As the discussion of the Synoptic Problem continues, we analyze a set of data that heretofore has not been taken into consideration: introduction, retention, and evolution of female characters in the synoptic gospels. Adopting the premise of Markan Priority (shared by the leading synoptic theories today), we assess the plausibility of the Two Source Theory, Farrer Hypothesis, and Matthean Posteriority based on the role played by female characters in each of the synoptic gospels.
The prophetess was a social reality in the Ancient Near East as well as in pre-exilic Israel and Juda. Isaiah 7,1-8,4 contains three prophecies originating in the year 734 BCE (Isaiah 7,4-7*; 7,14-16*; 8,3-4*). At least one of these (Isaiah 8,3-4*) was uttured by a female prophet. The prophetic books of the OT, on the other hand, are not the work of prophets, but of priests, scholars, and scribes, who made use of collections of prophetical sayings of the same kind as is attested in Assyria. In the case of Isaiah, the career of Isaiah as the fictitious author of a prophetical book started among oppositional circles during the reign of Manasseh, and came to an end, after various re-editions of the book, at the end of the 3rd century BCE. There is no prophetess among the canonical prophets, because politics and scholarship, at least in public, were male domains.
The canonical approach can be seen as a challenge for feminist theology. This paper tries to find a positive way of looking at the canon in concentrating on the space within the canonical boundaries as a dialogic and polyphonic room. In laying emphasis on the link between text and community the canonical approach cannot suspend the issue of power concerning both text and community.
2 Samuel 13:1-22 (= Sam) is probably one of the best-researched texts of the Hebrew Bible. At the same time it is a text that has a history of challenging exegetes to submit a personal commentary. With the help of the systemic approach as it is used in psychology, this article will show how categories such as ‘victim’ and ‘offender’ or ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ characters fall short when it comes to answering the question ‘How could this happen?’. 2 Sam 13:1-22 neither describes mere patriarchal structures of violence nor does it focus solely on the individual crime of a single person. Rather, sexual violence is to be seen in the context of networking, dependences and social dimensions of individual suffering. In this context, the present contribution addresses the structure of relationships and the interaction of the characters and tries to show how the act of rape in 2 Sam 13:1-22 is not the deed of an individual, but has to be located in a context of family relationships and complicity, of looking and overlooking, of making public and concealing.
Considering the example of the Elijah cycle (1 Kings 17 – 2 Kings 2), this contribution presents different approaches of a gender-sensitive exegesis. They are further developed and applicated to a reference text, in this case 1 Kings 17. The present study discusses main features of a feminist hermeneutics which is pursued gender-specifically and amended by different approaches from menʼs studies/masculinity studies and finally queer studies. A second, upcoming article will further introduce postcolonial approaches (especially relating to 1 Kings 21) and sharpen the question of Elijahʼs God, respectively his "monotheism" in a gender-sensitive way. Both studies trace back to lectures delivered as a visiting professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris (spring 2014). [1]
