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When Deborah Met Jael
When Deborah Met Jael defines and situates the significant elements which constitute lesbian readings of scripture. Deryn Guest explores the instability of the lesbian label and the concept of a "lesbian sensibility". The book further explores the social location of lesbian hermeneutics, noting in particular the adverse positions of lesbians socially, economically and religiously. The author also examines the non-negotiable principles that underpin lesbian readings of biblical texts. These include; upholding the dignity of the lesbian and the authority of experience; the need to operate via a specifically lesbian hermeneutic of suspicion; the principle of ensuring the views of grassroot lesbians are included; the desirability of opening a lesbian critical position to allies and finally a willingness to confront the issue of biblical authority. Finally the author evaluates strategies that have been used to date by lesbians reading scripture, identifying those strategies that are most likely to provide empowerment contemporary lesbians. This chapter will engage closely with relevant biblical texts and demonstrate how these strategies can be applied.
316 pages, Paperback
First published April 30, 2005
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July 3, 2024
AN ARTICULATION OF PRINCIPLES OF SUCH A HERMENEUTIC
Deryn Guest is Senior Lecturer in Biblical Hermeneutics at the University of Birmingham in the UK. She has also written/cowritten edited 'Beyond Feminist Biblical Studies,' 'Transgender, Intersex, and Biblical Interpretation,' and ''The Queer Bible Commentary.'
She wrote in the Introduction to this 2005 book, “I decided to embark on this project. But it seemed a grandiose project to say the least: Who was I to try to define the principles and strategies of a lesbian hermeneutic?... I am acutely aware that any attempt to define a lesbian-identified hermeneutic will inevitably be partial and subject to blind spots… Although I would not refer to myself as postchristian, I retain a keen interest in the way my own and other Christian and Jewish organizations negotiate the presence of lesbians in their pews… The Salvationist in me has never completely disappeared---the concern for justice, for theological integrity, for the well-being of others that compelled me into ministry, continues to drive my work. The reader should therefore not be surprised to find that one of the principles of a lesbian hermeneutic … is that it should be committed to making a difference.” (Pg. 4-5)
She acknowledges, “Since lesbian and gay interpretations of scripture largely emerged post-1970, I have been unable to find any examples of a lesbian-identified approach to scripture that would be contemporaneous with the work of sexologists.” (Pg. 15) She continues, “a lesbian reading of a biblical text would theoretically be a reading position open to all women who are willing to engage critically with their own experiences of heterosexuality and the ways in which biblical texts operate in ways that uphold and maintain heteronormativity. It would be geared towards highlighting instances where women’s primary bonds with other women are found, exposing the forces that drive wedges between those bonds, and illuminating strategies of resistance.” (Pg. 25)
She notes, “[Some state] that it is time to move away from the idea of a lesbian hermeneutic and cast one’s lot with the burgeoning number of queer readings that have emerged within the last ten years. But there are a number of reasons why this is resisted. First, there is justifiable concern that queer will turn out to be a critical tool that is insufficiently cognizant of the feminist criticism that precedes it and enabled its birth… Second… There need not be a wholesale move to queer terminology if our definition of ‘lesbian’ can be organized in such a way that resists the rigidity of sexual identity labels… the third concern [is] that queer theory… with its resistance to identity-reinforcement, will not sufficiently engage with the contemporary grassroots concerns.” (Pg. 45-48) She continues, “the fourth concern … [is] it is difficult for those who have found a home within lesbian and gay communities to consider abandoning labels that have been so politically useful and personally empowering… A final concern is that queer will prove to be an elitist discourse, hardly accessible to the lay person or in touch with the lived realities of grassroots communities.” (Pg. 49-51)
She explains, “Hermeneutics of suspicion have been integral to all liberation readings of scripture whether they be feminist, womanist, Mujerista, postcolonial or any other engaged mode of interpretation. The practice of a hermeneutic of suspicion calls to attention not only the face that texts are permeated by ideological perspectives and norms that distort their representation of the past, but that the history of reception has been similarly permeated with Eurocentric and androcentric philosophical and theological presuppositions and perspectives. Accordingly, the methods and tools of academic study that have prevailed until recently … do no possess the universal application that was once thought… A hermeneutic of hetero-suspicion is a specifically refined version of such feminist hermeneutics of suspicion… [This] means that the researcher is resistant to the presentation of any storyworld where female homoerotic relations are virtually absent and seeks to problematize that apparent absence.” (Pg. 123-124)
