Imagined Memories of Her
An Evaluation of the Hermeutical Method of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza
Page 2 of 3
I. Introduction
Sometimes it seems that the major movement in special interest
theology is to “get back to the roots” of your group or mind-set. Feminstic
liberation theology is no different in that regard. It is searching for roots
in order to be able to legitimately teach its doctrinal positions, which many
of us men find very strange indeed.
The question of how they read the Bible the way they do, is something
that has intrigued the author for some time. After often reading secondary literature
about these women who, according to the people evaluating them, are “perverting”
the message of Scripture, it was about time to see what these women themselves
write, trying to do so critically, and yet trying not to throw the proverbial
baby out with the bath-water, if indeed there is a baby to be saved.
In this paper we are going to evaluate this position through the work
of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, in particular her seminal book, In Memory
of Her,[1] in which she outlines her hermeneutical
method and states her goal of “reclaiming ... androcentric human and biblical
history as women’s own history”[2]
by “writing women back into early Christian history”[3]
so creating memories that will in her mind help women to rise above their oppression.
In our study we will first of all try to frame how she goes about creating
these memories by examining the presuppositions she brings to the text. Next
we will take a look at how she forms these “memories” through her hermeneutic
and finally we will evaluate her “memories” from an Evangelical perspective,
that believes the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, right down to the jot and
tittle, and that sees it as a guideline for every-day living in all aspects
of life.
But before we discuss her presuppositions, we must take a brief look at
the person of Dr. Schüssler Fiorenza. She is of Roman Catholic background and
owing to the fact that she received training in Würzburg, Germany, and the spelling
of her name is very German, it may be that she is originally from that country.[4]
She currently the Krister Stendahl Professor of Divinity, M.Div at Harvard Divinity
School. Bray mentions that she was teaching at Notre Dame and at the Episcopal
Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In all of these positions she taught
in New Testament feminist critical liberation interpretation. She has written
a whole plethora of books on feminist interpretation and extensively on the
book of the Revelation of the Apostle John. It is also noted that she is the
first female president of the Society of Biblical literature.[5]
II. Framing a Memory: Presuppositions
The framework for building a hermeneutic is already a major
clue of where the hermeneutic will be leading. As opinionated human beings we
find ourselves trying to impose our opinions upon the texts that we read, be
they biblical or otherwise. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza is no different in
that respect, owing that she brings her own presuppositions which are to guide
her in her reading and exposition of the text.
The first and foremost of her presuppositions is stated in the introduction
to her book:
Biblical texts are not verbally inspired revelation nor doctrinal
principles but historical formulations within the context of a religious community.[6]
With this declaration she gives herself a carte blanche
to place her own views as authoritative over the Scripture, her views which
in her own admission are born of liberation theology, as she calls her view
a “feminist liberation theology.”[7] For that
reason she views the historical-critical method (HCM) as the way to exposit
the Scriptures correctly — while consciously keeping her liberation theological
presuppositions in mind as she dissects the Word.
Interestingly her second major presupposition has to do with how she views
men and women. It is not until the very end of the first section of her book
that she mentions it, but it would be fair to extrapolate that she views the
only difference between men and women as being biological. In other words, just
because of the fact that men have one type of genital system and women have
another type, they are different. Other than that they are equal in worth and
for that reason in intellect, in roles that they can take.
Third, she believes that women during Christianity and all ages have been
increasingly oppressed by the “patriarchy” and to this day are only beginning
to decisively throw off those bonds. Though there are examples of women having
tremendous freedoms in the past, she believes that these were only precursors
to today and so displays a definite victim mentality[8].
Her fourth presupposition is that Christianity is in and of itself an
egalitarian religion in the radical sense, in that everyone is equal in every
respect (gifting, intellect, wealth) and that those who presume to not be so
must be pulled down and corrected[9]. In a like vein of this she seems to
suppose that family and “God-given” order of the Bible are patriarchal and imposed
on Christianity by the “patriarchy.”[10]
One of her conclusions underlines this egalitarian view of Christianity:
Finally, they [feminist sociological models] show that the
definitions of sexual role and gender dimorphism are the outcome of the social-economic
interactions between men and women but that they are not ordained either by
nature or by God.[11]
Thus she presupposes that the Christianity of today
is a tainted version of what “God intended” that cries out to be purged, something
that Dr. Schüssler Fiorenza and her compatriots will gladly do, since it will
further their own aims. Or, to put it in a more positive light, she sees Christianity
as essentially a social, historical and cultural process that is to be adapted
to our time and culture.
