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Ahida E. Pilarski Biblical Theology Bulletin: A Journal of Bible and Theology 2011 41: 16 DOI: 10.1177/0146107910393142 The online version of this article can be found at: http://btb.sagepub.com/content/41/1/16

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BiBlical Theology BulleTin Volume 41 Number 1 Pages 1623 The Author(s), 2011. Reprints and Permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0146107910393142 http://btb.sagepub.com

The Past and Future of Feminist Biblical Hermeneutics

Ahida E. Pilarski
Abstract An adequate overview of the historical background and theoretical framework of Feminist Biblical Hermeneutics (FBH) discourse(s), especially in the last three centuries, requires a differentiation of two stages. First, a description of the historical background out of which an epistemological space for feminist discourse(s) is identified; and second, a description of the development in the theoretical articulation of the FBH discourse(s) per se once this space was established. An overview that addresses these two stages allows those who are interested in engaging feminist discourse(s) to appreciate and appropriate the key epistemological elements on which feminist discourse(s) are based. Key words: Feminist Biblical Hermeneutics, hermeneutics, theories of text interpretation, biblical methods, feminist perspective

eminisT Biblical Hermeneutics (FBH) is composed of three elements. First, it introduces a perspective, the feminist, which is a critical and constructive stance (Bird 1998: 124) that claims full humanity for every person regardless of race, ethnicity, age, gender, religion, or social/economical/ political situation. Second, it is a discourse that presupposes the theological, intellectual, and ethical responsibility of those who take this stance to work adequately with the Bible and its interpretation as it relates to the life of local and global communities of faith giving preferential (not exclusive) attention to the situation of women in these communities. Third, it is attentive to the hermeneutical nature of all disciplinary discourses, including its own. Biblical scholars who seek to engage the discourse of FBH realize, on the one hand, that it brings a relevant perspective to biblical scholarship, and on the other, that it has developed so rapidly in the last few decades, both locally and globally, that it is difficult to grasp it all at once. Facing this twofold reality, this article aims at providing an initial over-

view of some historical events in the last three centuries that are relevant for identifying key elements in the theoretical framework of FBH discourse(s), particularly as developed in the United States. One important distinction to make initially is between two historical stages. One is connected to the background out of which an epistemological space for feminist discourse is identified, and the other to development in the theoretical articulation of the FBH discourse(s) per se Ahida E. Pilarski, Ph.D. (Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago), is Assistant Professor at Saint Anselm College, 100 Saint Anselm Drive, Manchester, NH 03102 (e-mail: apilarski@anselm.edu). Her most recent article is Una Transversal en el Pensamiento de Phyllis Bird: Pasos Hacia una Hermenutica Bblica Feminista, in Estudios de Autoras en Amrica Latina, el Caribe y Estados Unidos (Buenos Aires: San Pablo, 2009). She is a sectional editor for the Wisdom Commentary Series (forthcoming).

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B I B L I C A L T H E O LO GY B U L L E T I N VO LU M E 4 1
once this space was established. The structure of this article is based on these two stages. Schleiermacher made two significant contributions to its discourse. First, he emphasized the subject (author)-object (text) relationship involved in the process of interpretation, in contrast to the Enlightenment approach in which language in general (written or spoken) was understood only as a representation of thought. In fact, Schleiermacher was the first thinker to balance a focus on the author with a focus on the text (Thiselton: 228). Second, Schleiermacher introduced the reader as an essential participant in his explanation of the hermeneutical circle of communication; however, the reader was to remain a passive agent (i.e. fully objective) in the process of interpretation; in this view Schleiermacher betrays the influence of modernity on his work. The Ontological Shift: Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900 2002).A second major phase began only in the second half of the last century and was prompted by the work of Gadamer (1975; 1986). He reintroduced the role of the reader in the process of interpretation, but this time as active. This moved the hermeneutical discourse toward an ontological shift, as the focus and emphasis in the interpretive process was now placed on the side of the reader. It is the historical consciousness of the reader (or community of readers), constituted by his/her prejudgments, that now plays the more significant role in delimiting the tradition(s) that would enable the fusion of horizons. This new development in the understanding of hermeneutics radically relativized the claims of any a-historical version of rationalism, such as the critical rationalism of the Enlightenment (Jeanrond: 67). In the hermeneutical circle, the process of thinking (and/ or writing) and the interpretive process can no longer be disconnected from their historicity in both of the horizons (production and reception), and it is in this way that the new hermeneutical shift becomes an ontological one. The Linguistic Shift: Jrgen Habermas (b. 1929) and Paul Ricoeur (19132006). These two thinkers represent the current state of development of hermeneutical discourse.

