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Overview
Jesus: 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 Her: 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, Jesus: 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.This long-awaited book on Jesus by the author of In Memory of Her situates ancient and contemporary discussions of Jesus the Christ within the space of the basileia--the reign, commonweal, or intended world of God. 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.
Editorials
Library Journal
In the "imaginative space" of the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth (Luke 1.39-41), Fiorenza (Harvard Divinity Sch.) crafts a "critical feminist conversation." She proclaims a "hermeneutic of suspicion"-a discourse steeped in a vocabulary and an architecture as technical and specific as an applied science, but one intent upon discerning the person of Christ. Not to be dismissed as gender-bashing, this analysis examines the ingrained nature of oppressive structures; as a result, Fiorenza formulates a language and a methodology toward a feminist understanding of Christ. For example, Jesus deserves celebration owing to his role as savior and liberator-his maleness is insignificant. This work is difficult reading and radical in terminology; its sociopolitical rhetoric aggressively positions this document at the heart of cutting-edge critical political and theological debate. Recommended for feminism and liberation theology collections.-Sandra Collins, SLIS, Univ. of PittsburghSteve Schroeder
Fiorenza critically engages biblical and feminist discourses about Jesus as the child of Miriam of Nazareth--pregnant, frightened, herself barely more than a child, one of the company of women "ravished by soldiers in war and occupation," a young woman who did not remain alone with her fear but ventured into the hill country to seek the support of Elisabeth--and as a prophet of Sophia, the Divine Wisdom of Jewish tradition. This book is not a revolutionary biography or a postpatriarchal Christology but a roundtable discussion that includes feminist discourses as well as other strands of biblical research. Fiorenza's quest for Jesus is more rhetorical than historical; to the extent that the book is about Jesus, it focuses on his liberating practice rather than his manhood. But it is as much about Miriam and Sophia, locating discourses about Jesus in the proclamation of women, in the encounter of Miriam and Elisabeth, and in the encounter with the powerful tradition of the female Wisdom--Sophia. The book is an important contribution to critical Christology, and it is a critical contribution to the quest for "rhetorics" of scholarly and popular Jesus traditions. It is also important for its serious confrontation with Christian anti-Judaism, and, in its location of the Jesus movement in the context of the "basileia tou theou" movement of Judaism, it lays a solid foundation for conversation among all the children of Rebecca--and her cousins.Book Details
Published
December 31, 1994
Publisher
New York : Continuum, 1994.
Pages
262
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780826406712