Ampliando horizontes: Análise de interpretações do feminino a partir do texto bíblico

Abstract

Interpretation is not a neutral art: it can oppress or it can set free. As women and religion intertwine, Amplifying horizons deals with interpretations taken from the Bible text about women. The question which permeates this study is if and how the Bible text is used to naturalize the subjugation of the female by the male. This is a conceptual and bibliographical work bringing approaches based upon analysis of Bible texts and in speeches extracted from Bible interpretations. In a wide sense, Christianity anchors itself in an anthropological view that acts in a way to establish the place or, function of men and women, in churches as much as in society. Our argumentation is that many Bible interpretations bring in itself universalist and abstract declarations regarding the self, such interpretations stand in patriarchal cultural systems. In our analysis we work with the perspective of gender and with the feminist hermeneutics of liberation, as they are tools of analysis that help us to deconstruct speeches, imaginaries and representations of the female, which were historically constructed and, yet today, corroborate to the perpetuation and legitimization of the female subordination. We start with the presupposition the Christianity was and still is an important influence in the social system and in the cultural world vision of the west. Regarding the contemporaneous use of the Bible text we conclude that the affirmations, declarations and discourses that naturalize the subjugation of the female, support themselves in interpretations that have its fundaments in patriarchal and androcentric concepts. The analysis was made on assertions of the Igreja Presbiteriana do Brasil (IPB), a protestant denomination that pledges to guide itself exclusively on the Sola Scriptura principle for biblical interpretations. Our conclusion is that the IPBs theological instructions on the place-function of women, contradict the Sola Scriptura principle, as they are supported by stand alone verses and-or texts which are withdrawn amongst many, not considering a basic rule of this same principle the Holy Scripture is its own interpreter, that is, the Bible explains the Bible itself. The existing polemic among authors and the appropriation of concepts herein presented may characterize a synthesis open to other interpretations, which will only have achieved its goals as other researchers accept the invitation to engage in dialogue.