Stage One: Hermeneutics, Theories of Text Interpretation, and Biblical Methods

An adequate assessment of the accomplishments of FBH discourse(s) requires looking back at the previous three centuries, the period of some of the major epistemological breakthroughs in human history. These paradigm shifts have not only prompted the transition from modernity to postmodernity, but most significantly these shifts have influenced the way we know (epistemology), and the way we interpret the world around us (hermeneutics). I have selected three areas (as given in the title of this stage, above) that are connected to understanding the first stage of FBH discourse(s) in particular and also to the field of biblical studies in general. Hermeneutics and Theories of Text Interpretation Hermeneutics and theories of text interpretation are approached together because three of the major epistemological breakthroughs in history reflect that in the merging of these two areas there has been a paradigm shift in our understanding of the nature of interpretive processes (see Figure 1). In these three phases there has been a developmental transition of the concept of hermeneutics from epistemology to ontology to linguisticsin other words, a transitional integration of essential aspects in the interpretive process, of texts in particular, that went from understanding the contextual realities of the text(s) to that of the author(s) to that of the community of readers. The Epistemological Shift: Friedrich Daniel Schleiermacher (17681834). Schleiermacher established a new phase in the concept of hermeneutics by introducing its discourse into the theory of knowledge, that is, into the process of human understanding. Schleiermachers work was influenced by the Enlightenment project, which shaped the hermeneutical debate, turning it toward epistemology, or a supposedly objective rationality. However, before transferring the hermeneutical enterprise to other fields (particularly philosophy),

Figure 1

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Pilarski, The Past and Future of Feminist Biblical Hermeneutics

Both have considered in their works the importance of the linguistic turn for hermeneutical reflection. Their view introduces the reader (or community of readers) as coparticipant(s) in the process of interpretation. Habermass universal pragmatics, by moving away from the logocentric influence of Western philosophy (where theory is granted primacy over practice), reintroduces peoples realities and validity claims as critical elements for hermeneutics. In his pragmatic theory of meaning, Habermas distinguishes two moments of understanding: (1) the process of reaching understanding (comprehension), and (2) the understanding (consensus). He says that to understand an utterance is to understand the claim it raises (Habermas 1984: 276), and that consensus can be reached only through discourse. Ricoeur, on the other hand, dealing more directly with the interpretation of texts, sees this dimension (where communication between the horizons of production and reception can take place) in the surplus of meaning existent in the text when considered as an event of discourse. He says that if all discourse is actualized as an event, all discourse is understood as meaning (Ricoeur: 12). With this differentiation Ricoeur situates the understanding of discourse within a complex and highly mediated dialectic between meaning and event. This is the space where transformative interpretation happens. Sandra Schneiders describes it as an indepth engagement of the texts subject matter, of its truth claims, in terms of the developed . . . consciousness of the contemporary believer within the contemporary community of faith (Schneiders: 177). Meaning and event are part of the internal dialectic of literary discourse, and this dialectic is at the core of biblical interpretation as well, since the Bible is a text with a dual identity. It is an ancient and contemporary word, and it maintains a theological demand to honor the claims of both (Bird 2005: 69). Thus the modern and postmodern history of hermeneutics reveals a transitional integration of essential aspects in the interpretive process (of texts in particular) from understanding of the contextual realities of the text(s) to that of the author(s) to that of the community of readers. As we will observe in the second part of this article, the beginnings of the articulation of FBH discourse(s) emerged strongly in the second half of the last century. By then the development in the understanding of hermeneutics and theories of text interpretation, especially in the second turn (the ontological), had already furnished an epistemological space for a discourse of 18 this kind. Before addressing the history of FBH, however, we must examine the connection between hermeneutics and the functionality of biblical methods. Here we can see how FBH discourse(s) begin to claim their epistemological space in biblical studies. Biblical Methods Most scholars agree that current methods in biblical studies can be generally categorized as diachronic or synchronic (see Figure 2). While diachronic methods are oriented to the historical production of the text, dealing with the whence (the world behind the text) and the what (the world of the text), synchronic methods are text-oriented, focusing the analysis of the text on the whither (the world in front of the text).

