Fortress Press

• Choi Hee An, Editor, Lecturer and Director of the Anna Howard Shaw Center at Boston University School of Theology
• Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Sociology and program chair in African-American Studies at Colby College
• Kwok Pui-Lan, William F. Cole Professor of Christian Theology and Spirituality at Episcopal Divinity School
• Aida Irizarry-Fernandez, District Superintendent for the Metropolitan Boston Hope District, New England Conference, of the United Methodist Church
• Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Krister Stendahl Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School
• Carter Heyward, Howard Chandler Robbins Professor of Theology, emerita, at Episcopal Divinity School
• Katheryn Pfisterer Darr, Editor, Professor of Hebrew Bible at Boston University

"This book is a treasure of focused illustrations, from many cultural perspectives, of how women's consciousness and creativity is transforming biblical interpretation and thus human society."
— Carolyn Osiek, Brite Divinity School

"In an increasingly multicultural environment, many churches are discovering that serious engagement with the local neighborhood presents both new challenges and new resources fro celebrating the presence of God. This book brings together five women theologians from different cultural, ethnic and social perspectives to explore the shifting dynamic between the interpretation of scripture and the practice of Christian ministry. Each contributor follows a common format, as exposition of a distinctive hermeneutical strategy is followed by applied analysis of selected biblical material.

The result is fascinating: five very different essays, topped and tailed by the editors, setting out well-considered reflections on the method, and backed with textual analyses that are generally rich in insight. The approaches include a prophetic-apocalyptic reading of Lk. 16:14-31 which interacts with African-American spirituals; a post-colonial reading of 'loose women' in the OT; a communal reading of 2 Kgs 2.1-14 and Mk 1.3-0, applying Cadijn's 'see-judge-act' paradigm from a Latino-American perspective; a critical feminist-empancipative reading of 1 Peter by Fiorenza; and a critical-relational reading of the theme of scriptural authority.

Each reader is almost bound to react differently to the collection. Each of the papers, however, has much to offer, both as a broad introduction to the designated approach, and as an opportunity to see how the method works out in practice. There is much here for church ministers, certainly; but even more, perhaps, for lay people who may not often get the chance to experience such creative approaches to scripture. Would that every Christian community could not only study these papers but, more importantly, explore what they might mean in practice. Perhaps the faithful use of scripture in the western Christian community might even come alive again."

— Alan Le Grys, Journal for the Study of the New Testament Booklist 2007