Out of the Shadows of Patriarchy: The Struggle for Women’s Liberation in the Holy Bible

Abstract

In the interpretation of the Bible, feminists are often trapped by the method of progressive subversive interpretation which considers the entire Bible to be written by a patriarchal culture which must of necessity be deconstructed. But through this paper, it is understood that in the Holy Bible it was not entirely written only for a pervading patriarchal culture, but indeed the Holy Bible, or at least a part of the book was written by women in their struggle for liberation. There is even a book that reverses patriarchal culture and turns it into a matriarchy, that the family is not "beth-av" (father's house), but the word family relates to the notion of a "mother's house" in the book of Ruth. There are of course numerous great women in the Holy Bible, inter-alia, Mary, the virgin mother of Jesus, Deborah, Ruth, Sarah, Priscilla, Rahab, Hannah, Esther and Miriam who was the archetype of the female prophetic tradition. The method used in this article is historical criticism and exegesis. It is through this method that the texts that are used as examples in this article are examined and there is indeed a feminist struggle for freedom. A feminist lens permits a look at text through the eyes of women and to analyze how women are depicted and presented when compared to men. There is a need to reinterprete patriarchal imagery and language usage about God, and we need to determine women's place in relation sacred texts that are studied and to liberate the fairer sex.