This valuable resource both presents and demonstrates the numerous developments in feminist criticsm of the Bible and the enormous rage of influence that feminist criticism has come to have in biblical studies.
The purpose of the book is to raise issues of method that are largely glossed over or merely implied n most non-feminist works on the Bible. The editors hve inclded broadly theoretical essays on feminist methods and the various roels they may play in research and pedagogy, as well as non-feminist essays that hae direct bearing on the methods or subject matter that feminists use, as well as reading that illustrate the variety of methodological strategies adopted by feminist scholars.
Some 30 scholars, from North America and Europe, have contributed to this Companion.

When fourteen-year-old Ash is forced to move, the world as he knows it turns upside down. Soulville is a strange town, and the house his mom inherited from a distant relative should be condemned. It's spooky. Possibly haunted. What Ash initially believes to be a string of bad luck has nothing to do with luck at all and everything to do with a demonic curse on his family. Does Ash have what it takes to break the curse, or will his life be cut short like those before him?

From the author who brought you Hell's Christmas comes the back-story you've waited for. In Hell's Hallway, we revisit Monika Hell before she became the Monika Hell we love to hate...or should that be hate to love? How many doors have to close in Monika's life before God opens the one that changes everything? Just how long will Monika stay in the hallway?

Against all odds, the creatures in the Land of Serenity defeated Ocamar and his dragon clan. They thought their troubles were over, but an unknown evil lurks in the mountains. Lamek, who seeks closure with his past, travels up the mountain to the remains of his old master's cottage. There he gets more than he expected when he comes face to face with the evil wizard Natas, Zedbulla's son. With Lamek in his power, bitter Natas plans to use him to bring darkness to the Land of Serenity. Natas desires to avenge his father's death and take over the throne, but young Rumpleflin stands in his way. Worried about her best friend, Karini forms a search party, but will she and her friends be able to find Lamek in time? Will Natas become king?

Enter a world of fairies, dragons, dwarves, and elves in The Land of Flames, a magical world where possibilities are endless and truth makes a difference. Ocamar, the villainous dragon king, and his dragon clan, have overtaken The Land of Serenity and everyone in the land is in jeopardy. The only hope seems to be with Rumbleflin, the oldest and wisest of the elves, who plans to lead an army rebellion. To add to the conflict, Ocamar and Rumbleflin have been harboring secrets from one another for years, and what happens when those secrets are revealed will have a major impact on everyone. Can an army of fairy-tale creatures defeat a clan of dragons and restore their Land of Serenity?

Fontaine explores the social roles of women as depicted within the book of Proverbs, as well as the character archetypes and patriarchal ideologies which undergird the sages' portrayal. Using feminist folklore methodologies and performance studies, the author explores an alternative paradigm for understanding women's relationship to wisdom traditions in the ancient Near East, using parallel texts, later midrash and extrabiblical re-presentations of biblical women associated with wisdom. Fontaine is thus able to show that women were culturally authorized 'performers' of the family-based wisdom traditions of teaching, economic problem-solving, and care-giving, and that these roles provided them with a platform to use their acknowledged wisdom in public roles.

Poems on Global Women's Rights, with special emphasis on religion, originally appearing on NGO list-serve of Women's United Nations Report Network (www.wunrn.com), by Henry Luce III Fellow in Religion and HR Author and Activist

Fontaine explores the social roles of women as depicted within the book of Proverbs, as well as the character archetypes and patriarchal ideologies which undergird the sages' portrayal. Using feminist folklore methodologies and performance studies, the author explores an alternative paradigm for understanding women's relationship to wisdom traditions in the ancient Near East, using parallel texts, later midrash and extrabiblical re-presentations of biblical women associated with wisdom. Fontaine is thus able to show that women were culturally authorized 'performers' of the family-based wisdom traditions of teaching, economic problem-solving, and care-giving, and that these roles provided them with a platform to use their acknowledged wisdom in public roles.

The ten essays in this volume, the majority specially written, engage with questions of voice (whose?) and interplay (what kind?) between received interpretation and resisting female reader, and venture into methodological territory familiar and unfamiliar to biblical scholars, including autobiographical criticism. Among earlier readers invoked in these pages are Jerome, Rashi and Fray Luis de LTon, who brush pages with Haitian prostitutes. The three sections of this fresh, colourful and adventurous journey into love, sex, allegory and self inside the Most Sublime Song are: Feminist Appropriations; Specific Readings: Allegories and Feminists; and The Song of Songs Personalized.

The second volume of the series takes up que stions of voice, exclusion and construction as well as the r einforcement of the world views that have a legacy of contin ued gender asymmetry in Judaism and Christianity. '

A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods and Strategies forms a conclusion to the series of 10 volumes published in the groundbreaking Feminist Companion to the Bible since 1993. Not only is this the companion to the Companion, but, it is at the same time the forerunner and companion to a second series of nine volumes of the Feminist Companion. In all, there will be a unique collection of 20 volumes representing the enormous range of influence that feminist criticism has come to have in biblical studies. Anchored always in particular biblical texts, the essays in this multi-authored Companion to Reading the Bible have a distinct methodological slant, reflecting the numerous developments in feminist criticism that have occurred since the first books in the series were published, and forming an indispensable handbook for every biblical scholar and student today. >