If feminism promotes women's rights and the message of the Hebrew Bible keeps them in their theologically correct place, then there is room for much misunderstanding between theologians and feminists. Eryl Davies explores how dissent and feminism relate to the Hebrew Bible.

Davies suggests that the most promising approach deploys a reader-oriented literary approach to the Hebrew Bible: by focusing on the literary representation of women through plot, dialogue and characterization, some of the subtle ways in which biblical authors sought to reinforce patriarchal values and endorse women's inferior status are highlighted. Davies argues that readers of the Hebrew Bible must be prepared to question and challenge the values and assumptions inherent in the text: they must don the mantle of the "dissenting reader" and apply what feminist biblical critics have termed a "hermeneutic of suspicion" to its content without denouncing the authority of the Bible as a sacred text.

The patriarchal Bible
feminist models of reading
feminist criticism and reader-response criticism
unmasking the text's ideology
ideological critique.