Customer Reviews

Back to the Well: Women's Encounters With Jesus in the Gospels

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Frances Taylor Gench brings new insight into Jesus' encounters with women. No matter how much you have studied the Bible, this book will be an eye-opener for you! Wonderful scholarship and insight.

Frances Taylor Gench, biblical scholar and feminist, professor at Union Theological
Seminary in Virginia, does not feel comfortable with this traditional scheme of exegesis.
She believes that as there are no uniform readers of the Bible, that there cannot be an
identical approach to it. The importance of social location in interpreting the Gospels
should not be overlooked, as the author explains: All of us bring our own political,
gender, racial, and religious biases to a biblical text, which affect not only what we see,
but even the questions we think to ask (xiii). She asks her readers to put aside their old
glasses of Sunday schools and familiar preaching themes for a moment and to look at the
biblical narrative as a challenging and unknown ground. Posing herself beside the biblical
narrative as a Reformed Christian, woman, and feminist, Gench is not afraid to recognize
a male-centered perspective dominating Gospel stories and to engage herself and her
readers in a challenging odyssey of interpretation. She recognizes that feminist scholars
were one of the first to identify and criticize the one-sidedness of the traditional biblical
scholarship; they also were the first to pay closer attention to the so-called silenced
figures of the narratives: women and others, the marginal figures of the Scriptures.
Readiness to be confronted by allegedly well-known biblical storylines is what Gench
expects from her readers. Even given the most profound exegesis, she says, we must not
limit our horizons to one way of interpretation but remain open to a range of possibilities
as they open to us throughout our experience of the living God.

Frances Taylor Gench calls herself a feminist upfront. I have to say that whatever one's political, social, racial background, I find it of minor interest, until one gets to application. So, reading her upfront feminist stand was, for me, like saying, "I am not going to be treating the Biblical text fairly or rigorously because I have an agenda to develop and it has nothing to do with the text of Scripture!" I was all set to dislike this book (actually, chapter). And to be fair, Gench is guilty of some one-sided readings...but no more so than many others. What I found refreshing is the level of deep exegesis and solid interpretation that Gench brings (thus the 4 stars). I would give it 5 stars for those areas... and 2 stars for chapters such as the Woman Caught in Adultery, simply because she leaves us without much original insight and simply complains.

A professor at Union Theological Seminary, Gench does not believe there can be any uniform approach to reading and studying the Bible since everyone brings their own biases to the table. While she is correct that we all bring our own baggage, if you will, to the Bible, my thought is that we should be trying to shed that baggage, not simply give up and adopt another (her feminist ideas here, but it matters not which) set of baggage. Unfortunately, once one gives up on trying to understand the Scriptures and what they meant to the original readers, there is little reason to feel comfortable with accepting anyone's own set of background baggage as the key to unlocking anything. And once we dump absolute truth for relative truth, then a Muslim's interpretation of a Biblical story carries just as much weight as a KKK's interpretation, or Gench's for that matter.

Why four stars then?

Gench is a serious exegete. Classically trained, she expertly digs into Scripture and cautions some interpretations as being fanciful (even from other feminists). At one point, I even found that she could have made a stronger statement for her position, but she was too careful and focused on the text of Scripture to do so. Her insights (when she is employing her craft to Scriptures) are impressive. For instance, she gives a wonderful overview of the Woman at the Well and brought out many crucial observations that lead to rich interpretations.

Personally, I don't care what religious tradition a theologian comes from, what I want to see is serious reflection on the text of Scripture... whether that person believes what she/he sees or not, isn't as important as how well they observe what is there. I am not a Catholic, but I benefit greatly from Raymond Brown's commentaries on John and from Luke Timothy Johnson's various commentaries. I am not an episcopalion, but I have richly benefitted from Allen Ross's commentaries on Genesis and Leviticus.

Gench's work here is equally stimulating, though marred in places that she merely echoes feminist propaganda. Such as? She complains that women must be judged by "a man's view of sin." By this she means the men of Scripture. This seems too much, to my view. Are not we men also judged by this Scriptural view of sin (and yes, Scripture was written by men, so yes, it is a man's view by default). But what if... I suggest... what if Ruth was written by a woman (as some believe it was), would any man be unable to understand or come under the teaching of Ruth, just because it was so written? I think not. The truths presented would still be there. If we reject any man's view (especially those of Scripture) just because it originates with man, is sexist by definition. Gench normally avoids doing this and that is why this volume is valuable.

Solid insights will greet the reader of Back at the Well. It is well worth the read for even those more traditional like myself. It is sometimes outstanding, though marred from place to place. Still, I highly recommend Back to the Well. The writing is good and engaging, the insights remarkable and clear. Her normally careful exegesis is a pleasure to read and learn from...her journeys away from exegesis and observations of the text are usually clearly marked and noted.