A LIBRARIAN’S ORIENTATION
What this book explores
Womanist readings that recover women and marginalized figures within the Torah and monarchy narratives.
EDITORIAL NOTE
Why it’s in the Library
It changes who is centered in interpretation and therefore what becomes visible in familiar narratives. The book helps travelers see that perspective is not an addition after exegesis but part of the questions, silences, and moral stakes readers bring to a text.
Good starting place if…
You want close biblical interpretation shaped by Black women's questions, bodies, histories, and moral imagination—especially where women have been unnamed, minimized, or harmed.
Know before you begin…
Gafney writes from explicit womanist commitments and engages texts that include sexual violence, war, enslavement, and patriarchal power. The readings are rigorous and restorative without pretending that every biblical passage can be made safe.