite, Starhawk, Sharon Welch, and others.
In a remarkable preface the editors confess their growing distance since editing Womanspirit Rising, (see 1015) as Christ has moved more toward the Goddess and Plaskow toward the reform of the Jewish tradition.
1015. —. Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979.
This is a classic collection of essays by some of the leading feminist theologians and theorists. Topics range from the relevance of traditional theology to women’s experience and needs, the rereading and rewriting of biblical history and dogma, the contextual situation of women changing the reception of their own religious traditions, and directions for the creation of a new tradition in women’s spirituality that resurrects the Goddess from obscurity.
The editors’ introductory essay is an excellent survey of the issues and research.
1016. Condren, Mary. The Serpent and the Goddess. Women, Religion, and Power in Celtic Ireland. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990.
The original religion of prehistoric Ireland was that of the Goddess of life and death, which was supplanted first in Celtic times and then definitely with the conversion to Christianity. The life and death of the Goddess reflects the decline of matriarchy both in Ireland and in the rest of Western culture. This book analyzes the implications of this shift, the possibilities for a resurgence of a feminist theology, and the problems that such a resurgence face within the Catholic church and society at large.
1017. Craighead, Meinrad. The Mother’s Song. Images of God the Mother. New York: Paulist Press, 1986.
A wonderful collection of forty paintings. Images include water, egg, cycle, mother and daughter, dreaming, rain, storyteller, hallower, changing woman, earth, weaver, moon tree, wisdom, maze, death, night, vessel, healer, journey, and woman as seasons.
1018. Davis, Elizabeth Gould. The First Sex. New York: Putnam, 1971.
While criticized for its lack of scholarly rigor and its clear-cut point of view, this remains a fundamental account of the age of matriarchy that gave birth to the first civilizations in the Near East.
1019. Dexter, Miriam Robbins. Whence the Goddess. Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press, 1990.
A survey of the mythological and archetypal powers of the great goddesses of the Near East, Egypt, the Mediterranean, and Europe. These include Isis, Athena, Shakti, Artemis, Hera, and Hecate. These goddesses reveal the divine feminine as enabling, strengthening, nurturing, and as the virgin, matron, and crone.
1020. Downing, Christine. The Goddess. Mythological Images of the Feminine. New York: Crossroad/Continuum, 1984.
Analyzes the meaning of the Goddess in Greek mythology to draw important conclusions on the nature of the feminine in divinity. See Carson (991), item 176.
1021. Eisler, Riane. The Chalice and the Blade. Our History, Our Future. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990.
Relying on such insightful researchers as Marija Gimbutas (see 1024), the author traces the shift from egalitarian, matrifocal, nonviolent cultures and religion to the violent, patriarchal, and hierarchical societies of the early historical period. Paralleling this is the shift from the cults of the earth-Goddess and her nurturing cycles of birth, life and death, to those of the sky-gods – Zeus, Jupiter, Wotan or Yahweh, and their violent, wrathful, and vengeful ways.
1022. Forfreedom, Ann, and Julie Ann, eds. Book of the Goddess. Sacramento, CA: Temple of the Goddess Within, 1980.
Not seen.
1023. Gadon, Elinor W. The Once and Future Goddess. A Symbol for Our Time. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990.
Uses the visual arts to trace the nature and extent of the Goddess cult in prehistoric and ancient cultures, its demise, and reemergence in modern times as a paradigm of feminist theology and liberation. The work of such modern artists as Louise Bourgeois, Meinrad Craighead, and Judy Chicago demonstrates the archetypal continuity of woman’s images.
1024. Gimbutas, Marija. The Language of the Goddess. Unearthing the Hidden Symbols of Western Civilization. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990.
Gimbutas is one of the leading archaeologists of Europe and the United States, and her work over the years has built up a coherent and to many, convincing, view of culture in Europe before the arrival of the Indo-Europeans. Her presentation of the artifacts and art of this civilization has also provided a generation of feminist artists with a working vocabulary and syntax.