Finally she quotes Gordon Leff, who summarizes her view of what she supposes
“historical objectivity” to be, namely the interrelation of the facts and data
with the “unifying vision” of the interpreter![12] From
the context, “unifying vision” appears to be the views that the interpreter
holds, thus making the interpreter the final authority and not the Bible itself
or even God authority.
These presuppositions are the ones that are very clear in her writing.
She does seem to think that God as revealed as male is something imposed by
the patriarchy as well, though she doesn’t directly come out and say it. Her
words are: “a biblical feminist hermeneutics ... must learn from them [i.e.
post biblical feminist views] in order to come to a fuller understanding of
the liberating biblical impulses for women’s struggle against patriarchal biblical
sexism.”[13]
In the passage beforehand she deals extensively with the theory of the post
biblical feministic view that “Goddess” worship, the symbol of female power,
was suppressed by the Bible.
Perhaps a better, more fair rephrasing of this presupposition is that
she will keep an open mind to anything liberationist and / or feminist that
will support her views.
The final and perhaps most far reaching presupposition that she has is
that in early Christianity women have been in leadership roles in the church,
which she tries to substantiate. She postulates that they were then pushed out
of this role.
III. Forming a Memory: Hermeneutic
It is difficult to describe Dr. Schüssler Fiorenza’s approach
to hermeneutics. For, though she states that she is laying out the guidelines
of this hermeneutic, her book seems to do all but firmly lay them down. There
are hints here and there and though she uses terms like “critical analysis,”
one is left at a loss for finding out exactly what she means by them. Perhaps
her method is simply not meant to be understood by the male mind.
Basically she works to use the HCM methods that are both historical-critical
and textual-critical to promote the center on the liberation of women, since
the Bible is seen as both an oppressive and an empowering document for women
of our time[14].
In her methodology she neither wants to totally reject nor totally accept
the Biblical text, but she will analyze each of the passages for their “androcentric
implications,”[15] which she seems to want to do away with,
since this critical reconstruction must be “based on an alternative biblical
feminist vision,” as she is attempting to change the social reality of the Christian
churches “in which the religious oppression of women takes its specific historical
patriarchal forms.”[16]
In other words, any traditional biblical interpretation is to be rejected. She
even affirms this clearly:
Biblical revelation and truth are given only in those texts
and interpretative models that transcend critically their patriarchal frameworks
and allow for a vision of Christian women as historical and theological subjects
and actors.[17]
Now as to what exactly these texts and models that “transcend
... their patriarchal frameworks” are is not defined. It sort of becomes a fill-in-the-blank
game where she can put in anything that she feels is appropriate for reaching
her goals at that moment.
In connection with that she advocates that we must “reject those elements
within all biblical traditions and texts that perpetuate, in the name
of God, violence, alienation, and patriarchal subordination, and eradicate women
from historical-theological consciousness.”[18]
But what are these texts and traditions that must be rejected? She does not
delineate this, once more giving her opinion the upper hand as authoritative
factor in the exegetical process.
Dr. Schüssler Fiorenza views the Bible in the HCM light as a document
that was created over a long period of time. For that reason she believes that
this “androcentric” and / or “patriarchal” view of the Bible was something that
was added by later redactors. At the end of the second and throughout the third
chapter of her book she goes into detail about HCM reconstructions of what people
think happened in the inception of Christianity and its growth from the “Jesus-movement”
to the church. It would seem then that she assumes a very late date of
the New Testament corpus without laying down any arguments for it.
What is also a very important — perhaps the most important —
piece of her hermeneutical method is the “tool” of imagination.
