The Portrayal of Women in the Old Testament: A Feminist Reading of the Books of Susanna, Judith and Ruth
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Date
2002-06
Authors
Mecca, Selamawit
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Abstract
The Hebrew Bible, which contains 39 books is usually called the Old
Testament by Christians. Appendix to the Old Testament, 14 books are also
included. These texts are called the Apocrypha (Greek apokryptein 'to hide
away'). Among these, we find three books that bear names of women characters
(namely, Susanna, Judith and Ruth).
The aim of the present study is to examine and analyze these three
women characters by using the feminist literary approach. Even though there
are different kinds of feminist approaches, I have tried to apply what is known
as 'the feminist critique' - the feminist analysis of male-authored texts.
The paper is divided into four chapters. The first chapter deals with the
background, objectives, methodology, and significance of the study. Chapter
two presents a review of related literature. In this section I have attempted to
give attention to some feminist literary theories and critical studies available in
the libraries I visited. The feminist critical studies that deal with different
elements of literature, such as novels, short stories, poetry etc., are enormous.
So I have tried to limit myself to the studies that focus on the Hebrew Bible
only.
In the third chapter an attempt has been made to examine and analyze
the selected Biblical narratives according to the framework discussed in the
second chapter. Then, the final chapter is the conclusion. In this section a brief
summary and some findings would be discussed
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Old Testament by Christians