Jesus: Miriam's Child, Sophia's Prophet: Critical Issues in Feminist Christology

by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza

Miriam's Child, Sophia's Prophet is the long-awaited sequel to the author's best-selling scholarly work of a decade ago, In Memory of A Feminist Reconstruction of Christian Origins. Translated into eight languages, In Memory of Her is undoubtedly the best-known work throughout the world to date by a feminist biblical scholar. In her new book, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza charts the rise and fall into "historical amnesia" of the liberating movement gathered around Jesus as the prophet and messenger of Divine Sophia, or Woman Wisdom, the all-powerful female figure in early Jewish Scriptures and theology. While teachings about Women Wisdom permeate the texture of the Christian ("New") Testament, they were quickly clothed in what the author calls kyriocentric (ruling-male) language. Not simply a work of historical reconstruction, Miriam's Child, Sophia's Prophet is a work of constructive feminist theology, showing how the historically unrealized possibilities of Woman Wisdom can offer the vision of a different world and a different church.
Re-imagining the Jesus movement in a feminist key transgresses the boundaries set by history, gender, and doctrine. By assessing various Jesus traditions and interpretations as to whether they can engender liberating visions for today the book seeks to challenge and transform masculine Christian identity formations and exclusivist theological frameworks toward the basileia vision of justice and well-being for all.

Genres: Theology, Feminism, Religion, Nonfiction, Spirituality

262 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1994

About the author

Born Elisabeth Schüssler in Tășnad, in the Transylvanian region of the Kingdom of Romania, Professor Schüssler Fiorenza is a German feminist, theologian and Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School. Schüssler Fiorenza identifies as Catholic and her work is generally in the context of Christianity, although much of her work has broader applicability.

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating but seriously heavy theology!

[Terese · Rating 1 out of 5]

Might be easier to take seriously if it hadn't been made abundantly clear that the author views a woman like me as uncritical, unreflective, and filled with self-hatred (Sure, Jan). Guess I won't get a seat at her fully democratic assembly of women since I'm just too hopelessly bound to the preconstructed linguistically coded frames of meaning of the kyriarchy. Must be nice to have a defensive non-sense answer to any and all criticism.

To no surprise, this was not my cup of tea. It's mostly an emotional rant, but that's the kyriarchy in me talking.

It substitutes argument, reasoning, and intellectualism with assumptions and neologisms, but that's the kyriarchy in me speaking.

It uses personal anecdotes, like her four year old's kindergarten experience, as proof of all womens 'invisible scars' which is... again, expecting a more sustained argument is the kyriarchy speaking.

It also clearly uses intersectionality, which I'm pretty sure was coined in the 80's, no? It was at least established by 2015, when this second edition was published, so the fact that she clearly relies on intersectionality but never coins it as such just seems lazy.

It creates this massive, centuries long conspiracy of all elite males masculinizing the Jesus tradition to purposefully oppress women. And it's not like there aren't points to be made her, but its the nefarious intent she reads into it that's very odd and just makes her sound a bit unhinged.

Then there is the Sophialogy. Personally, I like Sophiology.
But this is something else. Using Q she takes a hypothetical document, to construct a hypothetical argument, about a hypothetical group of women that she apparently understands very well based off of three dubiously used quotes from Luke and Matthew treated as absolutely clear evidence within two pages of writing... As far as academics go, this is like some first year effort that doesn't care about context, attribution, or a coherent argument to explain your point. But, then, again, as a card carrying member of the kyriarchy, I would say that. (And what if you challenge the two-source hypothesis and Q? Where does this leave her Sophia loving Q Jesus people?)

She also treats history as if there was antiquity then colonialism, these are the roots of all evil, and all other cultures every where else, through all time, were perfectly fine and dandy and not kyriarchial like the no good very bad Western civilization. It's almost embarrassing how little interest feminist scholars appear to have in different cultures, they have stared themselves blind at genital words (which hails through their texts more frequently than a search on Pornhub) that it's like nothing else really matters and though they may pay lip service to the concepts of nuance and complexity, it just never materializes in their texts.

All in all, this was like reading the transcripts of a very angry woman's therapy sessions.
So have fun creating your hermeneutical ekklesia of women, as I would be excluded from it either way you won't be sorry to have me return the dismissive attitude given to any and all criticism.

[Sarahc Caflisch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not for the faint of heart/mind/faith.

[Jonathan Frazier]

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