Such a feminist critical method could be likened to the work
of a detective insofar as it does not rely solely on historical ‘facts’ nor
invents its evidence, but is engaged in an imaginative reconstruction of historical
reality.[19]
An “imaginative reconstruction of historical reality”
that is based not only on facts, seems to be more of the stuff that is used
for a historical novel rather than for the exegesis of the Word of God. Here
it would seem that she is resurrecting allegorical interpretation to some extent,
but clothing it in the robes of feminism and calling it “historical.” Dr. Schüssler
Fiorenza even goes so far as to use imaginative creations to try to get her
students to “break out” of the androcentric mindset[20]. For her the “imaginative-theological”
aspect is what the critical feminist theologian must use to build “theoretical
frameworks” of the Bible. It does not seem that she is interested in true facts
at all, since, as stated above, true objectivity results only in the interaction
of the “facts” with the interpreter, which in reality ends up being totally
subjective.
Because the androcentric mindset is even part of our language, the term
“man” and the masculine pronoun being able to mean both the male or a mixed
group, she demands that
any interpretation and translation claiming to be historically
adequate to the language character of its sources must understand and translate
New Testament androcentric language on the whole as inclusive of women until
proven otherwise.[21]
In other words, we’ve got to retranslate the Bible,
as some have already done, to not say merely “man,” but “woman and man.”
The model that she wants to use in her hermeneutic is one “of social interaction
and religious transformation, of Christian ‘vision’ and historical realization,
of struggle for equality against patriarchal domination.”[22] In other
words it is totally anti-everything that really makes up Christianity.
Perhaps we could summarize her methodology as a rejectionistic approach
to the Bible that throws out everything it doesn’t like, and fills the gaps
with imaginative constructs that have only very little bearing on reality. That
sounds pretty much like everything that historical-critical “theologians” have
been doing in the past and even her goal is similar to that of the original
purporters and builders of the HCM: it is to change the center of authority
and through it society. Dr. Schüssler Fiorenza wishes to change the church,
so that women and men have equal roles in every respect, which is commendable,
but not quite biblical.
IV. Evaluating This “Memory”: An Evangelical
Response
After we have tried to some extent describe her approach to
the text, now we should evaluate it from a conservative evangelical approach,
which assumes that the Bible is the Word of God in the fullest sense, namely
that He divinely inspired authors to write infallible Scripture, that is infallible
to the letter, without overriding their personalities. It views what is put
down in the Bible as ultimate truth that is normative as well as descriptive,
thus having an impact on our daily lives.
In this section we will first evaluate Dr. Schüssler Fiorenza’s presuppositions
and then her hermeneutic.
A. Evaluating the Framework of Her Memory
Perhaps the most painful thing to the evangelical mind
is her rejection of the inspiration of the Bible. Once the basis of an infallible,
inspired Scripture is dropped, then any external authority is gone and there
is absolutely no limit to what you can do to it. From the very beginning Dr.
Schüssler Fiorenza pulls out all stops and gives herself the liberty to do anything
she wants with the text. Her acceptance of the HCM is simply another subset
of this rejection of biblical authority.
As liberation theology is basically an implanting of your own agenda upon
the corpus of Scripture, and a picking and choosing of “relevant” texts, it
will naturally grow out of a rejection of authority. It ends up laying words
into Jesus’ mouth that He never spoke, or twisting what he and others said to
a measure that it has very little to do with the intelligible meaning of Scripture.
These people forget that the Bible tells the Christians that they must suffer
(see for instance, Jn 16:18-21) and that we are called to witness Christ under
suffering. It is not speaking about social egalitarianism, the way some people
would like to make it sound. And these liberation theologians are not doing
anything new. During the time of Martin Luther there were groups of farmers
who called upon the Scripture to support their fight against their superiors.
It all ended in a rather bloody battle.
Feminist theologians are doing pretty much the same thing in trying to
“liberate” women. If we go back far enough, we will find that the feminist agenda
is basically anti-family, which is the most coherent unit of the biblical viewpoint.
Using the Bible to destroy that is something that is definitely not biblical.
The misuse of Scripture is nothing new.
