Review of Roland Boer and Jorunn Okland, eds.Marxist Feminist Criticism of the Bible

Marxist Feminist Criticism of the Bible is an anthology of nine articles edited by Roland Boer and Jorunn Okland. It is introduced by an article from the editors. The book includes an index of biblical and ancient references and one on subjects. In ‘Towards a Marxist Feminist Biblical Criticism,’ Boer and Okland begin this anthology by pointing out how their introduction to the essays differs from most. Instead of trying to whet the appetite of their readers for each essay by summarising it, they provide a much needed deeper introduction to the field itself and suggestions for future direction. They do, however, refer to the authors and articles as the opportunity arises during their discussion. In this introduction, they especially point out misconceptions about current Marxist theory. For example, there is no longer the old mono-causal Marxist perspective that everything can be reduced to the economic. Neo-Marxists today generally acknowledge that things are more complicated than the old Marxism had realised. In the first essay, ‘The Early Fathers of Marxist Feminism and the Holy Book,’ Milena Kirova discusses the work of J. J. Bachofen, Lewis Henry Morgan, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and August Bebel. She sees both positive and negative in the work of these early Marxists on feminism. Positively, she sees them turning toward scientific naturalism versus traditional moralism to explain the development of gender differentiation. Thus, human sexuality stems from the animal world and is not to be explained via Scripture. Negatively, this transition was still entrenched in essentialism, i.e. being gendered is determined by nature and not social construction. But she also shows how this transition involves a return to the mythological notion of an egalitarian pre-history, which aligns this movement closely with biblical strategies of explanation. In ‘Schizoid Coitus: Christ and the Feminine,’ Tamara Prosic argues that Christianity, as a spinoff of Judaism, represents a movement from monotheistic patriarchy to a more liberating BOOK REVIEWS