Rediscovering Women’s Voices

Ever heard of Katherine Bushnell? Lee Anna Starr? Antoinette Brown Blackwell? Probably not.

They were all 19th – century authors and speakers who made their marks through their interpretations of the Bible. In fact, although women of their era wrote over 1,000 books on the Bible, their voices have been lost to us today. Nineteenth – century women were generally barred from universities, and without this connection to academia, their work was not deemed to be important enough to include in histories of biblical interpretation, or to be remembered. Part of the problem, of course, is that there are still relatively few women who are biblical scholars and have the passion to resurrect the voices of their female colleagues from centuries past.

These 19th – century female biblical interpreters recognized that the Bible had sometimes been used to deny them equal rights in the church and in society. For example, Methodist pastor Lee Anna Starr (1853 – 1937) became convinced that faulty translations and narrow interpretations of the Bible had fostered the subordination of women. She published The Ministry of Woman (1900) and The Bible Status of Woman (1926) in which she supported her conviction that women should be allowed to preach in pulpits and vote in the American public sphere.

Methodist Episcopal missionary Katherine Bushnell (1855 – 1946) noticed that the Bible was sometimes translated from the Greek and Hebrew into English in ways that favoured men, and that consequent interpretations led to reprehensible actions by Christian men towards women. For example, she was appalled by the sexual double standard of the time that allowed for prostitution in lumber camps in northern Michigan and Wisconsin, and overseas in brothels in British India and China. Her book, God’s Word to Women (1923) was the culmination of her years of study on these topics.

Like Starr and Bushnell, Congregationalist and later Unitarian pastor Antoinette Brown Blackwell (1825 – 1921) was well educated. When she applied to the theological course of study at Oberlin College, Ohio, she was not admitted as a regular student in that department like her male peers. Other students and professors’ wives tried to dissuade her from her goal of becoming a minister, and her own family declined to assist her financially to help her reach her goals.

{[The creation of Eve, Adam’s helpmate] was to give him a companion, in all respects his equal; one who was like himself a free agent, gifted with intellect and endowed with immortality; not a partaker merely of his animal gratifications, but able to enter in to all his feelings as a moral and responsible being.

—Sarah Moore Grimké, Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, and the Condition of Woman and An Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States}

Early in her theological studies, a professor assigned her and another female student an essay on 1 Corinthians 14:34 – 35 and 1 Timothy 2:11 – 12, two New Testament passages that appear to forbid women from speaking in public. Accepting the challenge, Brown Blackwell showed that Paul’s instructions did not forbid a woman to be a public teacher, as long as she had a message worth communicating. Her essay was good enough to be published in the Oberlin Quarterly Review (1849) alongside the essays of her professors.

Brown Blackwell dodged criticisms of her public speaking throughout her life. Other women involved in the struggle for women’s rights later disapproved of her for her affiliation with what they saw as the corrupt and discriminatory institutional church. Yet she continued her religious affiliations, and used her capable exegetical skill to argue for women’s rights in the church and in society.

Recognizing that the interpretation of the Adam and Eve story in Genesis 1 – 3 was often at the root of the limiting views of the role of women in society, Sarah Moore Grimké set out to prove that women were created as equal to men. She had been privately tutored in subjects appropriate for young ladies, but also learned Greek, Latin, philosophy and law from her brothers and father. She used her knowledge of Hebrew, for example, to show that when the woman was spoken of as a “help meet” in Genesis 2, it referred to her as his equal in every way. Her sister, Angelina Emily Grimké Weld, also used Adam and Eve’s relationship to argue that men and women had equal rights in every way, including the right of the woman to fulfil her potential as a person, which would bring glory to God.

I have to admit, when I realized that women had been writing essays in support of women’s ministry since the middle of the 19th century, if not before—research is still ongoing—I was both elated and frustrated. Elated because this put me in connection with female voices from the past who had argued in ways similar to my own arguments in favour of women in ministry in conservative Christian circles. But I was also frustrated because I and other women who pursued ordination in the mid – to – late 20th century had been forced to formulate our arguments ourselves without the benefit of listening to earlier voices, and had no access to their guidance and support. Unlike male colleagues who generally had literary connections with male voices from the past, my female colleagues and I had been robbed of these resources. These women’s works had not been considered important enough to mention in scholarly academic literature on the Bible, and, for the most part, these women, among others, still remain unheard.

{This exegesis [of 1 Corinthians 14:34 – 35] makes the passage have nothing whatever to do with the question of public teaching. The females were not forbidden to take part in the work of instructing the church, of speaking, “either by revelation, or by knowledge, or by prophesying, or by doctrine,” or of doing anything else which they had the wisdom and ability to do … and moreover … being taught by the Spirit of the mighty God, they did actually take part in these exercises.
—Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Exegesis of 1 Corinthians 14:34, 35; And 1 Timothy 2:11, 12,
Oberlin Quarterly Review

The twelve … were not always actuated by the highest motives … they thought largely of an exalted position to be given them, when their Master should come into a kingdom of earthly glory. But the women followed with no other motive than to make themselves of use to Jesus, and to his disciples … [and] Christ exalted them. He gave them visions on the Resurrection morning that no one else had. He made the witness of women the very meat and marrow of his gospel.
—Katherine Bushnell, God’s Word to Women }