We must concede, however, that Scripture has been misused in the
past to bash women and to subordinate them in unscriptural ways. But the way
that this was done, was in exactly the same way that the feminist theologians
are working: only selective passages of Scripture were read, and the authority
lay not just on the Bible, but also on the Tradition of first the rabbinical
interpretation and then on the Tradition of the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox
church, none of which taught the full extent of Scripture, but neatly circumvented
things that they didn’t want to accept. Though she wouldn’t admit it, Dr. Schüssler
Fiorenza is doing precisely the same thing.
There is no excuse for the oppression of women, and it is true that in
Christ there is no difference between man and woman, but this is in a spiritual
sense only, not in a physical sense or in view of their divergent roles in everyday
life. Men and women’s being equal before God is no question. Their having exactly
the same roles before God isn’t. As a man reading this book written by
a woman, the author must note that there are certain things in her logic that
he does not understand. That is because women do see things differently from
men, as men see things differently than women. This does not mean, however that
we cannot see eye-to-eye. It simply means that we have a different perspective
of life that compliments the other and, if used properly, helps us to understand
life better.
Gen 2:18 describes woman as a “helper” to a man in his task as the image
of God upon earth. This passage does not seem to imply that they have the same
roles, nor does it say that because woman is a “helper” she is any inferior
to man[23].
Dr. Ferris McDaniel notes that this term for helper ( )
is predominantly used of God elsewhere in Scripture[24].
The way man and woman are made, makes sure that they cannot exist without
each other, which naturally presupposes that man and woman are different in
their make-up. The immensely popular secular book Men are from Mars, Women
are from Venus[25] clearly
delineates this and it is a pity that these women can’t understand that this
diversity in roles is something that is “very good”, as God put it in Gen 1:31.
It is true to some effect that Christianity is an egalitarian religion,
though not in the radical sense of egalitarianism. What Dr. Schüssler Fiorenza
is trying to get Scripture to say is that the equality of men and women spans
roles as well as worth. The Bible itself teaches difference in the roles of
the sexes, though not in worth. As mentioned above, the favorite passage of
Gal 3:28 is taken to spread into all life against the point that Paul is trying
to make. He is pointing out the position of believers in Christ as children
of God. The reason he uses “sons” is to denote that Christians are full heirs
to the blessings of God. There is no mention of roles in that chapter. Once
more it is a reading of ones own views into the text.
Perhaps the most striking problem she has is where her authority lies.
It lies within herself and within her views. The authority has been moved from
the Bible to the individual, with the result that the Bible gets changed rather
than the one who reads it! This is the next logical step of rejecting the Bible
as inspired and so it should not be surprising that she would do such a thing.
However, from an evangelical viewpoint it is untenable, since the Bible is viewed
as authoritative over the person.
Finally we must address the issue of her presupposition that women were
once in leadership in the church and later forced out. The examples cited are
always the same: Phoebe in Ro 16:1, Priscilla (or Prisca), the wife of Aquila
of Acts 18, and perhaps the Junia (or Junias) of Ro 16:7.
Priscilla is always mentioned in conjunction with her husband Aquila,
and so they find themselves as a coherent unit, functioning as a role-model
to present day married couples of how they should work together in ministry,
so undermining the feminist argument.
Phoebe can be explained simply as a servant of the church in Kenchrae,
though if the deaconess position existed, it would be similar to that of a deacon’s:
namely to wait on tables and handle the every-day logistical things in the community.
It would not necessarily presume leadership, though a good example would be
mandatory. Aside from that fact nowhere else in Scripture is there an undisputed
reference to the office of “deaconess”, thus making it untenable to argue that
Phoebe would have been a leading figure in the church, especially if it is only
done from this one passage.
As to whether this Junia is male or female, would make a more difficult
argument to refute. If Junia were a “she”, she would be the only woman to be
titled an apostle. But as this person is mentioned in conjunction with Andronicus
(who is unquestionably male), it could be argued that they formed a coherent
unit such as Priscilla and Aquila were, thus making another example of husband
and wife working together. But other than this argument it is too sketchy to
base anything on the one verse, which seems to be what the feminist theologians
are doing.
