Hosea in Feminist and Womanist Interpretation

Abstract This essay examines the development of feminist and womanist biblical interpretation of Hosea over the past thirty years. The terms “feminist” and “womanist” are defined while also recognizing that they are contested. Nonetheless, they share assumptions about the androcentrism of the texts that support patriarchal, gender asymmetrical worldviews. Another shared assumption is that all readers bring biases to the text that affect their interpretations. The interest in Hosea by feminist and womanist biblical scholars rests largely on the use of female sexual imagery to metaphorically convey the relationship between God and Israel. Female sexuality is depicted as symbolic of sin in the text. Thus, a concern of feminist and womanist scholars is the influence on contemporary readers’ images of women’s sexuality. The scholars featured in this essay are diverse. They include women and men, Jews and Christians, white, black, and Asian. Their interpretations of Hosea are just as diverse. While several of them analyzed Hos. 1–3, their conclusions are wide-ranging methodologically and theologically. Traces of goddesses, female cultic officials, God as mother, pornography, male fantasy and displacement, and other issues are explored in Hosea.