132 - The Divine Feminine: The Biblical Imagery of God as Female

The Divine Feminine:
The Biblical Imagery of God as Female
By Virginia Ramey Mollenkott
New York, Crossroad, 1983. 119 pp. $10.95.

This very readable little book, written for the popular audience, provides an extremely helpful resource for those who are struggling with issues of inclusive language and images for deity. Mollenkott does a fine job of summarizing, in brief and understandable terms, some of the present controversies related to gender-language for God. She is clear that the Bible contains "massively more" male-oriented images and language for God, but she subscribes to what she calls the "half-full theory" rather than the "half-empty theory"-meaning that the female images which are in the biblical texts should delight and challenge us with their presence rather than make us mourn their lesser number. Indeed, from Mollenkott's evangelical perspective, the presence of those female images constitutes "a very strong argument" for the inspiration of Scripture exactly because they run so counter to the conscious patriarchy of the cultures in which they arose.

Regardless of how readers may evaluate this connection between patriarchy and inspiration, they may well be delighted by Mollenkott's deft exploration of the primary female-oriented biblical images for the divine. Swiftly but perceptively she outlines sixteen feminine images, ranging from those clustered about motherhood (birthing, nursing, childcare), through some which are well known (Shekinah, Wisdom, Mother Eagle), to some which were a pleasant surprise to even a well-read feminist (Female Pelican and Mother Bear, for instance). Further, the short chapters on each image draw attention to their use and extension by poets, theologians, and mystics of the tradition, making this book a useful guide to resources for the development of liturgy, hymnody, and prayer. Concluding that male-dominated imagery impoverishes our spiritual lives, Mollenkott emphasizes (as do many other feminists) using "the full spectrum of biblical images of God-human, non-human, material and non-material."

Mollenkott also does a sound job of transmitting to the popular reader the scholarship of others, whether of Phyllis Trible's detailed exploration of "ezer" or of Caroline Bynum's tracing mothering images through the later theological tradition. (Her first chapter trounces the prejudices of Vernard Eller.) Alert to the critical limitations of changes in our images, which always require other social changes as well, the author nonetheless insists that we must "renewour minds by thinking and speaking only in terms that affirm our equality" with each other as human persons.

While there may be points at which scholars or other feminists would part ways with portions of this text, the purpose is not argument, but enrichment. I can only hope that it will be speedily issued in a paperback edition and find a home in many parishes and study groups.

Mary D. Pellauer
St. Paul, Minnesota.