Once again, an epistemological and chronological correlation could be established between the phases of development in the understanding of hermeneutics and theories of text interpretation, on the one hand, and the functionality of biblical methods on the other. A good example of the influence of the former areas on the latter is the epistemological shift from diachronic to synchronic methods experienced in biblical studies in the last century (on the debate, see De Moor 1995). Today it is generally accepted that diachronic and synchronic methods are both important and necessary in the process of biblical interpretation because they are part of the same hermeneutical circle. A significant observation regarding the connection between the interpretive horizons of production and reception is that of Chatelion Counet, who remarks that the categories of diachronic and synchronic are names for fragments of a spectrum rather than labels on the only two pigeonholes for all that goes in the name of biblical scholarship (Chatelion Counet & Berges: 6). We may also say that diachronic and synchronic methods

Figure 2

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Figure 3 is a graphic illustration of this first stage. One can observe the line connected to the development in the understanding of hermeneutics and theories of text interpretation (in the middle) together with the graphic presenting the methods used in biblical studies (at the top), categorized as diachronic and synchronic. The arrow below (with the three different shades) represents the advances made in the understanding of hermeneutics and theories of text interpretation. The focus is first on the world behind the text, then on the world of the text, and eventually on the world in front of the text. The shades in the arrow coincide with particular time periods. The last two major shifts in our understanding of hermeneutics and theories of text interpretation (shown with the second and third shades) took place only in the last century (a few decades ago), and we are still experiencing the effects of those changes in the academy, in the church, and in society. We are indeed at an important period of transition.

Figure 3

have different foci and therefore need not be compatible. Synchronic research, Chatelion Counet explains, focuses on systems, the paradigmatic . . . while diachronic research focuses on elements within those systems, the syntagmatic (4). While there may be some compatibility in the results, the methods are still functionally different. Chronologically, synchronic methods, focusing on the world in front of the text, flourished mainly in the second half of the last century; this is the period when the ontological and linguistic paradigm shifts were taking place. It was also during this period that, given the actual inclusion of women among the community of readers in the world in front of the text, there was likewise a flourishing of biblical studies from a feminist perspective. While the majority of feminist readings in the last century could be technically placed in the category of synchronic methods, because in the 1980s and 1990s these readings were still focused mainly on the analysis of the world in front of the biblical text, FBH discourse(s) have now extended their perspective to embrace the horizon of production as well. As hermeneutical discourses continue to develop, there will certainly be more ways found to articulatewithin FBH discourse(s) in particular, and within biblical studies in generalthe necessary mediations to connect the two horizons of interpretation (production and reception), considering carefully the functionality of the appropriate methods.

Stage 2: The Emergence of FBH Discourse(s)

Having presented the theoretical paradigm shifts that exposed the epistemological space for a feminist discourse to develop, it is important that we clarify at this point, as we begin the second stage of the historical background, that paradigm shifts in history occasioned by epistemological breakthroughs have not brought new realities into existence; rather, these realities (already in existence) have come to light. These shifts have yielded new ways to articulate new discourses that can help us understand and explain our world more adequately. This second view of the historical background therefore, now that the epistemological space has been identified, focuses on the emergence and development of FBH discourse(s). First, a brief overview of the three main waves in the 19