She summarizes, “a lesbian-identified hermeneutic of suspicion disrupts the valorization of motherhood by countering with consideration of the harsh realities of multiple pregnancies and their effects on women’s life and health by exploring ways that women might have deliberately avoided the institution… what is being resisted here is the rhetoric that marriage to men and childbearing is what ALL women INEVITABLY desired and the tyrannous way in which women have been pushed into these roles.” (Pg. 139)
She argues, “When one has a broader, thicker awareness of women’s worlds and is prepared to acknowledge that women experienced homoerotic desire for each other, then the absences of text are all the more glaring and the critical distance between the reader and the rhetoric of the text is all the greater. Commitment to a hermeneutic of hetero-suspicion unsettles the text by focusing upon its queerer elements and by welcoming the use of the critical imagination and midrash within biblical hermeneutics. All these strategies facilitate resistance.” (Pg. 155-156)
She points out, “At first glance one might easily conclude that there is not much to be gained from the scriptures for a lesbian-identified critic. On the one hand, they are permeated by a paucity of any references to female homoeroticism, while on the other they are full of images of women anxious to become wives and mothers… However, lesbian-identified individuals find unexpected rewards from a range of unlikely sources and scholars have critically explored ways in which a lesbian-identified perspective can be applied to the most straightforward of cultural productions.” (Pg. 195)
She says, “a responsible lesbian-identified hermeneutic is likewise informed by the lived realities of those positioned as lesbians, its agenda driven by the issues of those grassroots communities… In the emphasis I place upon context… this development of a lesbian-identified hermeneutic resides in the company of those liberation theologies and approaches to scripture that overtly acknowledge the relevance of scholarship to contemporary issues. To date, lesbian-identified readings of scriptural texts have … taken up and addressed a range of contemporary personal and social issues.” (Pg. 231-232)
She acknowledges, “Currently, most of the lesbian and gay-identified approaches to scripture have been published by writers who retain a sense of allegiance to their Christian or Jewish faiths… it is sometimes an uneasy alliance as individuals contend with scriptures that appear to condemn their loving relations and exclude them from God’s kingdom… [But] lesbian and gay-identified scholars … [may] reconcile their sense of self-dignity as sexual beings within a Christianity or Judaism that has historically been oppressive…” (Pg. 242-243)
She concludes, “my own hope for a lesbian-identified approach is that it will be one committed to making a difference. An ethically responsible approach, it will keep in view the global ways in which lesbian-identified persons are positioned and thereby oppressed; it will keep in touch with the grassroots communities as it takes up and theorizes those concerns in ways that are ethically accountable to those communities. Informed by feminist principles and strategies it will be committed to social, political, economic and religious justice and transformation.” (Pg. 263)
This is a highly interesting and original book in an area (lesbian feminist hermeneutics) in which not a lot of books have been written. It will accordingly be of great interest to the LGBTQ community—particularly those with a Christian/Jewish background or orientation.
Deryn Guest is Senior Lecturer in Biblical Hermeneutics at the University of Birmingham in the UK. She has also written/cowritten edited 'Beyond Feminist Biblical Studies,' 'Transgender, Intersex, and Biblical Interpretation,' and ''The Queer Bible Commentary.'
She wrote in the Introduction to this 2005 book, “I decided to embark on this project. But it seemed a grandiose project to say the least: Who was I to try to define the principles and strategies of a lesbian hermeneutic?... I am acutely aware that any attempt to define a lesbian-identified hermeneutic will inevitably be partial and subject to blind spots… Although I would not refer to myself as postchristian, I retain a keen interest in the way my own and other Christian and Jewish organizations negotiate the presence of lesbians in their pews… The Salvationist in me has never completely disappeared---the concern for justice, for theological integrity, for the well-being of others that compelled me into ministry, continues to drive my work. The reader should therefore not be surprised to find that one of the principles of a lesbian hermeneutic … is that it should be committed to making a difference.” (Pg. 4-5)
She acknowledges, “Since lesbian and gay interpretations of scripture largely emerged post-1970, I have been unable to find any examples of a lesbian-identified approach to scripture that would be contemporaneous with the work of sexologists.” (Pg. 15) She continues, “a lesbian reading of a biblical text would theoretically be a reading position open to all women who are willing to engage critically with their own experiences of heterosexuality and the ways in which biblical texts operate in ways that uphold and maintain heteronormativity. It would be geared towards highlighting instances where women’s primary bonds with other women are found, exposing the forces that drive wedges between those bonds, and illuminating strategies of resistance.” (Pg. 25)