In summary: All of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s presuppositions
are out of line with evangelical thinking. The only possibly redeeming factor
would be that her calling for equality among men and women in the Church would
be embraced to teach the equality of worth and also to define in what way Christianity
might be an “egalitarian” religion from a biblical perspective as an answer
to her criticisms.
B. Evaluating the Form of Her Memory
Her methodology is also counter to what evangelical
Christianity would use. Her simple acceptance and use of HCM is a logical result
of not believing that the Bible is inspired at any rate. If we could summarize
our answer to her hermeneutic, it would be that she is using faulty tools to
achieve an anti-Christian goal. This may seem a bit harsh to say, but the author
by no means wishes to discredit Dr. Schüssler Fiorenza as a person. This is
merely a judgment of her methodology. Let’s then take a look at the components
of her methodology.
What must be commended, however is that she does view the Word as powerful.
However her view of power is the wrong kind. The Bible is not power to subvert
anyone, whether woman or man, but it is power to change lives for their good
and for the goals of God.
First of all she neither wants to fully reject nor totally accept the
Bible. The not wishing to reject the Word of God is commendable. It is also
understandable as she searches for something that she can hold on to, so that
she can still be part of the society she is in, which is the academic circles
of liberal Christianity. However, her rejection of parts of the Bible, due to
her presupposition is something that is not tenable from the perspective of
people who regard every word as authoritative. To reject that authority is to
reject God and what He says.
If we ask who decides what to accept and reject, there is only one answer
left: the expositor of the Word. So the focus of Authority shifts once more
from the Word of God to the mind of woman. Her rejection of all traditions and
texts “that perpetuate, in the name of God, violence, alienation, and patriarchal
subordination, and eradicate women from historical-theological consciousness”[26]
shows what she wants to blot out parts of the Scriptures so they will conform
to her view. Who is the person that decides what perpetuates violence, alienation,
etc.? It is the exegete.
There is no hint whatsoever in Scripture that the command of God to destroy
the Caananite civilizations, for example, is something that would be unbecoming
to God. It is a clear example of his justice. The view that Yahweh
is only the God of the oppressed is expressed by liberation theologians[27],
but that view is found nowhere in Scripture. Yahweh
is both the God of the rich (Job) and of the oppressed (Lazarus in Lk
16). It seems to the author that the liberation theologians, including feminist
theologians, have an incomplete view of God, projecting their wish for a particular
god or goddess into the clouds, and not taking time to compare it to the Lord
of Hosts, King of the earth, in the Bible.
As a part of the acceptance of HCM, it is logical to assume that the Bible
was created over long periods of time. Dr. Schüssler Fiorenza, as a scholar
of New Testament studies, assumes this, as is clear from her descriptions of
early Christian reconstructions. She will even go so far as to say that the
New Testament was redacted to include these patriarchal views. For her the pastoral
letters never came from the pen of Paul[28].
For an evangelical such a view cannot be held and still stay true to the
belief that the Bible is inerrant. If inspiration is true, then Paul must have
written the corpus that is attributed to him. Also there is a more or less significant
argument by German papyrologist Carsten Peter Thiede, that especially the Synoptic
Gospels were written at an earlier time in history than assumed.[29]
The Gospels are among the most contested documents around. If Thiede’s theories
are true, then it would deal a very severe blow to the redaction criticism surrounding
the creation of the Synoptic Gospels and would rob the feminist theology of
one of their prized extrapolations of how the texts came to be so “patriarchialized.”
While Dr. Schüssler Fiorenza is careful to point out that Christ was egalitarian,
she never mentions that He speaks very highly of marriage (which she views as
“patriarchal”) as a God-given design (see Mt 19:4-6 and parallel passages).
Once more texts are omitted, because they don’t fit the agenda.
Another very dangerous “tool” that Dr. Schüssler Fiorenza uses is the
“imagination.” Where there are gaps, they must be filled, and it is true that
the imagination of the human being is powerful enough to do so. What results,
however is fiction, even if it is based on fact. This can get very dangerous,
because the exegete can then spin any tale he or she wishes to without regard
to whether it was really true or not.