Gimbutas contends that from c.7000 BCE to c.3500 BCE this pan-European culture was agriculturally based, egalitarian in structure, nonviolent, and dedicated to the earth Goddess of recurring fertility, life and death. With the arrival of the Indo-Europeans the archaeological record shows the first appearance of weaponry, fortifications, and patriarchal social hierarchies, all based around a cult of violent sacrifice to vengeful and aggressive warrior gods of the sky. This overthrow of the old Goddess is still reflected in the mythologies of Classical Greece and Rome and reveals to us a literary and religious counterpart to the archaeological record. Excellent background and data for the nature and role of the Goddess in both prehistoric and contemporary religion.
1025. Goldenberg, Naomi. Changing of the Gods. Feminism and the End of Traditional Religions. Boston: Beacon Press, 1979.
See Carson (991), item 269.
1026. —. The End of God. Important Directions for a Feminist Critique of Religion in the Works of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1982.
See Ruud (1003), item 270.
1027. Graves, Robert. The White Goddess. New York: Farrar Strauss Giroux, 1966.
Graves’ text is a “historical grammar of poetic myth” and a profound influence on modern poetry and on our appreciation for the myths of the Goddess. At the same time the mythology that Graves sets out to codify so clearly is that of the Goddess in all her manifestations.
1028. Haddon, Genia Pauli. Body Metaphors. Releasing God-Feminine in Us All. New York: Crossroad, 1988.
Not seen.
1029. Harding, M. Esther. Women’s Mysteries. Ancient and Modern. New York: Bantam Books, 1973; New York: Harper & Row, 1976.
First published in 1931 and a fundamental work. See Carson (991), item 286.
1030. Heresies. The Great Goddess Issue. Revised ed., 1982.
A collection of essays by Merlin Stone, Carol Christ, Lucy Lippard, and others.
1031. Ide, Arthur Frederick. Woman in History. Mesquite, TX: Ide House.
This series of over 100 volumes, either the dozen or so written by Ide or by others, traces the female role in religion and divinity from prehistoric to modern times.
1032. Iglehart (Austen), Hallie. The Heart of the Goddess. Berkeley, CA: Wingbow Press, 1990.
The subtitle reads “Art, myth and meditations of the world’s sacred feminine.” The author examines both ancient and contemporary manifestations of the Goddess.
1033. Keith, W. Holman. Divinity as the Eternal Feminine. New York: Pageant Press, 1960.
On a neopagan revival of feminist values.
1034. Kinsley, David R. The Goddess’ Mirror. Visions of the Divine from East and West. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989.
A survey of Goddess religion in East and West. Goddesses discussed include Durga, Kuan-yin, Laksmi, Amaterasu and Sita from Asia; and Inanna, Athena, Isis, Aphrodite and Mary from the Middle East and West. Well annotated, with excellent bibliography. A good introduction, especially for classroom use.
1035. Lantero, Erminie Huntress. Feminine Aspects of Divinity. Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill, 1973.
See Carson (991), item 380.
1036. Luke, Helen. Woman: Earth and Spirit. The Feminine in Symbol and Myth. New York: Crossroad, 1981.
Luke insists on the fundamental differences, both physical and psychic, between men and women, and warns that women who attempt to emphasize either the masculine or the androgynous do so at their great peril. This book is therefore an attempt to nourish the liberating forces of the feminine within woman.
She examines various goddesses and images: of the dawn, the hearth, mother and daughter mysteries, the mature women (straw and gold), relatedness (money images), and woman as avenger. See Carson (991), item 409.
1037. Neumann, Erich. The Great Mother. An Analysis of the Archetype. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963.
A classic work of Jungian interpretation. See also Carson (991), item 475.
1038. Noble, Vicki. Motherpeace. A Way to the Goddess Through Myth, Art and Tarot. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982.
This is an attempt to bring together the matriarchal consciousness that addresses the concerns of liberation, social justice, and peace through a meditation on the Goddess. Noble approaches the subject intuitively and through symbol, using a fascinating, newly created Tarot by her and Karen Vogel that expresses the wisdom of the female divine. This is in a tradition that stretches from the woman’s cave art of the stone age through to Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party. These are the sources of strength and hope that will help wage the struggle for these goals. Good bibliography.
