Re-Reading of the Bible and Feminist Hermeneutics

What does it mean?

“The word ‘Hermeneutics’ comes from the Greek word ‘Hermes’, which means the messenger of the ancient Greek gods.”[1] It also means the art of interpreting, and feminist hermeneutics refers to the interpretation of the biblical and ancient texts, in the silent yet so loud, the voice of women in these texts in the perspective of the suffering and the victimised women. In present days the hermeneutical theory presumes that new ideas and focal points emerge from the text, but also from the reader. This is possible only when the reader encounters with the text even more deeply and reads it from the feminist perspective.

Once the reader is deeply into the text, it takes the reader to a different level. And this deep engagement with the text not only gives us new thoughts but also helps us in an all new process of re-reading the text with a new eye, yet so dominant in the perspective of the feminine as they are the victims in the biblical almost every time. This re-reading must help us to understand the text and interpret the ‘Her perspective’ which indeed is the voice that is being absorbed and buried and termed as the divine act of God, in the light of patriarchy’s dominion in the society at the time when these documents were written. This re-reading should help in the up-bringing and the liberation of women from the bondage and unravelling their stand amidst patriarchal powers.

How and Why???

            To uncover the truth that is being buried under these biblical texts, it is very important for us to know the context at which these documents were written. It goes without a saying that these documents were written during a time when the patriarchal power was way too much for the society to bear, the atrocities of the males diminishing the respect and the human-hood of women. In this way we get to know that the bible was written in a male dominant society that never let women get up from the fall which was created by the men. The entire bible was written by the masculine gender (still debated) with their social lens of male dominion over the feminine, where patriarchy was deemed as the legal authorities even in the scriptures and the women were not human beings but mere living creatures to be trampled upon, treated ruthlessly and abused inhumanely.

According to Prasanna Kumari “patriarchy has shaped the cultural symbolism of classical societies and their religious expressions; in the Christian tradition for example, God is seen as the all-sovereign patriarchal male ruling his over his household.”[2] This goes well with the knowledge of us knowing that in the old testament of the bible, we read of great stories of faith, bravery, obedience etc, all that of  male icons (patriarchs) and in the new testament we read of the Jesus who was the Nazarene male on whom the gospels roll around and also his disciples and their works, and not about any women in the picture, and even if at all they were to be mentioned about, it would by jus little and most of the times their names would never pop out. This is what leads us to the first step of our re-reading of the bible to actually suspect the text and raises question, what really were the matriarchs’ doing? Were there no women who professed faith? Were the women not faithful at all? Was God being patriarchal? Was God deaf to the cry of women? Was God partial? Well then, with our experience with God, the faith expression of the women, and also the ever abiding love of God to all humankind, we get to know that God cannot be partial; whereas these were documents portray a partial God. And the reason of this could be that these were written by mere human being whose eyes were blurred with patriarchy. So these expressions of faith and experience form the base for our critiquing of the text.

Once we critique the text, it drives us to correct the text with the lenses of faith, experience and historical context and from the perspective of the victimised women. The ethnicity surely paves way, to give us the knowledge of the setting and helps us understand what could have really happened. This is what is called reading in between the lines of the text. This kind of a reading helps us interpret better the situation and the problem of the victimised women. Therefore all what we do in feminist hermeneutics, must and should be done in the perspective of the victimised women. This critiquing, drives the interpreter into the next level of feminist hermeneutics, to correct the given passage or text, by uplifting the women perspectives and paves way for the re-construction the same.

Now that we have critiqued and corrected the text, we have to now re-construct the de-constructed and now construct and re-construct the same with the notion of placing God, who is partial in the text, as a God of justice, love and compassion. This way of hermeneutical perspective breaks the barrier or the hurdle of patriarchy, in which we are so embedded with, and bring forth a new vantage point of seeing God not just in the scriptures but seeing God beyond the scriptures and reveal the true and divine God-self. However we cannot just authenticate our re-construction, but the sources apart from the biblical sources, or also called the non-canonical texts, help us establish our interpretation of the text.