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Pilarski, The Past and Future of Feminist Biblical Hermeneutics

articulation of FBH discourse(s) in the United States. Figure 4 shows that there have been three major waves in the articulation of feminist discourses in general, and of FBH discourse(s) in particular: The first wave began as a political movement in the nineteenth century; the second wave encompasses the period when feminist inquiry entered the academic world in the 1960s (for a description of the first two waves see Kwok: 2428); and most recently (in the last two decades), we are experiencing the beginnings of a third wave, which incorporates the cultural component in feminist discourses. The First Wave: Nineteenth Century The first wave, feminist discourse as a political movement, is perhaps best known because it was the longest and had the most tangible effects on the concrete realities of many societies. In the United States, for example, we find the beginning of the Womens Rights movement in 1848, and by 1920 women were finally allowed to vote in national elections. Some of the arguments used by members of the womens movement to justify their aims during this period (in service of, e.g., abolitionism, benevolence, suffrage, missionary ideology, and feminism) were based not solely on gender but also on racial difference. Unfortunately, this was not a positive use of race as a critical category of inquiry. For instance, Pui-lan Kwok explains that white women argued that it was not fair for black men to have the vote, while white women with nobler nature and much better education were deprived of the privilege to do so (Kwok: 25). Kwok notices also that the cult of womanhood at this time was based on the image of a white lady, whose existence of20

Figure 4

ten relied on the exploitation of the labour of black women (Kwok: 25). In spite of these questionable arguments, the capacity of women to organize themselves and to claim a political space began the rise of feminist consciousness about the asymmetry of power in society; and this would eventually be a catalyst for the identification of more important elements in feminist discourse. In this period the most important work in connection with the Bible was Elizabeth Cady Stantons The Womans Bible (18951898). The Second Wave: the 1960s The second wave of feminism began in the wake of another major political event in the United States, namely the Civil Rights movement. It was in the 1960s that the feminist inquiry finally entered general academic discourse. Programs in feminist and womens studies (and eventually gender studies) began to be created and developed in academic institutions (for a description of these academic areas see Schssler Fiorenza 1998: 3346). Joyce McCarl Nielsen points out that one of the main paradigm shifts achieved by feminist inquiry was the relocation of its focus on the distinctive experience of womenthat is, seeing women rather than men in center stage, as both subject matter of and creators

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of knowledge (Nielsen: 19). Having to face the content of the biblical text from this new analytical angle of inquiry, initially focused on (named) women in the Bible, resulted in multiple trends in interpretation. It created a spectrum of hermeneutical alternatives that went from the acceptance of the Bible with reservations to its complete rejection (see the studies of Bass, Osiek, and Sakenfeld). The paradigm shift achieved by feminist inquiry led also to another significant realization, that women experience their lives in a multiplicity of identities (Briggs: 170). Besides the female identity, there are other particularities like race, class, sexual orientation, age, type of physical ability, and the list could go on and on. This realization that all individuals embody each of the particularities mentioned above, and that these do not meld into a single, simply composite identity (Briggs: 170), led feminist scholars like Elisabeth Schssler Fiorenza to assert that feminist theorizing and theologizing need to be situated within the logic of radical equality (1998: 47), where all of these particularities, understood as sociopolitical ideological constructions, can be contextualized to consider the historical multiplicity of each individual. This insight would gain more relevance in the next wave. Hence during the second wave feminist perspectives expanded the periphery of their stance to claim full humanity for women regardless of race, ethnicity, age, gender, religion, or social/economic/political situation. As FBH discourse(s) continued to develop in the United States and Canada the presence and voice of women in the academy became visible at a very slow pace. Although we find a flourishing of works during this wave, one can see that the spaces for this flourishing were limited. In professional societies like the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), which serve as samples to provide some data, the first Womens Caucus in Religious Studies was held in 1971, but it would take almost two decades, until 1989, for the subject of feminist hermeneutics to appear as a program unit at the SBL, and only in 1999 did Feminist Hermeneutics of the Bible became an official section at the SBL (Bird 2005: 79). The Third Wave: the 1990s I argue that a third wave of feminist inquiry can be identified, beginning when attention further focused on the cultural component. Feminist theologians from minority communities, who were already incorporating their voices into the general feminist discourse during the second wave (including, e.g., Delores Williams, Ada Mara Isasi-Daz, Maria Pilar Aquino, Pui-lan Kwok), began to point out that women, especially those from racial minorities in the US, experienced multiple layers of oppression. Identifying key aspects and particularities in different social groups was not enough, because there has been and is still asymmetry of power (and oppression) between and within groups. Out of reflection on this particular aspect emerged another paradigm in biblical studies. Elisabeth Schssler Fiorenza refers to this paradigm as the cultural-hermeneutic-postmodern paradigm (2009: 7178). The third wave became more visible in the United States and Canada in the 1990s as more space and visibility were gained by minority groups. Important works, among others, that began to observe the contribution of cultural studies in the field of biblical studies include Reading From This Place (1995); Text & Experience: Toward a Cultural Exegesis of the Bible (1995); and Biblical StudiesCultural Studies: The Third Sheffield Colloquium (1998). Fernando Segovia explains well what I see as a key element in this third wave when he speaks about the voice of otherness. He says that it is
a voice that begins with contextualization and aims for contextualization. With regard to biblical interpretation, it is in agreement with historical criticism to the effect that contextualization is imperative with regard to the biblical texts, but it goes well beyond historical criticism in arguing that contextualization is necessary as well with regard to readers and critics of the texts. . . . It is a voice that seeks . . . a liberating and empowering humanization of the reader, of all readers, by taking fully into account the experience and culture of readers in the act of reading and interpretation [Segovia 1995: 29293].

