116 - Till the Heart Sings: A Biblical Theology of Manhood and Womanhood

Till the Heart Sings: A Biblical Theology of Manhood and Womanhood

By Samuel Terrien

Philadelphia, Fortress, 1985. 260 Pp. $24.95.

This is one of those rare: books that ought to be read by anyone who deals with Scripture or sexuality. Seldom has this reader had the pleasure of reviewing a book that maintained such a high level of interest, insight, and scholarship from start to finish, or challenged in such a positive way so many accepted conclusions of both more traditional as well as feminist interpretations of biblical texts.

Terrien identifies biblical hermeneutics as the culprit "at the heart of the crises that smother Christian life and thought today." Following a methodology of canonical criticism, he seeks to uncover a basic biblical theology of manhood and womanhood. From Genesis to Revelation, he focuses on particularly pertinent texts and topics: the creation accounts, the Song of Songs, the prophets, wisdom literature such as Proverbs, Sirach, and Job, women in the New Testament, the Magnificat, Paul and Deutero-Paul, Hebrews. In his conclusion, the author offers some suggestions toward a new theology of priesthood and reflections on the "Our Father."

In trying to uncover the source of sexism in the Bible, Terrien makes it apparent that the real turning point is the exile. He argues convincingly for a healthy view of human sexuality prior to that period and identifies polemical currents against emerging misogynistic views that enter the tradition, and thus the canon, during and after the exile.

Another important contribution is his philological work, examining root meanings of key words, which then make the hidden bias of the translators quite obvious. If anyone had any doubts about how the ignorance or misunderstanding of the translator/commentator can affect our understanding, Terrien lifts the veil, cautioning against any appeal to Moses or Paul to justify obsolete codes without first taking into account the inner dynamic of Scripture itself.

Lest one think the book makes its case on linguistic analysis alone, Terrien also offers some extremely significant spiritual insights into biblical religion, warning us against reducing religion to morality. Biblical faith as perceived by Terrien "lays the basis for a theology... that goes counter to the traditional attitudes and practices of Christendom and challenges the church... to rethink critically the respective functions of both sexes [and] the suprasexual meaning of the gender of God."

118 - Till the Heart Sings: A Biblical Theology of Manhood and Womanhood

The gender of God is another extremely important issue that the author examines throughout the book, not only in terms of the significance of paternal and maternal imagery but also in terms of the fundamental distinction between the relation of human sexuality and the divine within the context of Yahwistic faith, and within the cult of the Mother Goddess-underlining a fundamental incompatibility overlooked by feminist as well as more traditional theologians. Terrien insists, and does a fair job of demonstrating, that the fatherhood of God is a metaphor used for a theology of transcendence, having nothing to do with procreation or procreative powers. Moreover, those who see fatherhood as a metaphor of moralistic or ritualistic tyranny ignore the stress of the prophets and poets on the fatherhood of God as a metaphor of divine grace and motherly compassion.

Under Terrien's deft guidance, familiar stories are seen in a new, deeper theological light. For example, the myth of creation is not a myth of origins but of everyone's lust for infinite knowledge, for selfdeification. It is also the story of the creation of woman as savior, who saves man from loneliness. In this same story, marriage displaces the most important sociological tie, patriarchal filiality, so the first characteristic of humanness is the covenant of sexual mutuality. But the author of Genesis is also concerned to point out how seductive the sun, moon, soil, and sex were in general on Israel.

From this starting point, the author goes on to show how key biblical authors, down to and including Paul, must have experienced this sexual mutuality because of the way they write about women or marriage. In short, women were not always and everywhere treated as chattel and mere procreators in the Bible. In showing how even the patriarchs and matriarchs were portrayed as couples who were truly in love, despite their other shortcomings, the author gives us a methodology for examining all subsequent passages that deal with human relations.

The exilic and postexilic priesthood is indicted as responsible for debasing the religious status of womanhood with the legal strictures on sexual purity and the new meaning conferred on the rite of circumcision. Jesus and Paul clearly identified with the preexilic religion of their ancestors in their refusal to accept this resulting demeaning of women.

The theological conclusions Terrien reaches regarding the scriptural teaching on human sexuality are basically positive: humanity transfigured by love mirrors divinity. There is, of course, the danger that human love can become a form of idolatry, replacing self-gift with self-worship. Anyone who takes the Bible seriously as a source for understanding something about life will want to read this book to see what they might discover about the equality, complementarity, and paradox of human freedom.

SONYA A. QUITSLUND

George Washington University

Washington, D.C.