Conclusion

These could be one method of re-reading of the bible in the perspective of the women and interpreting the same in their perspective. We do have a lot to criticize and reflect upon patriarchy but if not for patriarchy we would not have really experienced the pain of women and stand in solidarity with them, for their vulnerability and degradation. According to Kathy Ferguson, “patriarchy is most important to feminism, not for what it is, but for what it is not; it signifies the systematic conditions of female subordination that feminism opposes. It also makes possible the conditions through which feminism arises as a movement for a social change”[3]

Bibliography

• Clifford, Anne M. Introducing Feminist theology, Orbis Books, Mary knoll, New York.
• Edited by:- Kumari, Prasanna. Feminist Theology: Perspectives and praxis. Gurukul Summer Institute 1998
• Collins, Adela. Y. Feminist perspectives and Biblical scholarship. Scholar Press, Chico. California-1985
• Hellwig, Monika. K. Christian women in a troubled world. St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame-1985
• Kumari, Prasanna. Feminist theology: Perspectives and Praxis. Gurukul Summer Institute-1998
• Martin, Francis. The feminist question. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Michigan-1994
• Ralte Lalrinawmi; Rajkumar, Evangeline; Feminist Hermeneutics: IWIT/ISPCK-2002
• Ralte Lalrinawmi; Robinson, Florence; Scott, Cornie; Vasanthkumar, Nirmala: Envisioning new heaven and a new earth. NCCI/ISPCK-1998
• Schumacher, Michele. M. Women in Christ. . B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Michigan-2004
• Edited by: Tierney, Helen. Women’s study Encyclopaedia, greenwood press, west port, Connecticut, 1999

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[1] Anne M Clifford. Introducing Feminist theology, Orbis Books, Mary knoll, New York, pg 57

[2] Edited by: Prasanna Kumari. Feminist Theology: Perspectives and praxis. Gurukul Summer Institute 1998, pg-210

[3] Edited by: Helen Tierney. Women’s study Encyclopaedia, greenwood press, west port, Connecticut, 1999, pg-1048

The Infancy Massacre in Matthew 2:16-18

Introduction

The passage is chosen from the infancy narratives from the gospel of Matthew, which is not mentioned in the other synoptic gospels. This is the massacre of the infants during the time of the birth of Jesus by the king of Judea, Herod the Great, who was known for his ruthless ruling of the nation and cruelty. We shall go deeper into studying these verses and know the depth of what is written by the gospel writers, and what they really wanted to convey to the world by writing this account which even the historian of that time Josephus has not mentioned about.

Form, Source, Structure and Theology

            It is quite interesting that the other gospel writers did not add this in their infancy narrative, whereas Matthew uses this to replicate what had happened in the Old Testament (OT) times, in the time of the birth of Moses. With this we get to know that Matthew relied a lot on the oral traditions. The historian of that time Josephus did not write about this incident but Matthew has added it, and has also given citation from the Old Testament to make firm his point that this had happened to fulfil what was prophesied by the prophets.

             This passage holds a significant features; Firstly, this pericope ends with a quotation from the Old Testament Jer 31:15. This is the second occurrence in this pericope the first being that of Hos 11:1 in Matt 1:13-15, and later in Matt 2:19:23 that of Is 11:1.

Secondly, when we read this passage we realise that the stories in chapter 2 are quite independent, with continuance of chapter 1. It speaks of Herod’s atrocious act of killing leads the holy family to move out the land of Egypt and their return to Nazareth after the death of Herod and the rule of Archelaus, and recording their residing in Nazareth of Galilee.

            “This narrative is in the genre of Midrashic Haggaddi. This narrative holds great theological significance which is related to the OT texts not simply in quotations but also the indirect dependence on the story of Moses”[1] much of the narrative indeed can be perceived as a Christian midrash on the biblical narrative of Moses’ birth and may have been influenced by the Jewish midrash in the same narrative.

            It is interesting to see here that the portrayal of this act is not regarded as an evil event but rather an event that God was mindful about. There are various reason to support this; if suppose God would have intimidated the whole village about the massacre and all would have escaped but for sure Herod would have become more suspicious about the birth and made this massacre bigger than what we can imagine of, maybe God wanted to keep it as low as possible so that the saviour would be safe and will save the entire humankind.

Social Setting

            The later part of the 16^th verse gives us a clue of the place at which the execution of the babies could have taken place. ‘…in Bethlehem and throughout the whole district...’ Therefore it was not only Bethlehem but also the surrounding villages- all that were in the neighbourhood. We do not know how big Bethlehem was at that time, having said that the population ranges from 1500-2000 members, we for sure know that it is not a very big village. For a village of this many people the infancy rate was about 30-40 children per year and boy children were about 20-30 or even less.

