6. Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Bible

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we look at feminist engagement with scripture, focusing in partiicular on (i) central concerns for feminist theologians engaging with scripture (ii) passages, narratives, and motifs in scripture which have been deployed to oppress women in church and wider society (iii) the variety of feminist interpretations of passages and their contexts, such as Paul’s letters to the Galatians (iv) approaches of feminist theologians confronted with controversial parts of scripture (v) Phyllis Trible’s response to the hermenutical challenge of translating biblical faith without sexism (vi) Delores Williams’ womanist re-reading of the Bible.

Course

In this course, Dr Ruth Jackson Ravenscroft (University of Cambridge) explores gender and theology. In the first module we introduce the relationship between gender, feminism, and theology. In the second module, we consider feminist theology in relation to the doctrine of God. In the third module we examine Rosemary Radford Ruether’s feminist theology, before turning to Mary Daly’s theology in the fourth module. In the fifth module we compare and contextualise the feminist theologies of Ruether and Daly. In the sixth and final module, we examine feminist theological engagement with scripture.

Lecturer

Dr Ruth Jackson Ravenscroft is a lecturer in Theology, Religion and Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge. Her research interests lie at the intersections of theology, philosophy, literature, and intellectual history, particularly in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century thought. Her recent publications include The Veiled God : Friedrich Schleiermacher's Theology of Finitude (2019) and 'On Gender and Theology in the Mode of Retrieval’ in Theologies of Retrieval (2017).