1039. Ochshom, Judith. The Female Experience and the Nature of the Divine. Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press, 1981.
See Carson (991), item 492.
1040. Olson, Carl, ed. The Book of the Goddess. Past and Present. An Introduction to Her Religion. New York: Crossroad/Continuum, 1983.
Essays on feminist religion and the Goddess from many religious traditions. Gathers together the mythological data on the female goddesses from around the world as a handbook for the student. Good background. See also Carson (991), item 499.
1041. Perera, Sylvia. Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1981.
See Carson (991), item 516.
1042. Preston, James J., ed. Mother Worship. Theme and Variations. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1982.
Essays by Ena Campbell, Moss and Cappannari, Tullio Tentori, Joanna Hubbs, Jacob Pandian, Pauline Kolenda, P. F. McKean, Daniel F. McCall and others on the Goddess in the New World, in the European Madonna, the great Goddess in South Asia, and the divine feminine in Southeast Asia and Africa. Each article contains a good bibliography.
1043. Rae, Eleanor, and Bernice Marie-Daly. Created in Her Image. Models of the Feminine Divine. New York: Crossroad, 1990.
Addressing the nature of the Holy Spirit in Christian theology has led the authors to investigate the feminine nature of divinity, our use and misuse of theological language, and the symbolic nature of religion.
Discusses the nature of the Spirit as the feminine divine, insights of feminist and Jungian psychology to understanding this feminine divine, the Goddess and the destruction of “matristic” societies, androgyny as a model of gender relations within human society and within the Trinity, the personal conversion necessitated by the discovery of the feminine divine within our religious tradition and consciousness, and historical examples of women mystics from the Middle Ages.
The book concludes with a historical review of matricentric, patriarchal, ecofeminist, and feminist models leading to an “omnicentric” age.
1044. Rush, Anne Kent. Moon, Moon. New York: Random House; Berkeley, CA: Moon Publications, 1976.
See Carson (991), item 592.
1045. Signs.
This journal was started in 1975 for feminist scholarship and has become one of its major resources.
1046. Sjöö, Monica. The Ancient Religion of the Great Cosmic Mother of All. Barbara Mor, ed. Trondheim, Norway: Rainbow Press, 1981.
See Carson (991), item 625.
1047. —. The Great Cosmic Mother. Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987.
This is a remarkable work of historical synthesis and feminist theory and theology. Topics include the role of women as creators; women’s early religion, cosmology, mythology, and cults; the woman culture and religion of the neolithic, its myths, rites and sites; and the impact of patriarchal culture and religion. The final chapters of this hefty book survey the status of women and their religion in the modern world and the need to recapture the meaning and spirituality of the mother Goddess in order to heal us all. Excellent and extensive bibliography and notes.
1048. Spretnak, Charlene. Lost Goddesses of Early Greece. A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths. Boston: Beacon Press, 1984.
See Carson (991), item 635.
1049. Starhawk. Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex and Politics. Boston: Beacon Press, 1988.
It is no mistake that Matthew Fox (930-932) was silenced by the Vatican for refusing to fire this woman from the Oakland, CA institute where they both taught. Starhawk is a witch, that is, she is a practitioner of the ancient religion of the Goddess, the spirit of the earth that gives life and death to all of us on the planet, that teaches and nurtures and regulates all forms of existence. In this she is an adherent to a religion that antedates the patriarchies of the religions of the book and that survived the transformation of human society from one that respected the cycles and gifts of the earth to one that used the earth and its bounty as a mechanism: to be exploited and dominated. In this the earth shares the fate of women, children, people of color, and all the marginalized and alienated from the dominant centers of power.
While not all adherents of such neo-paganism or of new age spirituality are equally politically committed to new forms and structures of economic, political and spiritual life, Starhawk clearly demonstrates the essential link between the enpowerment of the individual, the couple, the group and the society and the issues of justice, healing, and peace on a global scale. Radical feminism thus arises from the same wellspring as a rejection of patriarchal ways of perceiving divinity both in the world and in ourselves, as the impetus to create new societies and groups within the dominant one, and thus to plant new seeds of hope in the darkness of a death-centered culture and politics. A unique contribution to all forms of liberation, peace and justice.
