Category:Women

Jewish-Christian-Islamic Origins -> Women (Home Page)

The page: Women, includes (in chronological order) biographical information about Women Scholars, Authors, & Artists who have contributed to the study of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Origins, from the mid-15th century to the present. It also provides access to scholarly and fictional works authored by Women, by the time and by the language of their composition.

Women : Scholars, Authors, & Artists

Women Authorship -- Scholarship -- Overview

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

Until the end of the 19th century women were barred to enter the academia. They expressed themselves in the arts or in mystical writings (see below). They had to struggle to affirm their right to preach and interpret the Scriptures. Only under very exceptional circumstances a few educated women had the opportunity to contribute as scholars to the field of Jewish, Christian and Islamic Origins.

In 1713-52 Swedish poetess Maria Gustava Gyllenstierna translated the works of Josephus into Swedish, from the French edition by Arnauld d'Andilly.

In the United States Hannah Adams learned Latin and Greek from the divinity students who boarded with her father in Medfield, MA and published a series of scholarly books in the field, including The History of the Jews from the Destruction of Jerusalem to the Nineteenth Century (1812 Adams), book.

In the 1860s Charlotte Maria Tucker and Anne Mary Perceval in England and Henriette Elizabeth, Madame de Witt in France wrote educational books on Second Temple Judaism.

The Woman's Bible (1895-98), edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was the first work authored by women which openly claimed to be a scholarly work, and not a work of fiction or entertainment. Social activist and suffragist Stanton invited more than twenty female Hebrew and Greek scholars to discuss Biblical passages subjugating or omitting women.

In those years the first female scholars were active. In the United States Matilda Joslyn Gage and Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer published books on the New Testament and Second Temple Judaism. In England, twin sisters Agnes Smith Lewis and Margaret Dunlop Gibson were accomplished philologists, unofficially affiliated to the University of Cambridge. They traveled to the Middle East where in 1892 they discovered the Codex syrus sinaiticus in the monastery of St. Catherine and catalogued the monastery's extensive collection of Syriac and Arabic manuscripts.

In the 1910s, Margaret Elizabeth Sangster and Arnolda Constantia Eliana Gerlings in the Netherlands devoted their skill to the study of women in the Bible and the early Church.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Mary Redington Ely Lyman and Olive May Winchester were among the first American women professors in the field of New Testament Studies. Mary Edith Andrews graduated in 1931 from the University of Chicago with a pioneering work on Paul. French poet Marie-Thérèse Gadala published works on her travels in the Middle East and on women in the Bible. American classical scholar Lily Ross Taylor also contributed to the field of Early Christianity.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the success of books like Edith Deen's All of the Women of the Bible (1955) and Eugenia Price's The Unique World of Women in Bible Times and Now (1969) signaled that a new generation of female scholars was about to emerge. In South America, Argentine specialist of Romance and Hispanic Studies Emma Susana Speratti Piñero and Italian-Argentinian Judaic Studies professor Lea Scazzocchio Sestieri were among the first women to engage in Qumran Studies. More directly involved in the study of the Scrolls was French specialist Annie Jaubert. Her pioneering studies on the Qumran calendar had a profound impact also on the interpretation of the Gospel chronology of the Last Supper. In Italy archaeologist Margherita Guarducci led the team of specialists who worked at the rediscovery of the ancient necropolis underneath the Vatican where the Tomb of Peter was located, and Klara Kraus Reggiani published her first major contribution to the field of Jewish-Hellenistic Studies.

In the 1970s, the presence of women in the field has grown exponentially Edith Deen, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Phyllis Trible, Pheme Perkins, Elaine H. Pagels, Adela Yarbro Collins in the United States; Annie Jaubert in France; Clara Kraus Reggiani in Italy; Luise Schottroff in Germany; Raija Sollamo in Finland; Margarita M. Elizarova in Russia.

In the 1980s, the publication of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza's In Memory of Her (1983) marks a groundbreaking contribution of Feminist Criticism to the study of Christian Origins. Women scholars are particularly active as specialists in in the Bible and early Christian Studies: Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel in Germany; Pheme Perkins, Carolyn Osiek, Elaine H. Pagels, Phyllis Trible, Barbara E. Bowe, Adela Yarbro Collins, Paula Fredriksen and Amy-Jill Levine in the United States; Vilma Gozzini in Italy; France Quéré in France. Many also focus on Judaic Studies and Second Temple Judaism: Bernadette J. Brooten, Martha Himmelfarb, Carol A. Newsom and Gwendolyn B. Sayler in the United States; Jacqueline Genot-Bismuth in France; Tessa Rajak and Margaret Barker in England; Marie-Theres Wacker in Germany; Clara Kraus Reggiani and Liliana Rosso Ubigli in Italy; Bilhah Nitzan, Devorah Dimant and Rachel Hachlili in Israel; María Victoria Spottorno Díaz-Caro in Spain.