Passage

Commentary on the work “The Passage”
Heather den Houting, 2007, acrylic on canvas board.

Introduction
Providing written commentary on visual images is a complex task. As image, text and reader interact, new meanings emerge, and new links are found.

In order to contain this essay to a reasonable size, this commentary will proceed as an exploration of the combination of visual and feminist hermeneutics in reading Luke 23:49 – 24:11.

To assist the reader/viewer however, the text enclosed in boxes will draw attention to some of the elements of the painting which were intentionally created to capture this framework.

Visual hermeneutics
In his article “The Artist as a Reader of the Bible” O’Kane summarises the two key writers in the area of visual hermeneutics, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Paolo Berdini. Their frameworks are relevant to the process of understanding the concept of visual hermeneutics. Gadamer’s work is and exploration of the processes of interpreting visual images, while Berdini explores the concept of visual exegesis; that is, artwork is not only illustration, but is a medium for exegesis.

Gadamer’s approach is described as emphasising the play of meaning that visual work can elicit. O’Kane writes;
“The subject matter which a painting expresses, can never be exhausted by its particular exemplifications; it is more than any individual expression of it and always susceptible to extension by further interpretation so that no art work can ever be finished.”

Berdini’s approach is described as visual exegesis, in order to emphasise the text as the source and function of the image. This approach encapsulates the two stages of the interpretive process. Firstly, the artist is the reader of the text, and the image is the visualised reading. Secondly, the viewer of the image encounters the text in new ways as a result of that image.

O’Kane notes that both theorists incorporate the concept of tradition into their frameworks, in order to illustrate the way that art has historically been used to interpret text an, to provide examples of the impact of the social and religious context in both the production and the interpretation of image.

As an example of the social and religious location of the artist, the choice of predominantly blue clothing was deliberate, not only to reflect the Marion blue of purity, but to highlight the traditional clothing worn by some women in Afghanistan in 2007. The concept of the burqua in Australia at this time is associated with extreme Islamism and provokes a heightened response from viewers. Women in burquas are seen both as victims of an oppressive religious regime, and as a threat to westerners because of the fear of terrorism and the capacity to hide things beneath the voluminous clothing.

A contemporary example of this is the unease that greeted the inclusion in the Blake Prize for Religious Art, a piece which clothed the Virgin Mary in a blue burqua. This piece, together with an image of Jesus and Osama Bin Laden digitally merged, provoked political comment, with the inclusion being described as “gratuitously offensive to the religious beliefs of many Australians” and the works as “lacking any artistic merit”.

Such comments reflect O’Kane’s observation of the impact of image as a hermeneutic.
“Just as a painter’s reading of a biblical text can be shown to function in how an image is visualized, so too the viewer’s reading of a painting can function in determining to what degree the work of art is religious.”

Feminist Hermeneutics
The use of visual exegesis sits well within the framework of feminist theological interpretation. Watson speaks of feminist theology as challenging the very approach to doing theology. Thus,
“Feminist theologians aim instead at the transformation of theological concepts, methods, language, and imagery into more holistic theology as a means and an expression of the struggle for liberation.”

Echoing the concept of a visual exegesis, feminist biblical hermeneutics is described as,
“encourag(ing) the reader to make the connection between the text and her own situation, to challenge the text from her own perspective as a woman and to be challenged by it.”
Feminist exegesis, thus acknowledges interpretive tradition as important in its approach, but reads it with suspicion, knowing that there is,
“no presupposition-less interpretation (and) that there are no ideologically neutral presuppositions. In other words, everyone interprets from a perspective that is controlled to some extent by his or her social location.”

The self conscious nature of feminist interpretation means that the social location of the creator of the text and of image, as well as the reader/viewer creates the complexity of interpretive paradigms.

A way of acknowledging this in the painting was to include the artist and some clues as to her social location in the image. In the final panel, the three female figures are the artist and her two daughters. Such inclusion acknowledges inter alia that the artist is white, western and a mother of female children.

The images of the females in the third painting are unfinished, with the face of the artist blurred in recognition that their appearance in the painting creates an eternal intertextual paradigm.

This hermeneutic of suspicion, combined with a process of retrieval is fundamental to the feminist approach. Schneiders comments that the biblical text itself, together with most interpretive and theological work in our tradition has emerged from andocentric and patriarchal communities. Retrieval must therefore follow suspicion in order to pose an alternative to traditional readings of the text.