1050. —. The Spiral Dance. A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979.
See Carson (991), item 640.
1051. Stone, Merlin. When God Was a Woman. New York: Dial Press, 1976.
See Carson (991), item 646.
1052. —, as ed. Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood. Our Goddess and Heroine Heritage. 2 vols. New York: New Sibylline Books, 1979.
See Carson (991), item 644.
1053. Tucker, Janice. Way of the Rainbow Warrioress. A Practical Handbook of Wisdom. Parker, CO: El Rancho, 1989.
Not seen.
1054. Unique.
This journal publishes articles on the Goddess and feminist theology regularly.
1055. Walker, Barbara G. The Crone. Women of Age, Wisdom and Power. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988.
New trends in women’s spirituality have begun to reject the oppressive Judeo-Christian tradition and have instead turned to small groups of study, ritual and worship devoted to the prepatriarchal Goddess. This movement is private, home-centered, and thus invisible to the media and to a male-dominated church and society.
Yet this also poses problems, because without true material power women will remain exploited, no matter how spiritually free they feel among themselves. Walker advocates a new feminist approach to logic, ordering, and power that will not abandon but replace the current system. The greatest power that women possess is, of course, their power to love – but also to destroy – and this can be preserved and directed through an understanding of ancient archetypes embedded in pre-Judeo-Christian religion.
All these tendencies are summed and personified in the Crone – the venerable earth Goddess – neither virgin nor mother but powerful women, often feared and misinterpreted by male authorities as the marginalized witch, but never tampered with, and never controlled.
1056. —. The Skeptical Feminist. Discovering the Virgin, Mother, and Crone. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987.
Walker believes in a feminism that is morally, spiritually and materially preferable and better in itself than patriarchal systems. Females of all species are better able to nurture the young, are more intelligent, quicker, and more common-sensical. These are the elements of a skeptical feminism toward male ideologies.
Feminist skepticism strikes most deeply at male society in its understanding of divinity and the disastrous results of patriarchal theology. Here the cult of the Goddess brings the greatest challenge, since it fully reinterprets patriarchal attitudes toward the virgin, mother, and crone that Judeo-Christian traditions have perverted.
1057. —. The Women’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988.
Divided by topic into motifs, sacred objects, secular-sacred objects, rituals, deities’ signs, supernaturals, zodiacs, body parts, nature, animals, birds, insects, flowers, plants, trees, fruit and foods, minerals, stones and shells. Good bibliography.
1058. —. Women’s Rituals. A Sourcebook. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990.
Rituals of equipment and objects, techniques, physical rituals, mental rituals, rituals of play, guided meditations, celebrating women’s forgotten history, and seasonal rituals. Silence, invocation, planets, dancing, flowers, dolls, stones and cards, masks, banners, nakedness, the earth, “thealogy,” healing, baptisms and rites of passage are among the rituals clearly and even-handedly described.
1059. Whitmont, Edward. Return of the Goddess. Recovering the Feminine Aspects of the Soul. New York: Crossroad/Continuum, 1982.
See Carson (991), item 700.
1060. WomanSpirit.
A journal that publishes regularly on the Goddess.
Biblical Reinterpretation
1061. Arthur, Rose Horman. The Wisdom Goddess. Feminine Motifs in Eight Nag Hammadi Documents. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984.
See Carson (991), item 28.
1062. Bal, Mieke. Death and Dissymmetry. The Politics of Coherence in the Book of Judges. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
The book of Judges is a man’s book par excellence. It celebrates death in all its forms, most especially the murder of the weak and innocent. War, rape, murder, dismemberment are its delight. But Judges presents a frightening dissymmetry of death: women who kill men are politically motivated: liberation of their people is the motive; while men who kill women kill innocent young daughters. As in her other work Bal uses both biblical scholarship and the newer semiotics of deconstruction to unravel the mysteries of this text and to unravel its gender-bound violence.
Themes include the coherence of politics and politics of coherence: construction and deconstruction in Judges; the themes of virginity and its destruction; sacrifice and the violence of the father; the language of the woman’s body as a challenge to patriarchy; the home and unhomeliness; and the displaced mother. Excellent bibliography.
1063. —. Lethal Love. Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories. Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press, 1987.
This is a radical deconstruction of certain texts and biblical personages according to a feminist hermeneutic. Bal approaches the Bible, however, as a believer only in the primacy of the post-modern interpreter of texts: it is morally neutral, neither “feminist resource nor sexist manifesto.”
Bal thus delivers a series of reinterpretations of Eve, Ruth, Tamar, Delilah, and Bathsheba that stress only the value of differences of interpretation, in most cases away from misogynist traditions, to be sure.
Forms, frames, narratology, text, symmetry, power, the interpreter as the focus of interpretation.
1064. —. Murder and Difference. Gender, Genre, and Scholarship on Sisera’s Death. Matthew Gumpert, trans. Bloomington & Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1988.
Discusses the central text of Jael’s murder of Sisera in her tent in Judges 4 and 5. Yet, as biblical scholars have long emphasized, the two texts are very different, and tell remarkably different stories. Bal’s work examines these differences, contending that Deborah’s song of Judges 5 reflects not slight textual variations, but profound differences of outlook and context; they speak in very different “codes.”
These codes can be historical, theological, anthropological, and literary, according to the discipline examining a text. They can also be transdisciplinary: by themes or gender.
1065. Carmody, Denise Lardner. Biblical Woman. Feminist Reflections on Scriptural Texts. New York: Crossroad/Continuum, 1988.
The texts are careful readings of twenty-four passages in both Hebrew Bible and New Testament that analyze the place and religious role of women in the Bible and that reflect on the status of women today. See also 2.
1066. Collins, Adela Yarbro. Feminist Perspectives in Biblical Scholarship. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985.
Not seen.
1067. Evans, Mary J. Woman in the Bible. Exeter: Paternoster, 1983.
Examines the essential texts in both Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Good bibliography on the general question of the portrayal of women in the Bible.
1068. Faricy, Robert, S.J. The Lord’s Dealing. The Primacy of the Feminine in Christian Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1988.
Examines the conflict between the primacy of the feminine in Christian religion and the reality of women’s oppression and the suppression of the feminine in our culture and lives. The author contends that only by restoring the feminine will Western culture recover from its various ills.
Faricy takes insights from Jungian psychology and the life and teaching of Jesus to analyze various topics. These include the dualisms and alienations of our lives expressed in the personal and natural world, man and women, person and human nature; the mutuality of God and creation as expressed through the nature of Jesus in the thought of Jung and Teilhard de Chardin; “the eternal feminine” in Teilhard’s thought and its manifestations in the cult of Mary; Jung’s insistence on quaternity, rather than trinitarian thought; and the cosmos as the body of Christ.
One comes away from Faricy’s book with a sense of good intentions, solid Catholic theology, and the continuing cooptation of the divine female by the male theologian, churchman, and analyst.
1069. Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler. Bread Not Stone. The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation. Boston: Beacon Press, 1985.
Not seen.
1070. —. Foundational Theology. Jesus and the Church. New York: Crossroad/Continuum, 1984.
A feminist perspective on the origins of the church.
1071. —. In Memory of Her. A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins. New York: Crossroad, 1983.
This is one of the essential texts of women’s theology: for it breaks ground in the reinterpretation of women’s role in the foundation of the church and its orders that rejects the patriarchal rewriting of early Christian history and stresses the benefits of remaining within a tradition that can be made whole by such a revision.
1072. Fisher, Kathleen. Woman at the Well. Feminist Perspectives on Spiritual Direction. New York: Paulist Press, 1988.
This gathers the insights of feminist therapists, psychologists and theologians to derive a new feminist spirituality. It also derives from new readings of familiar biblical texts: of the images of women giving birth, yeast becoming bread, and the cosmic womb of Christ.
