ABSTRACT
Should contemporary feminism be interested in the Bible? Several early second-wave feminists, like Simone de Beauvoir and Kate Millett, said no. They reacted strongly against the overwhelmingly masculinist bias of the Bible, and the way it had for so long been used to constrain and oppress women. Yet it was inevitable that feminist scholarship-both religious and secular-would sooner or later have to engage with the Bible.1 As one of the most important foundational texts of our Western culture, the Bible remains a major point of reference and for that reason is open to challenges of inter-pretation-and of translation.