Dr. Schüssler Fiorenza’s goal of building theoretical frameworks rather
than relying on the biblical texts is simply an extension of her using imagination
as a tool. Fact becomes unimportant. What becomes important is building up the
other. If someone is encouraged by a lie, the lie remains untrue, no matter
how good it makes the person who has been “picked up” feel. Truth is essential
and truth will then correspond to fact, whether this fact must first be apprehended
by faith before it is comprehended by reason or whether it is first comprehended
by reason so as to produce faith. We cannot build faith upon “theoretical frameworks
that” will topple, we must build it on truth.
What we must take into consideration, however is the fact that our language
is to some effect what she calls “androcentric.” It is true that masculine pronouns
are used to address a mixed group (such as “guys” can be used of women in the
northern states). However, though this consideration is necessary for exposition,
knowing where the mixed group is meant rather than just the men, it must be
remembered that just about every language will do just that: use masculine pronouns
for a mixed group.[30] This is especially
true of the greater European and Semitic languages, of which Greek and Hebrew
are two. If the feministic theology wishes to change the English language so
as to accommodate for women, so be it[31],
but they must also remember then, that there are cases in the original
language that may seem ambiguous, since that language uses the same system of
plurals that ours does now. A literal translation of the Bible (such as the
New American Standard Bible) will not change where it says “brothers” to “brothers
and sisters,” because that is precisely against the idea of literal translation.
Perhaps a paraphrase (such as the New International reader’s Version) may do
that, but we must remember that it is not written thus in the original
texts and the paraphrase should at least remark that in the footnote.
When Dr. Schüssler Fiorenza’s views are summed up, they are essentially
anti-Christian, even though she denies it. The reason for this harsh statement
is that, when taken as a system, liberation theology has little in common with
Christianity. It would certainly figure with Christendom, but not within the
locus of Christianity, which is those who believe in the death and resurrection
of Christ as the only way to restore the relationship to God. When you substitute
this “metaphysical” salvation for the physical, earthly salvation of the individual
as seen by liberation theology, or even deny that God reaches into the world
or even exists, as most historical-critical and textual-critical scholars do,
then you are not Christian any more.
As Christ Himself said: “He who is not with me is against me, and he who
does not gather with me scatters.” (Mt 12:30) The Pharisees — that is the scholarly
class of Christ’s time — were certainly not with Him, judging from all their
strange injunctions upon the Tanakh corpus and their lack of heart-faith. The
author would go so far to say, that most liberal and liberationist scholars,
including Dr. Schüssler Fiorenza are not believers, and so not for Christ. Thus
they would be scattering.
V. Conclusion: Was It Even a Memory?
We must conclude that Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s goal
to reconstruct early Christian history is a valiant attempt, but severely misguided,
due to her presuppositions and her methodology which results from her frame
of mind. She unfortunately lets her view of the world dictate her attitude towards
the Scripture, rather than letting Scripture dictate her view of the world.
However, studying her work can give us some insights about what is moving
the feminist community at the time and give us impulses about where to search
the Scriptures for better formulated answers. The answers that are found there
will in the final instance have to be backed by the fact that we view all of
the Bible as authoritative, even the parts that feminists would reject as “androcentric”
or “patriarchal” and thus not pertaining to reality. In that sense it might
even be considered a losing battle to try to argue the Scripture before the
world. The bottom line about the understanding of the Word of God is, to quote
Anselm of Canterbury, “I believe in order to understand.” If you don’t accept
the claims of the Bible in faith, you won’t understand the claims of the Bible
to be Truth. You may not even understand them at all and end up with such strange
heresies (from a biblical perspective) as feminist liberation theology.
However, in contrast to the non-Christian “Christian” theologians, we
have the possibility of going before the Throne of Grace and pleading for their
eternal souls. Their views may subvert and damn for eternity, but true faith
in the true Christ of the Bible will save. Would it be that the All-wise would
cut through their foolishness and show them that the folly of God is greater
than the wisdom of man
(1Co 1:25).
So we follow God’s
own fool,
for only the foolish can tell.
Believe the unbelievable
and come be a fool as well.[32]
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