All About Eve : The Bible as source of women’s oppression as well as liberation, humor as well as inspiration : OUT OF THE GARDEN: Women Writers on the Bible, <i> Edited by Christina Buchmann and Celina Spiegel</i> (<i> Fawcett Columbine: $23; 352 pp.)</i>

“What does it mean to read the Bible as a contemporary woman?” The question, put to 28 Jewish and Christian women writers, has borne fruit in a sparkling collection of literary essays on the Bible, the first ever to be written exclusively by women. Focusing on the Hebrew Bible (Tanach for Jewish readers, Old Testament for Christians), the book’s approach is moderately feminist and resolutely anti-dogmatic; co-editors Christina Buchmann and Celina Spiegel confess that “it is only recently that many of us have come to find the Bible interesting , no longer experiencing its claims to authority as so overwhelming as to demand mere assent and respectful attention.”

The Bible is more than just interesting, however, for the 28 contributors to this book, among whom are such distinguished writers as Cynthia Ozick, Louise Erdrich and Ursula Le Guin. These women writers find the Bible, if not overwhelming in its authority, thoroughly captivating in its appeal to our imagination and our moral sense.

So it should be. Throughout the centuries, women in predominantly Jewish and Christian societies have found themselves in the Bible as in no other book--it has been the chief literary vehicle not only for their subordination to men but also for their self-discovery and flourishing as women. It is impossible to overestimate the influence of the Bible on our cultural heritage and our multiple identities. Women or men, we must come to terms with the Bible, if we wish to understand ourselves. For many of us, this requires a work of critical reclamation, beyond simply brushing the cobwebs off the old book.

This work of reclamation is attempted by the present volume. Though not comprehensive, it succeeds brilliantly in representing the full spectrum of feminist and feminine ways to read the Bible. The sense of outrage at injustices done to women in the name of the Bible is softened--without being silenced--by the presence of voices that remain loyal to biblical traditions. In contrast to many recent works of feminist theology, “Out of the Garden” is not sicklied over by resentment at male privilege; as a result, it exudes confidence and respect for women’s experiences.

Eve, it is often said, has gotten a bad rap. Created as an afterthought, she found herself blamed for all the afflictions that followed upon the first couple’s exile from the Garden. Yet Barbara Grizzuti Harrison points out that it was Eve’s disobedience (her “happy fault,” as the Christian liturgy for the Easter Vigil puts it) that gave us our world, and implanted in us the restless yearning for heaven from which all creativity flows.

Lot’s wife has been similarly maligned. For her vain, typically female, curiosity she was turned into a pillar of salt. Rebecca Goldstein takes a second look, drawing upon Talmudic midrashim lovingly collected for her by her own father, to create a portrait of Lot’s wife as a figure of maternal solicitude, willing to share the plight of the daughters she had left behind.

The Rabbinic tradition of midrashic storytelling is happily exploited by several entries, occasionally with humorous results. Norma Rosen, who understands midrash as “unbridled and unintimidated imagination,” offers an example worthy of Harlequin Romances, in her midrash on Rebekah. The young bride discovers that she has married into a dysfunctional family. Husband Isaac is impotent because of a post-traumatic stress disorder that dates back to the time when he was nearly sacrificed by his theopathic father; he suffers recurrent nightmares of Abraham coming after him with a knife. Desperate to overcome the curse of barrenness, Rebekah arranges for a tryst with “brawny Ishmael.” Just in time, Isaac recovers his manhood, and Rebekah finally gets to be the mother of Jacob (Israel) and Esau (who is brawny like Ishmael).

Yet perhaps these gothic palpitations are not so far off the mark; the Bible is full of stories of sexual intrigue, murderous sibling rivalry, and sudden reversals of fortune. How odd, that the designs of Providence should so often be advanced by scheming subterfuge and trickster-like hoax. Jacob deceives his father in order to steal the inheritance from firstborn son Esau; in turn, Jacob’s father-in-law tricks the young upstart into taking his firstborn daughter Leah as the unwanted prize for seven years’ toil. From such strange twists and turns of fortune, Israel’s destiny is forged.