Segovia distinguishes four paradigm constructions in biblical studies: historical criticism, literary criticism, cultural criticism, and intercultural-diasporic or postcolonial criticism (Segovia 1998: 13767). It is in the intersection of the last two paradigms, as presented by Segovia, that one can understand the next epistemological element offered by feminist discourse in the third wave. The third wave in FBH discourse(s) emphasizes the need to acknowledge the presence of an epistemological platform where this kind of intercultural dialogue is possible as part 21

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Pilarski, The Past and Future of Feminist Biblical Hermeneutics

of the process of interpreting the Bible adequately. Schssler Fiorenza refers to this platform as a new paradigm in biblical studies, the emancipatory-radical-democratic paradigm. This paradigm
seeks to redefine the self-understanding of biblical interpretation in ethical, rhetorical, political, and radical democratic terms. It understands the biblical reader to be a public, transformative subject who is able to communicate with a variegated public and seeks to achieve personal, social, and religious transformation for justice and well-being [Schssler Fiorenza 2009: 81].

Conclusion
This two-stage overview of the historical background behind the theoretical framework of FBH discourse(s) provides practical and constructive lenses for looking at its past, present, and future in two ways. On the one hand, it helps those who are interested in engaging the discourse to understand the relevance of the feminist perspective in the general discourse of biblical studies because the evidence indicates that this perspective can no longer be treated as peripheral. On the other hand, the epistemological journey of FBH discourse(s) from feminist inquiry to feminist perspectives in biblical studies requires those engaging this discourse to continue moving toward the next stage of reflection, when the main challenge will be to find adequate mediations to connect the two horizons involved in biblical interpretation the horizon of production and the horizon of reception now understood as a hermeneutical continuum. The hope is that the theological, intellectual, and ethical consideration of the feminist perspective, and of those who responsibly take the feminist stance, will help claim full humanity for every person in the future.

This paradigm has been surfacing from contextual approaches: African, Asian, indigenous, Euro-American, Latino/a, mujerista, womanist, crosscultural biblical studies, as well as ideology-critical approaches, such as cultural studies, ideology studies, and feminist, postcolonial, gender and queer studies (Schssler Fiorenza 2009: 80) as they have evolved in the last three decades. Hence the third wave once again expands the periphery of the feminist analytical and constructive stance to claim full humanity for every person, and it does so by situating theorizing and theologizing, especially when looking at the situation of women, within the logic of radical equality (an insight introduced already by Schssler Fiorenza in the previous wave; 1998: 47). The reference to equality in this description challenges a reduction of the understanding of equality to a mere quantitative equilibrium whereby women are simply placed in mens positions. So the third wave widens the feminist perspective and discourse with the challenge to look at the situation of women having their local and global contexts (and the structures behind those contexts) as an essential part of the inquiry. Once again an important professional association, the SBL, can show the actual presence of voices in the field during this particular wave. The SBL was founded in the year 1880, that is, one hundred and thirty years ago. Just eleven years ago three of the major minority groups were able to officially begin their sections in this society: the African American Biblical Hermeneutics section (1999); the Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics section (2000); and only two years ago the Latino/a and Latin American Biblical Hermeneutics section (2008). 22