Barbara Reid writes of a hermeneutic of remembrance in order to reconstruct women’s history in the early church. Thus, clues and allusions to the reality of women’s experience are the primary focus of the reading. She argues that this approach must be incorporated into an understanding of biblical history, not just as an interesting sidetrack, but as a mainstream approach.

Retrieval however, has wider implications than the concept of remembrance. It includes the idea of a commonality of lived experience across time; based on the bodiliness of women. It is an embodied theology. While feminist hermeneutics acknowledge that women’s lived experience is overwhelmingly informed by factors such as class, race or ethnicity; the physical reality of female bodies invites a connection and commonality in that experience.

Watson highlights how the bodiliness of women has been managed in religious tradition; in particular how in the biblical text, the concepts of cleanliness and purity illustrate a consciousness of the female body as polluted and polluting. The shared bodiliness of women however, is a major platform for retrieving and restoring the female story within the biblical text. It is an approach which allows for the subversion of readings which assume the impurity of women’s bodies, and recovers and restores the lived reality of women in community.

The lived reality of women is a key theme within the images. The bodies of the women are used as metaphors for passages both in female hood, but also as a feminist consciousness has emerged in contemporary culture.

In panel one the women are turned away from the viewer and are fully clothed in garments which have been characterised as the dress of virtuous biblical women. Examples of the physical presence of ‘typical’ biblical women are found in the art of Gustave Dore, an engraver, whose works illustrated a nineteenth century biblical text. An element of dissonance appears in the child who faces the viewer – representing a bodiliness which is hidden by the text. This “trickster” image is also found in the work of Rembrandt in the work the Nightwatch, where an anonymous and lone female figure peers out from the crowd of important and influential burghers.

In panel two, the woman breastfeeding the child reminds us that the lived reality of women continued even as women were being described by the author of the text. The women in this panel have been active, but they are obedient to the text and the law and rest on the Sabbath. Thus their activity is derived both from their femaleness, and the social and gender characteristics ascribed to them. The clothing of the women is juxtaposed. The sleeping figure and the babe are fully clothed; the breastfeeding mother reveals her body, not as a polluter, but as a life giver.

In panel three, the women continue their own story in response to the confounding situation they encounter at the empty tomb. None of their actions are described in custom or in text, but are symbolic of the unexpected. One woman discards the oils and spices collected for the body. What is no longer needed is returned to the earth. The other pours water over the head of the child, the cleansing reflecting the new birth, and new understandings of the bodiliness of women.

Reading the text with a feminist/visual methodology
Schneiders has developed a methodological proposal as part of the feminist critical strategy to retrieve women’s stories in biblical text:
1. challenge the translation for its social bias;
2. focus on texts with liberating potential;
3. raise the women to visibility;
4. reveal the text’s secrets; and
5. rescue the text from misinterpretation.

Again however, even an embodied theology must question its own framework. Seim does this to some extent when writing about ‘dignity readings’ of the biblical text. The process of extracting women as examples from the biblical text, and offering an alternative feminist interpretation is open to the critique that this can reinforce the “otherness” of the female characteristic. Seim reminds us that
“dignity studies must be balanced by insight into mechanisms and structures of oppression and silencing” and concludes that “women are not (to be) seen as one theme amongst other Lukan themes, but rather gender becomes the analytical category, which questions gender systems.”

The remainder of this commentary will attempt to navigate the possibilities raised by these considerations.

Luke 23:49-24:11

The identity of the women

Robert Karris has noted that the author of Luke uses triple identification and three day timeframes as a consistent function across the gospel. In this text three women are named and on the third day the tomb is revealed as empty.

Three women are named at Luke 8:1-3, Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna as three of the many other women who accompany Jesus and partake in his mission, Reid suggests that because of the consistent mention of Mary Magdalene across the gospels, she is likely to have regarded as the leader of the women, and her status therefore as a prostitute or sinner must be questioned.

Hence the status of the women in the text can be read as important, diverse and in some ways culturally supported.

