This semester, I have been thrilled to join students and staff at the University of Glasgow’s department of Theology & Religious Studies for ‘FemBible.’
This fortnightly group meets to highlight the voices of female biblical scholars and theologians, whose perspectives remain underrepresented in much Higher Education curricula. FemBible also seeks to promote intersectional readings of biblical texts by engaging with questions of gender, race, sexuality, and culture in biblical reception.
I was invited to share some of my latest research on ‘(non)gendered imagery of the divine.’ The students participated in an excellent and wide-ranging discussion on the role of the imagination within biblical scholarship and images of God in popular culture. We considered how the perceived ‘maleness’ of God relates to the biblical text, and how it has informed the dynamics of class, race, and gender in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Many thanks to Dr. Zanne Domoney-Lyttle (Tutor of Biblical Studies), Dr. Sarah Nicholson (Lecturer in Old Testament/Tanakh Studies), and the FemBible students for their warm welcome.
Rebekah M Dyer 