En feministisk studie av den svenska Evangelieboken 2002

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this essay has been to make a feminist study of the Church of Sweden lectionary 2002. I have been interested in two specific subject areas. The first is whether the biblical text have helped to highlight women´s experience, and if that is the case, in which way? The second area has been to investigate whether the texts have an oppressive or liberating tendency. In my study I have used Rosemary Radford Ruethers definition of experience which includes experience of the divine, experience of oneself and experience of the world, although they can be understood separately, they interact with each other. As for the second subject area I have used Elisabeth Shüssler Fiorenzas definitions of oppression and liberation. Oppression is defined based on the underlying or direct meaning that hinders or denies liberation. Liberation implies resistance and change by examining contradictions between the religious-cultural politics of “femininity” and the radical democratic politics of meaning and dignity. My study takes its approach from feminist theology and to it I connect two fields of method. One is feminist theological practices and the other is qualitative textual analysis. The analysis has been made from two biblical texts, one of the New Testament and one of the Old Testament. Both texts describe the biblical woman’s experiences in multiple ways which includes Radford Ruethers definition of experience. The text of the New Testament included a larger part of experience of oneself while the text from the Old Testament included as lager part of experience of “the world”. Both texts are liberating for women since they both meet Shüssler Fiorenzas definition of liberation. But the story of Rahab also has an oppressive tendency. Both women in each story contribute to their own liberation and in the story of Rahab also her family´s liberation. Another likeness in the texts is that both women have an experience of fear.