The Power of Equivocation

<p>In <i>The Power of Equivocation</i> Amy Kalmanofsky addresses the Bible's inherent complexity as well as the complexity of those who seek to read the Bible critically generously and honestly.</p><p>The Bible invites what Kalmanofsky identifies as equivocal readings--readings that do not reach neat conclusions related to ideology or character. Kalmanofsky demonstrates the Bible's complicated artistry through her close readings of six biblical narratives that feature women: she examines culpability in the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife and shows how the Bible presents neither figure as a hero or villain; considers how the Bible's portrayal of Hannah both conforms to and also defies the Bible's patriarchal norms; how the Bible affords the rejected King Saul compassion and respect through a powerful yet unlawful medium from En-Dor; how Queen Esther overpowers men to become the equivocal hero of her eponymous book; how Tamar in Genesis 38 like Hannah conforms to and challenges the Bible's patriarchal norms and how like Esther she is the equivocal hero of her story; and how the Bible presents Bathsheba as a complicated figure both vulnerable and powerful.</p><p>Kalmanofsky draws from the challenges she personally feels as a feminist as a Jew and as a scholar to argue that equivocal readers like herself are best equipped to see the Bible's complex artistry. Equivocal feminist-religious readers are suspicious <i>and</i> generous readers who can expose the ways in which biblical texts empower and disempower women and who can provide essential insight about the Bible's theology and ideology.</p><p>Through her close readings Kalmanofsky models what it means to be equivocal readers of an equivocal Bible. <i>The Power of Equivocation</i> is marked by honesty and the celebration of a text that can never be read just one way.</p>