Deborah's Daughters

Abstract

Judges 4–5 relates the biblical account of Deborah, an authoritative judge, prophet, and war leader who violently defeated her enemies. Through the centuries, her story disturbed readers’ traditional assumptions about women’s roles. This book investigates how Deborah’s story has been used in gender debates throughout history. An examination of the prophetess’s journey through nearly two thousand years of Jewish and Christian interpretation shows how the biblical account of Deborah was deployed against women, for women, and by women who aspired to leadership roles in church and society. Numerous women (and men who supported women’s aspirations to leadership) used Deborah’s narrative to justify female claims to political and religious authority. Readers opposed to women’s public leadership endeavored to define Deborah’s role as “private” or argued that she was a divinely authorized exception, not to be emulated by women of their own day. Believing that women should remain obedient to men and confined to the private sphere, many interpreters projected “feminine domesticity” onto the biblical text by ignoring parts of scripture or supplementing it with details that that made the text conform to their own gender expectations. In such accounts, Deborah became a submissive, “wifely” figure who acted in accordance with the interpreter’s social norms. On the other hand, women through the centuries used the story to argue for their right to study, write, teach, interpret scripture, hold political offices, and serve as rabbis and pastors.

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