Nineteenth – century female interpreters also tackled some of the social problems of their day, such as British Anglican Josephine Butler (1808 – 1906) who used the story of the outcast Hagar to support her work with prostitutes who had been forced into their occupation through a lack of societal support and financial need. Jewish scholar Grace Aguilar used biblical accounts in The Women of Israel (1845) to remind female Jews of their dignified heritage and to oppose the discrimination of fellow English Jews who, for example, were not allowed to vote or establish businesses in the city of London. In The Battles of the Bible (1852) Scottish Presbyterian Eliza Smith interpreted biblical texts through the lens of middle class values of industry and respectable culture in order to encourage the working classes to a better life and challenge the privileges and patronage of the upper classes. Sarah Grimké, who, along with her sister, (see above) was widely known for her abolitionist activities, wrote Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States, in which, using the Bible, she argued against the institution of slavery. While the pamphlet regrettably included anti – Semitic and anti – Catholic statements in accord with many middle – class perspectives of the time, it was forceful enough for Southern clergy to ban both sisters from Charleston, South Carolina, where they grew up.

While many of the names of female interpreters have been forgotten, one interpreter is still very well known today for her classic novel. Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) was instrumental in putting an end to slavery in the United States. Unknown to most, its author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, also published works of biblical interpretation, most notably Footsteps of the Master (1877) and Woman in Sacred History (1873). Through her biblical interpretation in these volumes, Stowe spoke to many of the issues women of her era—particularly those of the middle class—faced.

{This regulation of duty by mere circumstance of sex … has robbed woman of essential rights, the right to think and speak and act on all great moral questions … the right to fulfil the great end of her being as a moral, intellectual and immortal creature, and of glorifying God in her body and spirit which are His.
—Angelina E. Grimké, Letters to Catherine Beecher

“And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at the time. And she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah … and the children of Israel came unto her for judgment.” This simple description evinces that the greatness of Deborah consisted not at all in outward state, in semblance of high rank … but simply in her vast superiority and mental and spiritual requirements.
—Grace Aguilar, The Women of Israel}

Like many other 19th – century women, Stowe had lost children, and in her case sons, to disease and fatal accidents. These losses coloured her interpretation of the Virgin Mary. Stowe believed that among all other women, Mary was particularly blessed because she knew from the angel Gabriel’s announcement to her that her son, Jesus was to grow to adulthood and she would avoid the heartache of the loss of young children so many mothers had experienced: “She knew that the child she adored was not to die till he had reached man’s estate—she had not fear that accident, or sickness, or any of those threatening causes which give sad hours to so many other mothers, would come between him and her.”

Stowe, like other women of her time, supported the right of women to vote. This was because she believed that mothers had a powerful influence on society as the moral guide and educator of their children, and that these qualities could also be put to use for the improvement of society. For Stowe, Mary’s influence in domestic frugality extended to Jesus’ feeding the 5,000, for example, when he had “the fragments of the feast picked up and carefully stored in baskets, ‘that nothing should be lost.'”

Jesus’ parable of the kingdom of heaven that is likened to the leaven hidden in three measures of flour signified that “doubtless he had often watched his mother in the homely process of bread making.” This domestic influence as well as the intimacy of Mary and Jesus’ relationship due to the absence of a father, meant for Stowe that “… there was in Jesus more of the pure feminine element than in any other man. It was the feminine element exalted and taken in union with divinity.” And, for Stowe, it was this “feminine element” that could change the world.

Interestingly, Stowe also believed that Mary and Joseph were both of royal lineages, since they were descended from King David. For Stowe, they were reduced to the “poverty and simple life” of peasants, yet their consciousness “of royal blood and noble birth gave to them a secret largeness of view and nobility of feeling which distinguished them from common citizens.” The birth of Jesus in an animal stall, for Stowe, was a “trial and humiliation” to them as they “were left to touch the very lowest descent of humiliation, outcasts from among men [sic], glad to find a resting place with the beasts of the stall.”

While female interpreters were not perfect and were influenced by some of the elitist, anti – Semitic, and racist attitudes of their day, their writings still influenced their societies in positive ways. Most of them were also privileged and middle or upper class, although they certainly did not enjoy the same opportunities as their male peers. Fortunately, a committed cadre of Canadian biblical scholars such as Marion Taylor, Heather Weir, Agnes Choi and Christine de Groot have been working to bring the work of historical female interpreters to light. I have been privileged to work with them in this important project.

{Many little incidents in Christ’s life show the man of careful domestic habits. He was in all things methodological and frugal. The miraculous power he possessed never was used to surround him with any profusion. He would have the fragments of the feast picked up and stored in the baskets, “that nothing should be lost.” His illustrations show the habits of a frugal home. His parable of the kingdom of heaven, likened to the leaven hidden in three measures of meal, gives us to believe that doubtless he had often watched his mother in the homely process of bread making.
—Harriet Beecher Stowe, Footsteps of the Master }

We still live in societies in which those in the underbelly of society are vilified, where Jews are sometimes victims of hate crimes or discrimination, or the privileges of the wealthy obstruct the advancement of the underprivileged. The Grimké sisters, Bushnell, Star, Brown Blackwell, Aguilar, Butler and Stowe all remind us that while the Bible can still be used to marginalize people and to restrict them from using their gifts and abilities for the good of church and society, it can also be used to support, encourage and inspire them. Listening to these women—and scads of others like them—can only enrich our understanding of how to approach such issues from the perspective of those who look to the biblical text for guidance for our own lives and the church today.