Deuteronomy - (Wisdom Commentary) by Johanna W H Van Wijk-Bos (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Deuteronomy, the final book of the Torah, is ostensibly addressed to males but it does not mean it lacks a concern for women. In this commentary on Deuteronomy, Johanna W. H. van Wijk-Bos provides serious feminist engagement with the complete text, paying specific attention to the effect it may have on women's perspectives, and considers ways the text highlights female presence or absence.

In this commentary, Wijk-Bos encourages readers to question not only the patriarchal practices reflected in Deuteronomy, but also modern misogynist and androcentric assumptions that they may bring to the world of the text. Divided into eleven sections, Deuteronomy offers insight for our present time, as well as an opportunity to hear new voices, examine cultural and gender-biased interpretations, and draw other conclusions to open up new avenues of understanding God and ourselves.

Review Quotes

"Just as multiple, often contradictory, voices and traditions were woven together two and a half millennia ago to create the extended sermonic text that came to be called Deuteronomy--or, in Hebrew, Devarim' / 'Words'--we now have an extended polyphonic act of homage, interrogation, and interpretation fit for twenty-first century readers, scholars, preachers, and religious institutions. Anyone with a curiosity about the multiple dimensions of biblical texts will relish the wealth and depth of scholarship on display: the original Hebrew text is offered in a contemporary translation and is accompanied on the page by mini-essays and excurses composed by a formidable range of modern commentators, many offering fresh insights from a feminist perspective. The footnotes that accompany the text on every page--opening up avenues for further research-- come from a dazzling range of traditional and contemporary sources. This is multi-vocal biblical scholarship at its best: discursive, erudite, and seriously committed to helping the reader listen in afresh to the 'Words' of old."
Howard Cooper, psychoanalyst and rabbi

About the Author

Johanna W. H. van Wijk-Bos is a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and professor emerita of Hebrew Bible at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. A mother and grandmother, she is the widow of A. David Bos, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), author, poet, and activist. Post-retirement she continues her research, writing, and teaching. She assists Rabbi David Ariel-Joel in Teaching Torah at the Temple in Louisville, and her trilogy on the Former Prophets appeared in 2021 with Eerdmans. With Rabbi David Ariel-Joel she is co-writing Set Apart: Josef and His Family (Smyth & Helwys, forthcoming).