Womanist Midrash, Volume 2

Book excerpt: Womanist Midrash, Volume 2, continues Wilda Gafney’s unique and imaginative work of in-depth explorations of the well- and lesser-known women of the Hebrew Scriptures. This volume focuses on women and girls in Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. As in her successful and widely read first volume, Gafney uses her own translations and offers midrashic interpretations of the biblical text rooted in the African American preaching and rabbinic traditions to tell the stories of a variety of female characters, many of whom are often overlooked and nameless. Grounded in rigorous scholarship, this volume employs solid womanist and feminist approaches to biblical interpretation and the sociohistorical culture of the ancient Afro-Asiatic world, expanding conversations of and about biblical interpretation.