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Helpmates, Harlots, and Heroes: Women's Stories in the Hebrew Bible
This book focuses on biblical stories about women, collected in one volume, paraphrases and interprets them from multiple and diverse scholars and in addition highlights the benefits and problems of the stories for contempory women.
304 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 18, 2018
a lot of thought provoking data in this one. thoroughly enjoyed even if it was for school
April 3, 2012
Is the Hebrew Bible sexist? or, in the most positive way of reading the stories where women are featured or included, is the Bible at least decidedly androcentrist? And, if so, do the stories told therein have any authority or application for women today? Have they adversely affected the way women view themselves?
Perhaps it is only the male commentators who, down through the ages, have bred into our bones interpretations that show women in the Bible chiefly as helpmates (very much the second sex), as harlots, often as victims and sometimes, though very rarely, as heroes.
Bellis, a Semitic language and Old Testament (OT) scholar at Howard University Divinity School, sets out to explore these issues.
She manages to look at every woman's story in the OT in chronological order, summarize the new and sometimes radical interpretations that feminist and womanist Biblical scholars have given these stories, and then provide some commentary of her own - commenting when she thinks a particular interpretation may not be supported by the facts of the story itself or bringing us back to commonsense when a particular interpretation seems to be too far afield, overly influenced by a particular political point of view. Each section is followed by a series of questions suitable for group discussion, and by an excellent bibliography.
I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in and/or troubled by (furious at?) the way women are depicted in the OT. It's not only that they are depicted poorly but it's also usual that their point of view is simply ignored. Bellis gives us the factual story. She doesn't claim that all the stories can be "redeemed," i.e. made relevant or palatable to our modern sensibilities. Nevertheless it's enlightening and sometimes hopeful to see how various feminist and womanist scholars derive new meanings from these texts. Her book is scholarly enough but not difficult.
Bellis defines for us in her introductory chapter the modern methods of interpretation Biblical scholars use in looking at the stories: literary criticism, culturally cued literary reading, historical inquiry, and so forth. By the end of her book, you may find yourself agreeing more with one method than with the others.
Perhaps it is only the male commentators who, down through the ages, have bred into our bones interpretations that show women in the Bible chiefly as helpmates (very much the second sex), as harlots, often as victims and sometimes, though very rarely, as heroes.
Bellis, a Semitic language and Old Testament (OT) scholar at Howard University Divinity School, sets out to explore these issues.
She manages to look at every woman's story in the OT in chronological order, summarize the new and sometimes radical interpretations that feminist and womanist Biblical scholars have given these stories, and then provide some commentary of her own - commenting when she thinks a particular interpretation may not be supported by the facts of the story itself or bringing us back to commonsense when a particular interpretation seems to be too far afield, overly influenced by a particular political point of view. Each section is followed by a series of questions suitable for group discussion, and by an excellent bibliography.
I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in and/or troubled by (furious at?) the way women are depicted in the OT. It's not only that they are depicted poorly but it's also usual that their point of view is simply ignored. Bellis gives us the factual story. She doesn't claim that all the stories can be "redeemed," i.e. made relevant or palatable to our modern sensibilities. Nevertheless it's enlightening and sometimes hopeful to see how various feminist and womanist scholars derive new meanings from these texts. Her book is scholarly enough but not difficult.
Bellis defines for us in her introductory chapter the modern methods of interpretation Biblical scholars use in looking at the stories: literary criticism, culturally cued literary reading, historical inquiry, and so forth. By the end of her book, you may find yourself agreeing more with one method than with the others.
March 2, 2012
An eye-opening, feminist review of women's stories in the Hebrew Bible. The author employs the latest critical thinking in feminist literature while simultaneously reminding the reader of the realities of women's lives in that era, as well as the fact that men wrote the bible. Within the context of this framework, these stories shimmer and reform into a new knowledge. The author reminds everyone about where we have come from with respect to women's roles and rights, where we are now with respect to arguments about owning our own bodies, and poses the question, "How shall women fare in the future?"
January 15, 2023
Listen. This was a great book in terms of its content, just not its writing. I usually don't expect my textbooks to be the most superb works of literature, but most are pretty good. This book felt like the author was just learning how to string words together to form sentences. The content is incredible--a critical, all-encompassing look at how women have been portrayed in the Bible and how that has influenced how women are conceived of in society, with lots of commentary from the author and various sources--but I can't get past the writing. Short, choppy sentences, with nearly no variation in sentence length. Why have a comma when you can have a period? It almost forces you to read what would otherwise be an engaging book in a robot-like, monotone voice. I would have loved to love this book because it's so interesting, but it could have been so much better.
June 15, 2020
Not that helpful.
July 25, 2020
Very interesting feminist take on stories we all know. I enjoyed Bellis’s perspective.
March 5, 2017
Una bella presentazione delle donne della Bibbia. Un taglio nettamente femminista. Talvolta alcuni aspetti di queste presentazioni lasciano perplessi... Forse la psicologia di una donna americana del XX secolo non aiuta tanto a capire una donna che ha vissuto 2500 anni fa... Oppure basta essere una donna per capire cosa pensa o sente qualunque donna? Mah?
July 27, 2011
A survey of scholarship on biblical women.
October 25, 2011
Great analysis of the characters we all think we know. Ms. Ogden-Bellis does a great job of tipping the stories upside down, asking the reader to consider things from a new angle.
July 4, 2022
A lot of resources and a possibility to see different views on the women characters in the OT.
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July 12, 2022DNF.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews