Phyllis Trible

Born in Richmond, Virginia, Trible studied at Meredith College and Union Theological Seminary, writing her dissertation at Union under James Muilenburg, who had generated a method of studying the Hebrew Bible based on form criticism that became known as rhetorical criticism, and whose approach Trible developed and applied throughout career, adding her own pioneering Christian feminist perspective to biblical scholarship.[3]^:158-159[4][5]

Trible taught at Wake Forest University and Andover Newton Theological School before going back to Union Seminary, where she was appointed the Baldwin Professor of Sacred Literature in 1980.[6] She left Union in 1998 to become Associate Dean and Professor of Biblical Studies of the new Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.[7] She served in those roles until 2001, when she was appointed University Professor at Wake Forest, and served in that role until she retired in 2012.[4]

Trible served as president of the Society of Biblical Literature in 1994. Athalya Brenner calls her one of the "prominent matriarchs of contemporary feminist bible criticism", and suggests that her 1973 article "Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation", "should be considered as the honoured mother of feminist Song of Songs scholarship."[8] According to John J. Collins, "Phyllis Trible, more than any other scholar, put feminist criticism on the agenda of biblical scholarship in the 1970s."[9]

In 1998, she donated her papers to The Burke Library's Archives of Women in Theological Scholarship, and continues to add more papers subsequently; the papers formed the foundation of the collection.[4] In recent years, Trible has served as a Visiting Professor of Old Testament at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. She taught a class in the fall of 2018 called Entrances to Exodus.

Trible’s work is based on rhetorical criticism, criticizing the interpretation of biblical texts, rather than the texts itself.[10] She is well known for deep dives of analysis of biblical narratives.[10] According to P.K. Tull, there are two major themes that are central to all of her work: her respect for biblical text, and her commitment to equality for women.[11]

Phyllis Trible’s interpretation of the creation of Adam and Eve is one of her most notable works. A major theme within “Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation” is Trible’s argument that the Bible has existed in a sexist context for centuries, which has changed the way people interpret its messages.[12] Trible writes that the Bible, when read without the contemporary societal context, can be liberating for women.[13] Another major takeaway from Trible’s most notable work is her argument that, when analyzing using rhetorical criticism, language in the Bible suggests that Adam is referred to as androgynous until the female Eve is created.[14] This argument has also been made by Riffat Hassan, a Pakistani-American theology professor, who ascertained in her own writing that the language used to describe Adam within the biblical story is non-gendered.[15]

Some of Trible’s work has been subject to criticism. Trible’s work is based on rhetorical criticism, which focuses on looking at a text without the cultural context. Rhetorical critics believe that that is how one can find the meanings of any given text.

John J. Collins argued, in a response to Trible’s work, that interpreting a text without the cultural context that it lives in may not even be possible. [16]

Ann M. Vater reinforces this criticism of Trible’s work, stating that “central figures always bear some cultural heritage.” [17]

Michael Carden takes a different angle, looking at who is left out in Trible’s advocacy for traditionally oppressed peoples in Christianity.[18] Carden writes that in Texts of terror, Trible fails to explain out the treatment of homosexuals that is present in Genesis 19.[18]

Dianne Bergant claims that Trible's readings come from a contemporary point of view, and argues that the idea of an androgynous Adam seeks to solve gender parity, and does not actually look at what is written in the text.[19]

Selected articles

• Trible, Phyllis (1973). "Depatriarchalizing in Biblical Interpretation". Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 41 (1): 30–48. JSTOR 1461386.
• Trible, Phyllis (1975). "Wisdom Builds a Poem: The Architecture of Proverbs 1:20-33". Journal of Biblical Literature. 94 (4): 509–518. doi:10.2307/3265433. JSTOR 3265433.
• Trible, Phyllis (1976). "Two Women in a Man's World: A Reading of the Book of Ruth". Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 59 (3): 251–279. JSTOR 41177998.
• Trible, Phyllis (1987). "A Daughter's Death: Literary Criticism, Feminism, and the Bible". In O'Connor, Michael Patrick; Freedman, David Noel (eds.). Backgrounds for the Bible. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. pp. 1–14. ISBN 978-0931464300. OCLC 869179345.
• Trible, Phyllis (1991). "The Bible in Bloom". The Iowa Review. 21 (3): 19–32. doi:10.17077/0021-065X.4046. JSTOR 20153165.
• Trible, Phyllis (1995). "Exegesis for Storytellers and Other Strangers". Journal of Biblical Literature. 114 (1): 3–19. doi:10.2307/3266587. JSTOR 3266587.

Books

• Trible, Phyllis (1978). God and the rhetoric of sexuality (1st ed.). Philadelphia: Fortress Press. ISBN 0800604644.
• Trible, Phyllis (1984). Texts of terror : literary-feminist readings of Biblical narratives (2. pr ed.). Philadelphia: Fortress Press. ISBN 978-0800615376.
• Phyllis., Trible (1994). Rhetorical criticism : context, method, and the book of Jonah. Fortress Press. ISBN 9780800627980.

• Video interview by Susanne Scholz, recorded ca 2009, hosted at Scholz' website gathering oral history of feminist biblical scholars, Feminist Theologians Live.