Can a text such as the Second Testament function as a norm for the believing community once ideology criticism developed by feminists unmasks its intrinsically oppressive presuppositions? If the text is not understood as a linguistic object containing a fixed semantic content, and if the leads provided by Ricoeur's theory of distanciation are applied, the believer may find the Second Testament to be a symbolic structure that mediates the Christ-event as an event that offers possibilities of liberation, even from the patriarchal ideology intrinsic to the text.
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