Volume 37, Number 18 · November 22, 1990
It's A Girl!
By John Barton
The Book of J
translated by David Rosenberg, interpreted by Harold Bloom
Grove Weidenfeld, 340 pp., $21.95
I remember my surprise when a student of mine wrote a paper about the book of Job, and referred to the author throughout as 'he or she.' Perhaps such even-handedness is now standard in North America, but it certainly isn't in Oxford. But I realized that I had simply assumed the author was male, without examining the reasons. Nonreligious feminist critics become angry at the patriarchal attitudes in much of the Bible, while Jewish and Christian feminists often argue that, within the assumptions of an admittedly patriarchal society, the Bible scores quite highly for its treatment of women. But until now no critic known to me has argued that any substantial part of the Bible had a woman as its author.
Review, 3337 words
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