Customer Reviews

Whispering the Word: Hearing Women's Stories in the Old Testament

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Jacqueline Lapsley does a great job of giving a balanced perspective on some difficult stories involving women in the Old Testament. While coming at the text from an academically critical perspective, she also incorporates her faith into the material setting her work apart from other scholars. The book also serves as a good introduction to feminist exegesis, exploring different approaches to reading the text and, in my opinion, finding a good and fair approach to reading the text faithfully. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Old Testament studies as well as those interested in getting started at looking at the bible from a feminist perspective.

Lapsley has an incredibly well-balanced approach toward the very brief stories of women that we hear so little about in the OT. She selected four texts, and managed to very carefully and skillfully pull apart the multiple layers of meaning and does an extraordinary job. It is by far the best book I have read on women in the OT (though I can admit I havn't even seen any other comparable book on the topic).

I bought this book for a project I am doing on the Pilegesh (concubine) in Judges 19-21. Lapsley is scholarly giving the nuances of the original Hebrew language and proposing some alternative theories, but is not difficult to read. One thing that stands out about this book is that Lapsley writes from a Christian viewpoint, thus "Old Testament" as opposed to "Hebrew Bible". Also unlike the majority of Bible scholars Lapsley actually incorporates G-d into her analyses.

Thoughtful and interesting, this book provides new insights into familiar stories. Plenty of material for discussion and reflection!