Women And The Bible: A Tribute To Tikva

The Jewish Week, November 16, 2007

November  16, 2007, The Jewish Week

Francine Klagsbrun
Special to The Jewish Week

When I decided to attend a conference at the Jewish Theological Seminary a few weeks ago in memory of the Bible scholar Tikva Frymer-Kensky, it was largely to join in honoring Tikva, who died an untimely death from breast cancer last year. But I was also curious about what new knowledge could possibly come from this interfaith program, called “For There Is Hope: Gender and the Hebrew Bible.” With the dozens of books and articles about women in the Bible that have appeared in recent years, was there anything left to say?

Plenty, I discovered. Texts that many of us have read and discussed hundreds of times are now lending themselves to fresh and exciting interpretations through the work of feminist Bible scholars.

Tikva was steeped in that work. With a doctorate in Assyriology and Sumerology and degrees in Hebrew and Semitic studies, she could read ancient Near Eastern documents as easily as she could read the Bible. I once spoke on a panel with her about women in Judaism. We were told to limit our talks to 15 minutes each, and I dutifully timed my paper to the minute. Paying no attention to such restrictions, Tikva spoke freely for as long as it took to say what she had to say—and held all of us spellbound. I became a lifelong fan.

Although a confirmed feminist, Tikva disagreed with feminists who criticized the monotheism of the Bible. In her ground-breaking book, “In the Wake of the Goddesses,” she showed how the belief among ancient peoples in numerous goddesses had helped keep women in inferior positions in those societies. In contrast, the biblical insistence on the worship of one God, she argued, tended to equalize women from a religious standpoint. In her later works, she emphasized the central role biblical women played in every phase of Israelite history.

Picking up on the centrality of ancient Jewish women, the first speaker, Carol Meyers, professor of religion at Duke University, pointed out that most Bible stories tell us only about the public life of early Jews, and in that sphere men dominated. But the artifacts archaeologists have uncovered tell about everyday life, where women had a pivotal place. Women used the grinding stones that have been found, for example, to grind grain from the wheat plants men grew in the fields. Through their activities, they supplied food for their families and, by working in groups as they did, they formed the basis of community life. They shared information, and what they learned from each other they passed on to their husbands and children.

Other speakers presented different, sometimes startling, insights into biblical women. JTS professor Stephen Geller, a leading Bible critic, showed how “outside” women provided a counterpoint to some traditional biblical views. Ruth, a Moabite, becomes the ancestor of King David; Zipporah, a Midianite, rescues her husband Moses from God’s wrath on their way to Egypt; Jael, a Kenite, kills the enemy Sisera and saves Israel; Rahab, a Canaanite and prostitute, protects two of Joshua’s spies. These texts appear alongside others that are more severe towards women, more severe ones, such as the book of Ezra, in which Jewish men are ordered to cast out their foreign wives. The outsider women’s stories soften the impact of the harsh rulings, serving almost as a protest against them, Geller said.

Two speakers made related points during a panel disucssion that focused on Sarah and Hagar and other troubling texts. Katharine Henderson, a Presbyterian minister and executive vice president of Auburn Theological Seminary, connected Hagar to the Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at a well, related in the Gospel of John. In her tradition, she said, both are marginal women who discover something about the nature of divinity. Lori Lefkovitz, professor of Gender and Judaism at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, spoke of these and other difficult texts as opportunities for rereading and reinterpreting, in the mode of the early rabbis, who also wrestled with disturbing biblical passages.

In some ways, Lefkovitz’s words sum up much about Tikva. She never wrote apologetics and never looked for easy solutions. She delved into biblical texts and with an original and passionate voice, offered new perspectives on women’s lives in ancient times, and by extension, in our own.

Tikva’s love of Bible studies began, her husband Rabbi Allan Kensky said, when she was a student at JTS. And it was fitting to have this conference held there. For all the criticism leveled at the seminary and the Conservative movement these days, the event illustrated what they do so well: allow opposing ideas to exist side by side, as the Bible did, and with rigorous scholarship constantly reexamine those ideas. The conference included differing viewpoints, but taken together they  created a many-faceted image of women in the Bible that is well suited to Tikva’s legacy.

Now, let the conversation continue.

Francine Klagsbrun’s most recent book is "The Fourth Commandment: Remember the Sabbath Day.”

The Jewish Week, November 16, 2007