Exegesis

16v. The verse starts with the magi deceiving Herod and that Herod’s anger and cruelty in seen here, as he wants to eliminate whom he fears would challenge his power. Herod is known for his cruel and brutal orders of killing, which include the killing of his wife and 2 sons.  In this verse he gives orders to kill the infant boys as he fears the saviour was a male child. And he orders for the killing of the 2yr olds as we can take that this was the time taken for Herod to realise that the Magi had ‘Mocked’, ‘Deceived’ him, with that anger he gave the order to kill the infants.

The historian of that time Josephus does not write of the event in his work, the scholar suggest that the reasons could be that, because he was a Jew and he did not want to write of the Christian truth, or maybe he thought that this killing act of Herod was no where comparable with his other atrocious killings, and that this could be very small when compared with all the other killings, or maybe Herod could have done this secretly without informing Josephus. The number of infants could roughly range from 20-30 or even less, but some scholars suggest that it could even be 144,000 which are spoken of in Revelation, but this cannot be accepted as if the number was to be this big, other writers must have mentioned about this event or at least hinted about it.

17-18v. This is the citation of the fulfilment of the prophecy of Jeremiah 31:15. It looks as if it were given as an expression of the lament of the massacre of the children, but here Matthew gives it deeper meaning to it, Rachel weeping for “her Children” refer to the Israelites. “For Matthew, Israel is the source and sign of the new people of God, the messiah who emerges from Israel, takes upon himself the ancient lot (Babylonian Captivity) as well as inaugurating a new one similar to it.”[2]

Reflection

            This particular story of the massacre create a wide range of questions in our mind as to why God intended to kill all the other children in the village and sparing juts one child. But Matthew in his narrative makes it clear that the god intervention was very much present and it was not just about seeing this incident in human eyes, but in that of the eschatological perspective, where this child that was saved would one day bring salvation to human kind. But we can see that the highlighted point here is the misuse of office by Herod, who for his own selfishness and want of the throne kills the babies, whom he feared would one day threaten his throne.

In today’s context we see that there are a lot of people, who are in power, go to extremes to safe guard their seat or throne or to maintain their own comfort zones. For example in India the political leaders bring in plans of urbanization of the rural areas by building all kinds of buildings and taking away the land from the farmers and the economically poor, this in turn leaves them and their family without a place for their survival. But the survival for these poor people is made even harder with the price hike of the commodities therefore ending in the death, in which the children are also hit.

            If we had to compare this misuse of power to the urban context, it is sure to hit us back. The children are burdened so much these days. We the elders want our children to learn so much that we push them for all kinds of coaching classes, tuitions, music class, karate class, etc. but we fail to understand that the child has a childhood to live and enjoy, but the eyes are closed with our seeing of the future and for our own selfishness. In this place we misuse our power by killing the children’s childhood, which they will never get back in their lives again.

            We cannot say that urbanization and teaching is bad, but it is necessary that we look back on our motives and also think in other perspectives, so that our decisions would not diminish the life of the ones in the receiving end. It is left unto us to decide if we want to be modern Herods or think wisely and give orders. 

Bibliography

Craig L. Blomberg. The New American Commentary: Matthew; Broadman Press, Nashville Tennessee 1992

Donald A. Hagner, Word Biblical Commentary; Word books, Publisher, Dallas Texas (1993)

Donald Senior. Matthew; Abingdon Press, Nashville 1998

Francis B. Wright. The Gospel according to Matthew; Harper & Row, Publishers, San Francisco, 1981

Raymond E. Brown. The Birth of the Messiah; Doubleday & Company, inc. Garden City, New York, 1977.

Rudolf Schnackenburg. The Gospel of Matthew; translated by Robert. Barr; William B. Eerdmans, Publishing Company, Michigan/Cambridge U.K. 2002

Sherman E. Johnson The Interpreters Bible; Abingdon Cokesbury Press, Nashville

Tom Wright. Matthew for Everyone; Westminster John Knox Press, 2004

Warren Carter. Matthew and the Margins; Theological Publications in India, 2007

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[1] Hagner, Donald A. Word Biblical Commentary; Word books, Publisher, Dallas Texas (1993) Pg: 33

[2] Schnackenburg, Rudolf. The Gospel of Matthew; translated by Barr, Robert. William B. Eerdmans, Publishing Company, Michigan/Cambridge U.K. 2002