Résumé
Résumé de La Bible de la femme
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
For readers who love women's history, religion and American reform, and anyone curious how people argue with a sacred text.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
The Woman's Bible is a commentary on the Bible written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and a committee of women. It came out in two parts, in 1895 and 1898, in the United States. Stanton was then in her eighties. She had spent half a century fighting for women's rights, and she had come to believe that the fight kept hitting the same wall. That wall was the claim that the Bible, and so God, put women beneath men.
The book does not offer a new translation. Instead it picks out the passages that speak of women, or that are used against them, and answers them in short comments. Some comments are sharp. Some are funny. Some are scholarly, drawing on the new biblical criticism of the day. Stanton wrote many of them herself, and other women added their own.
In about fifteen minutes you will hear why Stanton thought religion mattered to the vote, how she read the two creation stories, what she made of Eve, Sarah, Hagar and Ruth, how she handled Paul, and why the book caused such anger, even among suffragists. Let us begin with her central claim: that the Bible had become a political tool.
Dans ce résumé
- 1Stanton Targets the Bible as a Political ToolFree
- 2Two Creation Stories Tell Different Tales
- 3Eve Is Reread as Curious, Not Wicked
- 4Forgotten Women Get Their Due
- 5Law and Priesthood Keep Women Beneath
- 6Paul and the Epistles Are Challenged Directly
- 7A Book Made by a Committee of Women
- 8Suffragists Turn Against the Project
- 9What the Book Left Behind
Point clé 1 sur 9
Stanton Targets the Bible as a Political Tool
Stanton begins from a practical problem. For decades she had watched ministers and legislators answer calls for women's rights with a Bible verse. Women, they said, were meant by God to obey. Stanton concluded that arguing law and justice was not enough while this belief held people's minds.
In her introduction she says that no other book has been used so steadily to keep women in a lower place. She points to the churches, the courts and the family, where scripture was quoted to settle the matter. For her the issue was not whether the Bible was true. The issue was that it was being used as a final authority against half the human race.
She also argues that women had been shaped by this teaching from childhood. Girls were taught to feel that submission was holy. Stanton thought this made women hold back their own demands, even when they knew the demands were fair. A free woman, in her view, first had to be free in her conscience.
So she decided to read the book herself, with other women, and say what it actually says. She wanted women to stop hearing the text only through male preachers. This was the whole reason for the project. It was a reform tactic as much as a study of religion.
For a modern reader, the point still has force. Texts held sacred shape laws and habits, so who reads them matters. Stanton insists that reading is not the property of the clergy. That is the first lesson of the book, and the rest follows from it.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 141,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 9 h 25 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 10 other languages
Questions about La Bible de la femme
What is The Woman's Bible about?
It is a commentary on the Bible by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and a committee of women. It selects passages about women and answers the claim that scripture places women beneath men.
Is The Woman's Bible a new translation of the Bible?
No. It prints verses from the King James Version and adds comments. It covers only the passages that concern women or are used to limit them, and leaves the rest of the Bible alone.
When was The Woman's Bible published?
It appeared in two parts, the first in 1895 and the second in 1898, in the United States. Stanton was in her eighties when she led the project.
Why was The Woman's Bible so controversial?
Ministers condemned it as an attack on scripture. Many suffragists also feared it would hurt their cause, and in 1896 their national association voted to disown it.
Is The Woman's Bible hard to read?
No. The book is built as a series of short comments, each one answering a single passage about women. Stanton's voice is lively, witty and plain, so you can pick up any comment and enjoy it right away.