She notes, “[Some state] that it is time to move away from the idea of a lesbian hermeneutic and cast one’s lot with the burgeoning number of queer readings that have emerged within the last ten years. But there are a number of reasons why this is resisted. First, there is justifiable concern that queer will turn out to be a critical tool that is insufficiently cognizant of the feminist criticism that precedes it and enabled its birth… Second… There need not be a wholesale move to queer terminology if our definition of ‘lesbian’ can be organized in such a way that resists the rigidity of sexual identity labels… the third concern [is] that queer theory… with its resistance to identity-reinforcement, will not sufficiently engage with the contemporary grassroots concerns.” (Pg. 45-48) She continues, “the fourth concern … [is] it is difficult for those who have found a home within lesbian and gay communities to consider abandoning labels that have been so politically useful and personally empowering… A final concern is that queer will prove to be an elitist discourse, hardly accessible to the lay person or in touch with the lived realities of grassroots communities.” (Pg. 49-51)
She explains, “Hermeneutics of suspicion have been integral to all liberation readings of scripture whether they be feminist, womanist, Mujerista, postcolonial or any other engaged mode of interpretation. The practice of a hermeneutic of suspicion calls to attention not only the face that texts are permeated by ideological perspectives and norms that distort their representation of the past, but that the history of reception has been similarly permeated with Eurocentric and androcentric philosophical and theological presuppositions and perspectives. Accordingly, the methods and tools of academic study that have prevailed until recently … do no possess the universal application that was once thought… A hermeneutic of hetero-suspicion is a specifically refined version of such feminist hermeneutics of suspicion… [This] means that the researcher is resistant to the presentation of any storyworld where female homoerotic relations are virtually absent and seeks to problematize that apparent absence.” (Pg. 123-124)
She summarizes, “a lesbian-identified hermeneutic of suspicion disrupts the valorization of motherhood by countering with consideration of the harsh realities of multiple pregnancies and their effects on women’s life and health by exploring ways that women might have deliberately avoided the institution… what is being resisted here is the rhetoric that marriage to men and childbearing is what ALL women INEVITABLY desired and the tyrannous way in which women have been pushed into these roles.” (Pg. 139)
She argues, “When one has a broader, thicker awareness of women’s worlds and is prepared to acknowledge that women experienced homoerotic desire for each other, then the absences of text are all the more glaring and the critical distance between the reader and the rhetoric of the text is all the greater. Commitment to a hermeneutic of hetero-suspicion unsettles the text by focusing upon its queerer elements and by welcoming the use of the critical imagination and midrash within biblical hermeneutics. All these strategies facilitate resistance.” (Pg. 155-156)
She points out, “At first glance one might easily conclude that there is not much to be gained from the scriptures for a lesbian-identified critic. On the one hand, they are permeated by a paucity of any references to female homoeroticism, while on the other they are full of images of women anxious to become wives and mothers… However, lesbian-identified individuals find unexpected rewards from a range of unlikely sources and scholars have critically explored ways in which a lesbian-identified perspective can be applied to the most straightforward of cultural productions.” (Pg. 195)
She says, “a responsible lesbian-identified hermeneutic is likewise informed by the lived realities of those positioned as lesbians, its agenda driven by the issues of those grassroots communities… In the emphasis I place upon context… this development of a lesbian-identified hermeneutic resides in the company of those liberation theologies and approaches to scripture that overtly acknowledge the relevance of scholarship to contemporary issues. To date, lesbian-identified readings of scriptural texts have … taken up and addressed a range of contemporary personal and social issues.” (Pg. 231-232)
She acknowledges, “Currently, most of the lesbian and gay-identified approaches to scripture have been published by writers who retain a sense of allegiance to their Christian or Jewish faiths… it is sometimes an uneasy alliance as individuals contend with scriptures that appear to condemn their loving relations and exclude them from God’s kingdom… [But] lesbian and gay-identified scholars … [may] reconcile their sense of self-dignity as sexual beings within a Christianity or Judaism that has historically been oppressive…” (Pg. 242-243)
She concludes, “my own hope for a lesbian-identified approach is that it will be one committed to making a difference. An ethically responsible approach, it will keep in view the global ways in which lesbian-identified persons are positioned and thereby oppressed; it will keep in touch with the grassroots communities as it takes up and theorizes those concerns in ways that are ethically accountable to those communities. Informed by feminist principles and strategies it will be committed to social, political, economic and religious justice and transformation.” (Pg. 263)
This is a highly interesting and original book in an area (lesbian feminist hermeneutics) in which not a lot of books have been written. It will accordingly be of great interest to the LGBTQ community—particularly those with a Christian/Jewish background or orientation.
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