Topics include feminist contexts for spiritual direction, new models of holiness, and the image of the woman at the well, feminist approaches to theology, Jesus and women, new forms of prayer based on scripture; feminist insights into the process of discernment; the issues of women and power, which are the key for salvation and liberation; and the reinterpretation of power away from dominance to mutuality. The author also discusses the spiritual consequences and context of violence against women; nonviolence, passivity, and strength; anger, its origins and uses; forgiveness; and the spiritual meanings of motherhood, daughterhood and the implications for reclaiming a women’s tradition.
1073. Gottwald, Norman K., ed. The Bible and Liberation: Political and Social Hermeneutics. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983.
See 6. Contains essays by Schüssler Fiorenza and Schottroff.
1074. Grassi, Carolyn M., and Joseph A. Grassi. Mary Magdalene and the Women in Jesus’ Life. Kansas City, MO: Sheed & Ward, 1986.
A careful textual and historical study of the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene and the other women of the Jesus movement; provides valuable insights into the historical roots of women’s increasing leadership role in the church and in society today.
1075. Grassi, Joseph. Hidden Heroes of the Gospels. Female Counterparts of Jesus. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1989.
“Hidden” means both hidden from history but more appropriately here hidden as all the Gospels were hidden, sacred texts gradually unfolded during the celebration of the eucharistic mystery and drama. Analyzes the audience, themes, and dramatic discourse of each Gospel. The Marys, Jairus’ daughter, the woman with the hemorrhage, Peter’s mother-in-law, the Canaanite woman, the women at the cross are examined in a socio-political framework.
1076. Greeley, Andrew M. The Mary Myth. On the Femininity of God. New York: Seabury Press, 1977.
A discussion of the nature of divinity and of woman’s nature – both male and female – as revealed through Mary. Topics include a reemergence of the figure of Mary, the religious meaning of experience, material life, symbols, language, and sacraments; the androgyny of God; and images of Mary as mother of God, eternal virgin, both life symbols, and as sponsa (the sexual mate), and pietà, the mother that receives us back into death. Overall a delicate, and enlightened, treatment of the divine feminine.
1077. Heine, Susanne. Women and Early Christianity. A Reappraisal. John Bowden, trans. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988.
A review of feminist biblical scholarship. Heine first introduces feminist hermeneutics, its critics and opponents, then examines basic biblical themes before focusing on the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus.
Heine maintains that feminist scholars have made a substantial contribution, but also sees that they have brought their own distortions into the argument.
Heine attempts to both deepen, and demythologize, feminist understandings of many biblical passages as a corrective to what she sees as undue polarization along gender allegiances, the compounding of “negative theories” out of women’s exploitation, hurt and anger, which see Christianity, maleness, or church as essentially negative values. Heine also attempts to define what historical research can and cannot achieve in the pursuit of truth or ideology. Her work, however, is not one of retrenchment or reaction, but is committed to realistic goals and expectations of a continuing struggle for liberation, equality, and then alliance between the sexes.
1078. Laffer, Alice L. An Introduction to the Old Testament. A Feminist Perspective. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988.
This is an excellent volume. Examines the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy, the prophets, and the Wisdom literature from a feminist perspective. Each section includes an introduction to both historical and literary considerations; issues that feminist interpretation address, including patriarchy, hierarchy, language, women as chattel, stereotyping in role and sexuality, men’s and women’s history; and the presentation of key texts. Each section ends with conclusions and recommended readings of books and articles.
1079. Meyers, Carol. Discovering Eve. Ancient Israelite Women in Context. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
A reconstruction of Eve shorn of misogynist interpretations and false traditions associated with her, and by implication, with all women. Through this focus Meyers hopes to point to all the women of ancient Israel who were written invisible in the Bible and Jewish tradition, and to see the lot of all women through a new appreciation of biblical archetypes. In this quest both feminist biblical scholarship and modern “materialist” readings are used.
Topics include Eve as the symbol of women, the problem of patriarchy, the highland environment of ancient Israel, which sets the context of the Eve story and that of women in ancient Israel, the Genesis paradigms of Genesis, the family household of ancient Israel, female roles and gender relationships.
