“Like Yeast That a Woman Took”: Feminist Interpretations of the Parables

Abstract

This article introduces feminist approaches to parable interpretation by summarizing three books published in the first decade of the twenty-first century: Mary Ann Beavis, ed., The Lost Coin: Parables of Women, Work and Wisdom (2002); Luise Schottroff, The Parables of Jesus (2005); and Elizabeth Dowling, Taking Away the Pound: Women, Theology and the Parable of the Pounds in the Gospel of Luke (2007). Beavis' multi-authored anthology identifies fourteen parables of “women, work and wisdom” that have received little attention in “mainstream” parable interpretation. Schottroff's approach is not limited to “women parables,” but applies a feminist-liberationist approach to the parables of Jesus. Dowling uses Luke's parable of the Pounds (19:11–28) as a lens through which she critiques the evangelist's portrayal of women. The article is offered not as the last word on feminist parable interpretation, but as an invitation for preachers and teachers to discover the parables of “women, work and wisdom,” to search for other submerged traditions of women and the female in the scriptures, and to explore new methods of interpretation.