Feminist Interpretation Of The Books Of History In Holy Bible

As the world’s most influential and the most popular book, the Holy Bible is not only areligious book, but also a great literary work. The Bible contains two parts: the Old Testamentand the New Testament. There are more than150women with names in the Bible,120ofwhom are in the Old Testament, which covers80%of the total. In the Old Testament, womenhad different fates. This phenomenon is especially predominant in the Books of History. Inthe Books of History, the women have various identities, including queens, wives, daughters,prophets, harlots, concubines and so on. No matter what their identity was, all of them livedin the patriarchal society and were influenced by the deep-rooted patriarchal ideology. Ifinterpreting the Books of History by using the theory of feminism, it is known that althoughmost of the women had no subjectivity and were voiceless, marginalized, oppressed in almostevery part of life, some women to some extent had awakening consciousness in terms ofpolitical and domestic lives, and some women even fought for the discourse right,self-autonomy and extrication of the adherence to men.This thesis interprets the Books of History by using the feminist theory and it consists ofthree chapters.Chapter One analyzes the three oppressions women suffered in that patriarchal society.Their voice was invisible or silenced; they were repressed sexually in inhuman ways; theywere obliterated their own individuality and were treated like men’s private property and toolof procreation. Chapter Two explores women’s gradual awakening consciousness and comesto the point that even in the patriarchal society, some women were aware of their positions athome and in the society; they either commanded a military action, or save their own race orfamily. Chapter Three probes into a small number of women who struggled against thepatriarchal society. They used their own intelligence and conditions to fight for the equalright as men, pursue their self-autonomy and extricate domestic adherence to men.Conclusion is drawn after the studies of the women images in the three chapters.Women in the Books of History, who either were under the oppression of patriarchaldomination or had the gradual awakening consciousness or fought against the patriarchy,were vivid and touching images. In the history of human civilization, these women images made great contribution to Hebrew civilization and the world civilization. They are thereliable basis for the readers not only to dialectically recognize women’s positions and rolesin process of the human’s civilization but also to reevaluate women’s social images.