1080. Mollenkott, Virginia Ramey, The Divine Feminine. The Biblical Imagery of God as Female. New York: Crossroad/Continuum, 1984.
A comprehensive study of the subject.
1081. —. Godding. Human Responsibility and the Bible. New York: Crossroad, 1987.
Biblically based theologizing on issues of war, racism, and sexism.
1082. —. Women, Men, and the Bible. New York: Crossroad/ Continuum, 1988.
This is a a careful textual study analyzing what the scriptural tradition has to say about relationships between the sexes and their relationship to God. It is intended as a straightforward introduction to notions of feminism and mutuality as based in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Topics include the Christian way of relating, the question of God’s masculinity, freedom from stereotypes, the contradictions within the Pauline corpus, learning how to interpret the Bible accurately, and biblical doctrines and human equality.
1083. Moltmann-Wendel, Elisabeth. A Land Flowing with Milk and Honey. Perspectives on Feminist Theology. New York: Crossroad/Continuum, 1988.
This is both an excellent introduction and a careful analysis of many essential issues in feminist theology. They include the process of women’s self-discovery as the context, the formal structures of a critical feminist theology, and new forms of a feminist Christology.
Topics include changing images of women in partnership, work, and sexuality; new analyses of patriarchy; the history and role of the Goddess in history and today; feminist theology as a liberation theology; feminist biblical interpretation; God as mother; and suppressed Goddess and mother traditions within Christianity itself.
Moltmann-Wendel concludes with discussions of a new Jesus written by and for women; the theological role of mutuality in women’s thought; self-love; patriarchal and matriarchal forms of love, including the insights of the “Sophia” literature; and new models for women from pagan to biblical and contemporary examples.
1084. —. The Women Around Jesus. New York: Crossroad/ Continuum, 1989.
Uses textual analysis, art and church history to bring to the fore the role of women in the Jesus movement and in the formation of the early church. See 10.
1085. Patai, Raphael. The Hebrew Goddess. New York: Avon Books, 1978.
See Carson (991), item 513.
1086. Ruether, Rosemary Radford. To Change the World. Christology and Cultural Criticism. New York: Crossroad, 1981.
Breaks with such recent Christologies as Küng’s and Schillebeeckx’ to reinterpret Christ’s messianic message in light of feminist perspectives on liberation.
1087. Russell, Letty, ed. Feminist Interpretation of the Bible. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985.
Essays by Zikmund, Cannon, Farley, Sakenfeld, Ringe, Exum, Setel, Thistlethwaite, Radford Reuther, Schüssler Fiorenza, Russell and Trible on critical consciousness, examples of feminist interpretation, and feminist critical principles.
1088. —. The Liberating Word. A Guide to Nonsexist Interpretation of the Bible. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976.
Essays by Russell, Ringe, Schüssler Fiorenza, and Dewey on language, hermeneutics, biblical authority, interpreting patriarchal traditions, images of women as prophets and religious leaders, the church and changing language.
1089. Scanzoni, Letha, and Nancy Hardesty. All We’re Meant to Be. A Biblical Approach to Women’s Liberation. Waco, TX: Word Books, 1974.
Jesus’ message was one of liberation, and his message was especially meaningful for women, who responded gladly to his call to discipleship. This book is an attempt to show that Christian tradition is one of equality between men and women, both in the religious understanding of personhood and in sexuality, as well as in outlook on the world and work.
Topics include the male/female polarity, the biblical background, Jesus and the women around him, and the role of women in the hierarchical church. Final chapters deal with women in the modern world: issues of reproduction, single women, the church and women, and women defined on their own terms apart from men and marriage.
1090. Schaberg, Jane. The Illegitimacy of Jesus. A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987.
See 13.
1091. Schaupp, Joan. Woman. Image of the Holy Spirit. Denville, NJ: Dimension Books, 1975.
See Carson (991), item 600.
1092. Schneiders, Sandra M. Women and the Word. The Gender of God in the New Testament and the Spirituality of Women. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1986.
Judeo-Christian tradition has never assigned gender to God, even in discussing the Trinity; these names are only significant of relations. In fact, the Vatican’s 1977 letter excluding women from the priesthood may be heretical for its insistence on the theological maleness of Jesus.