As usual, several authors point out, it is the male hero whose metamorphoses are of chief concern to biblical authors; female characters--even strong ones such as Rebekah, Rachel, Hannah and Esther--serve primarily as the foil for their men. Comparative literature scholar Ilana Pardes notes, “With the exception of Eve, we have no scene that depicts the birth of the heroine, let alone rebirth. The biblical woman appears on stage only when she is marriageable, and her stay there is determined, generally speaking, by the impact of her maternal position on the status of her (favorite) son.”

Nonetheless, the prophetic tradition keeps these biblical women before our eyes as witnesses for all who are dispossessed. Rachel weeps for her children, as long as any children need to be wept for. As Pardes puts it, “In Jeremiah’s famous prophecy Rachel is allowed to transcend time. Her voice rises from the dead to cry on behalf of the exiled.”

The volume offers several examples of feminist didactic preaching, exegesis and allegory, of uneven quality. Biblical scholar Phyllis Trible skillfully retells the Elijah and Jezebel story from a Phoenician’s perspective, to show that these two fiery prophets of competing Gods are mirror images of each other. Indeed, they need each other. Poet Alicia Ostriker’s entry, “The Nursing Father,” drawn from her longer work “The Nakedness of the Fathers,” blends midrash with personal confession in order to discover in the Exodus narrative a mythic charter for women’s emancipation; this would make wonderful material for a Passover celebration. For Patricia Williams, the book of Exodus mirrors her experience as a single, black, 40-plus adoptive mother; out of this experience, illuminated by the Bible, comes her moving plea for a communal moral awakening that would make abortion not illegal but unnecessary. June Jordan finds in the story of Ruth and Naomi a precedent for the community of women friends who supported her through her ordeal with breast cancer. Several essays champion the cause of neglected anti-heroines, like Vashti in the book of Esther or Hagar in Genesis.

British novelist Fay Weldon makes the story of Samson and Delilah the occasion for the one vulgar essay in the book--a wildly exaggerated diatribe against the Bible, Christianity and, in passing, Islam, all of which she construes as viciously and systematically anti-woman. To balance the record, in the book’s best essay, Cynthia Ozick characterizes the religion of ancient Israel as the matrix for the idea of “personhood” on which feminism itself depends. The feminist spirituality movement overlooks this, in its eagerness to celebrate the memory of archaic goddess-centered traditions in which, it is imagined, women flourished. Yet, as Ozick points out, it was ancient Judaism--with its astonishing teaching that human beings are created in the divine image and likeness--that first gave women a basis for claiming the freedom and dignity that feminism rightfully demands for them. The story of Hannah illustrates this: she offers her own prayers in Temple, thus marking the radical shift from religion centered on the public sacrificial cult to religion centered on more intimate ways of relating to God; moreover, her husband encourages her to believe in her own worth, rather than despair because of barrenness.

Is this principle of a woman’s intrinsic worth before God any less valid because a man voices it? Ozick, a “classical” feminist, calls for Jewish feminists to feed their moral imagination on the sacral humanism of the Torah, rather than the ideological humanisms (many of them virulently anti-Semitic) of the Enlightenment. Similarly, Kathleen Norris finds in the Benedictine tradition of living out of the Psalms, abundant resources for the genuine fulfillment of women; and Louise Erdrich discerns a delicate yet resilient filament of hope in the resigned wisdom of Ecclesiastes.

These are essays of considerable literary erudition and sophistication that re-conceive what it means to read the Bible as a woman, either by using feminist categories in uncommon ways or, in a few cases, by not using them at all. Novelist Deidre Levinson is much too interested by Saul, the scapegoat-king, to strain for feminist lessons. Elizabeth Swados restages the book of Job as a musical clown show; Job’s wife gets to hit him over the head with a bowling pin, but otherwise her role is not significantly enhanced. The effect of including such essays alongside others explicitly feminist is refreshingly de-ghettoizing.

The anthology closes with an impish allegory by Ursula Le Guin, in which Eve gets to unname the animals. If this is Eve’s proper task, then “Out of the Garden” performs it well, dislodging dull stereotypes to enable both women and men readers to see the Bible with fresh eyes.