Works Cited
Bass, Dorothy C. 1982. Womens Studies and Biblical Studies: An Historical Perspective. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 22: 612. Bird, Phyllis A. 2005. Old Testament Theology and the God of the Fathers: Reflections on Biblical Theology from a North American Feminist Perspective. Pp. 69105 in Biblische Theologie: Beitrge des Symposiums Das Alte Testament und die Kultur der Moderne anlsslich des 100. Geburstags Gerhard von Rads (19011871) Heidelberg, 18.21. Oktober 2001. Edited by Paul Hanson, Bernd Janowski, and Michael Welker. Mnster: Lit Verlag. 1998. What Makes a Feminist Reading Feminist? A Qualified Response. Pp. 12431 in Escaping Eden: New Feminist Perspectives in the Bible. Edited by Harold C. Washington et al. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Briggs, Sheila. 1989. The Politics of Identity and the Politics of Interpretation. Union Seminary Quarterly Review 43: 16380. Chatelion Counet, Patrick, & Ulrich Berges. 2005. One Text, A Thousand Methods: Studies in Memory of Sjef van Tilborg. Boston, MA/Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Academic Pub-

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lishers, Inc. De Moor, Johannes C. 1995. Synchronic or Diachronic? A Debate on Method in Old Testament Exegesis. Leiden: Brill. Exum, J. Cheryl, and Stephen D. Moore, eds. 1998. Biblical StudiesCultural Studies: The Third Sheffield Colloquium. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press. Habermas, Jrgen. 1984 and 1987. The Theory of Communicative Action, 2 vols. Boston: Beacon Press. Jeanrond, Werner. 1991. Theological Hermeneutics: Development and Significance. New York: Crossroads. Kwok, Pui-lan. 2002. Feminist Theology as Intercultural Discourse. Pp. 2337 in Feminist Theology. Edited by Susan Frank Parsons. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Lategan, Bernard C. 1992. Hermeneutics. Pp. 149154 in Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by David Noel Freedman. New York: Doubleday. McCarl Nielsen, Joyce. 1990. Feminist Research Methods: Exemplary Readings in the Social Sciences. Edited by Joyce McCarl Nielsen. Boulder, CO/San Francisco, CA/London. UK: Westview Press. Osiek, Carolyn. 1985. The Feminist and the Bible: Hermeneutical Alternatives. Pages 93105 in Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship. Edited by Adela Yarbro Collins. Chico, California: Scholars Press. Ricoeur, Paul. 1976. Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning. Forth Worth: Texas Christian University Press. Sakenfeld, Katharine Doob. 1998. Feminist Perspectives on Bible and Theology: An Introduction to Selected Issues and Literature. Interpretation 42: 518. Schneiders, Sandra M. 1991. The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Scripture. New York: Harper San Francisco. Schssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. 2009. Democratizing Biblical Studies: Toward an Emancipatory Educational Space. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press. 1998. Sharing Her Word: Feminist Biblical Interpretation in Context. Edinburgh, UK: T&T Clark. Segovia, Fernando F. 1998. Pedagogical Discourse and Practices in Cultural Studies. Pp. 137-67 in Teaching the Bible: The Discourses and Politics of Biblical Pedagogy, edited by Fernando F. Segovia & Mary Ann Tolbert. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. 1995. The Text As Other: Towards a Hispanic American Hermeneutic. Pp. 276-298 in Text & Experience: Towards a Cultural Exegesis of the Bible, edited by Daniel Smith-Christopher. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press. Segovia, Fernando F., & Mary Ann Tolbert, eds. 1995. Reading From This Place: Social Location and Biblical Interpretation in the United States. Volume 1. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. Smith-Christopher, Daniel L., ed. 1995. Text & Experience: Towards a Cultural Exegesis of the Bible. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press. Thiselton, Anthony. 1992. The New Horizons in Hermeneutics: The Theory and Practice of Transforming Biblical Reading. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

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