This book is an attempt to lay bare the false assumptions of the masculinity of God as reveled through the Hebrew scriptures and through Jesus in Christian scripture.
Schneiders contends that Jesus’ life, personality, and teachings were a radical challenge to patriarchy and current definitions of masculinity.
1093. Sheres, Ita. Dinah’s Rebellion. A Biblical Parable for Our Time. New York: Crossroad/Continuum, 1990.
Not seen.
1094. Stagg, Evelyn, and Frank Stagg. Woman in the World of Jesus. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1978.
Discusses women in the world of Jesus, in Jewish, Greek and Roman society; the relationship that Jesus had with women; women in the early church. The authors contend that there is a solid basis for women in the ministry; and they call for openness against rigid structures.
1095. Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. The Women’s Bible. New York: European Publishing, 1895.
Stanton’s contribution to the field of feminist theology has been long recognized in feminist thought. Her Bible contains many radical rereadings of essential texts, including that of the priority of Adam’s creation.
1096. Stendahl, Krister. The Bible and the Role of Women. A Case Study in Hermeneutics. Emilie T. Sander, trans. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1966.
On whatever grounds – on the biblical exegesis of the key texts, on the biblical views of male and female, and on the obvious grounds of the “emancipation” of women – it is clear that if Christians believe God created man and women equal, women ought to be ministers.
1097. Thompsett, Frederica H. Christian Feminist Perspectives on History, Theology and the Bible. Cincinnati, OH: Forward Movement, 1986.
This brief pamphlet succinctly examines the various forms of writing women’s history and concludes that the most valuable is that written from the point of view of women, their experiences and values, and their own definitions. She then examines reading the Bible from a woman’s perspective; and she concludes with reflections on reforming theology to empower individuals and to change institutions.
1098. 1098. Tolbert, Mary Ann. The Bible and Feminist Hermeneutics. Decatur, GA: Scholar’s Press, 1983.
Not seen.
1099. Trible, Phyllis. Texts of Terror. Literary Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984.
The author uses literary critical tools to uncover the classic “victims” of texts traditionally unconcerned with them to bring out the people themselves, in marked contrast to the interest of the “ruling class” that had so objectified them.
Trible presents the texts with only the briefest introductions to the stories, but with excellent analysis and critical documentation, of “Hagar, the slave used, abused, and rejected [Gen. 16:1-16; 21:9-21]; Tamar, the princess raped and discarded [2 Sam. 13:1-22]; an unnamed women, the concubine raped, murdered, and dismembered [Judges 19:1-30]; and the daughter of Jephthah, a virgin slain and sacrificed [Judges 11:29-40].”
1100. Weems, Renita J. Just a Sister Away. A Womanist Vision of Women’s Relationships in the Bible. San Diego, CA: Lura Media, 1988.
A study of biblical women, including Hagar and Sarah, Naomi and Ruth, Martha and Mary, Jephthah’s daughter and the mourning women, Miriam, the women in the Jesus movement, Vashti and Esther, Elizabeth and Mary, and Lot’s wife and her daughters. Written in a nonscholarly manner, with appropriate questions following each section. Brief, but useful, bibliography.
1101. Whalberg, Rachel Conrad. Jesus According to a Woman. New York: Paulist Press, 1975.
Treats various biblical stories in which Jesus related to women. Stresses his openness to women and his stance of equality toward them. Jesus chose women for the ministry, and a women (Mary Magdalene) was the first to receive the good news of the Resurrection.
1102. —. Jesus and the Freed Women. New York: Paulist Press, 1978.
Over the centuries, the author contends, the church has retreated from Jesus’ openness and equal treatment of women. This book therefore attempts to focus on some of the worst stereotypes that deny liberation and to present others that foster it. Includes discussions on Jesus and the freed woman, Cana, Jesus and his use of the imagery of birth and the model of the woman’s body as an image of rebirth that shows his closeness to the world of women, the image of the foot washer and servanthood, Jesus’ use of the mother hen image, and the story of the assertive woman who obtains justice by her perseverance.
