Whispering the Word: Hearing Women's Stories in the Old Testament - Softcover

Lapsley, Jacqueline E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0664224350 ISBN 13: 9780664224356

Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005

Synopsis

Many Christian feminists wonder if they can simultaneously maintain their commitment to principles of gender equality and their faith in the Scriptures, particularly the Old Testament. Writing in response to feminist biblical scholars who approach the Old Testament with a hermeneutic of suspicion, Jacqueline Lapsley offers Christian feminists strategies to hear the subtle ideas and voices of the less powerful within the Old Testament texts. Reading and interpreting a number of Old Testament narratives in which women are prominent, Lapsley considers how these stories may reflect God's word for us. In doing so, she demonstrates how the narrative often attempts to shape the moral response of the reader by revealing the intricacy and complexity of the moral world evoked. In this gentle shaping of the reader's ethical sensibilities, she argues, is where God may be whispering a word for us.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"Rich, perceptive, and persuasive. Lapsley’s keen intelligence, discerning insight, and elegant style make this a delightful book to read. In her hands even the most familiar and often discussed narratives disclose new dimensions of meaning. In Whispering the Word Lapsley models the very best of biblical literary hermeneutics." —Carol Newsom, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Old Testament, Candler School of Theology, Emory University

"Elegant, significant, and needed. I read it with hunger, for Lapsley’s work slips into the seemingly unbridgeable divide between feminists in academy and church. Just when I thought there was little left to say about the women and the Old Testament, I find new theological doors open and feminist interpretation newly sophisticated." —Kathleen M. O’Connor, William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary

"Lapsley not only reads Scripture in a sensitive fashion that brings the ancient text and contemporary concerns into critical dialogue with each other, but she lays the groundwork for a new model of Christian-feminist biblical scholarship that is both critically informed and theologically insightful. She explains complex material in an accessible fashion that makes this book a pleasure to read as well ensuring it a place in many classrooms." —Joel S. Kaminsky, Associate Professor in the Department of Religion and Biblical Literature, Smith College

"Lapsley has provided us with a ‘hermeneutics of whispering’ in this book: gentle but insistent; respectful but critical; ethical, courageous, compassionate. She helps us catch the polyphony and echo which characterize these biblical voices and would catch our attention, and she brings a feminist critique to the challenge of reading Scripture productively in our time." —Barbara Green, Professor of Biblical Studies, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Graduate Theological Union

"Jacqueline Lapsley pays close attention to narrative detail, but she also pays close attention to readers—both ancient and contemporary—and how their predispositions and social contexts affect the hearing of the text. Her own readings are subtle, yet so clearly presented that readers will be drawn into the drama of these stories and led more deeply into biblical narrative as a whole." —Ellen F. Davis, Professor of Bible and Practical Theology, Duke University Divinity School

About the Author

Jacqueline E. Lapsley is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey. She is the author ofWhispering the Word: Hearing Women's Stories in the Old Testament. and Can These Bones Live? The Problem of the Moral Self in the Book of Ezekiel.

About this edition

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0664224350
• ISBN 13: 9780664224356
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176