The Woman's BibleGraphic Arts Books, 2021 M02 1 - 462 pages The Woman’s Bible (1895-1898) is a work of religious and political nonfiction by American women’s rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Despite its popular success, The Woman’s Bible caused a rift in the movement between Stanton and her supporters and those who believed that to wade into religious waters would hurt the suffragist cause. Reactions from the press, political establishment, and much of the reading public were overwhelmingly negative, accusing Stanton of blasphemy and sacrilege while refusing to engage with the book’s message: to reconsider the historical reception of the Bible in order to make room for women to be afforded equality in their private and public lives. Working with a Revising Committee of 26 members of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Stanton sought to provide an updated commentary on the Bible that would highlight passages allowing for an interpretation of scripture harmonious with the cause of the women’s rights movement. Inspired by activist and Quaker Lucretia Mott’s use of Bible verses to dispel the arguments of bigots opposed to women’s rights and abolition, Stanton hoped to establish a new way of framing the history and religious representation of women that could resist similar arguments that held up the Bible as precedent for the continued oppression of women. Starting with an interpretation of the Genesis story of Adam and Eve, Stanton attempts to show where men and women are treated as equals in the Bible, eventually working through both the Old and New Testaments. In its day, The Woman’s Bible was a radically important revisioning of women’s place in scripture that Stanton and her collaborators hoped would open the door for women to obtain the rights they had long been systematically denied. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s The Woman’s Bible is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers. |
From inside the book
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... took with Genesis, those of the English translators, however, greatly surpassed them. The first chapter of Genesis, for instance, in Hebrew, tells us, in verses one and two, “As to origin, created the gods (Elohim) these skies (or air ...
... took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh thereof. 22 And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. 23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh: she shall ...
... took of the fruit thereof, and did eat and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. 7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons ...
... unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. 19 And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. 23 And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah,
... took unto himself two wives. Thus early in the history of the race polygamic relations were recognized. The phraseology announcing the marriage of Lamech is very significant. In the case of Adam and Eve the ceremony was more imposing ...