At Luke 24:10, the women who return to the gathering to tell of the empty tomb are named as Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary, the mother of James and the other women who were with them. Mark 15:40 also mentions Salome. This gathered information suggests that the three women named in Luke were part of a larger group of women. Such a gathering indicates a diversity of age and fertility. The women in the painting can be read as three groups of three, or one large group of nine. Their age and situation is different in each of the women, signifying the diversity of experiences of women.

Women as Disciples

The role of the women as disciples emerges as their identity and function are further explored, and the claim is made that the women were part of the larger gathering of disciples. Craddock notes that in the text the phrase at verse 8 “remembered his words” is important because:
• it implies Galilee belongs to the preparatory past;
• that Christ had previously discussed this matter with the women implies that they were in the inner circle of the disciples with whom he shared his prediction; and
• the women are not commanded to go and tell the disciples, they are not errand runners, they are disciples.

Reid, in analysing the idea found in Luke 8:1-3 that the women supported the mission argues that the naming of Joanna the wife of Chuza, situates her in a wealthy and influential cohort. While Susanna is not mentioned at the tomb, Reid argues that the many other women who remain nameless in the gospel, implies a general gathering of some women of status and influence and that part of their support is likely to have been financial.

The status and importance of the women in the narrative is explored by Seim as described as demonstrating the “ambiguous tension” of the women in Luke. In exploring the role of the women as witnesses to the events she writes,
“The situation which the women encounter makes the preparations which they have carried out futile, and renders their practical concern and service unnecessary. The situation finds them therefore unprepared and makes them perplexed…But the Galilean women’s service brings them to the grave so that they become the first witnesses of the resurrection.”

Thus Seim concludes that the women were an essential part of the narrative because they form a link of knowledge, not just as witnesses, but as those who have had an ongoing relationship with Jesus and have listened to and remembered his words. This continuing relationship is reinforced through the messages received at the empty tomb, and gives them the resources to “overcome their confusion and anxiety.”

Women as witnesses
However, Seim makes a strong case that despite the significant appearance of women within Luke’s gospel, the construction of the text is designed to determine the gender specificity of women. Her thesis follows the textual parallelism of Luke, and reveals that this stylistic method enhances and reinforces an underlying system of social distinction between women and men.

Evidence of the power of this gender distinction is found in commentary about the purpose and function of the female characters at Christ’s crucifixion, entombment and resurrection. As an example, Tannehill and Johnson surmise that the women are required as witnesses to the events, and thus appear in the text in order to provide continuous evidence as to the events. This function is given primacy over all other readings of the text, to the extent that Tannehill describes the role of the women in the ritual and pragmatic preparations for burial as a literary device which gives the women “something to do.”

The categorisation of women as serving a functional purpose as witnesses, and discounting their activity appears to diminish the theological significance of their presence at these events. The paintings infuse the presence of the women at the cross, the closed tomb and the open tomb with theological symbolism which credits their involvement in the events as they occur. While the women watch the crucifixion from afar in the first panel, the next two panels depict the women as active participants. The behaviour and response of the women illustrates their active and continued participation in the death and resurrection of Christ.

Reid in a rereading of the text has noted a likely redaction by the author of Luke in order to include male disciples as continuous witnesses to these events. In particular she compares the difference of account with the Markan text, where the male disciples flee leaving the women to watch, and the use of the verb “watching” which is in the form of a feminine plural participle.

Silence

The understanding that Luke undermines the authority of the women in the text becomes a noted theme among feminist commentators. No more so than in the analysis of the way the women are treated when they deliver their news to the gathered community. Reid notes the lack of commissioning to be the news bearers, and the usurping of their authority as witnesses as Peter is introduced into the text to verify their nonsensical story.

Seim in her gender analytical framework comments that while women are not always silenced in the text, their words will be spoken into a closed social and domestic location, and generally in the presence of other women.

Reid’s conclusion is that such techniques by the author are a clear diminishment of women’s role and status as witnesses, and as active participants in the events. She writes,
“Today our proclamation of Luke’s version of the empty tomb story can serve to ritualise the grief that Christian women have experienced for twenty centuries when their faithful and true witness is dismissed as “nonsense.” It can remind us of the deprivation imposed on the whole Christian community when its female members are silenced.”

However, there is some dissent about this understanding. Craddock refers instead to the author using the technique to express the astonishing news. The unbelief was natural and the confirmation of the resurrection was experienced in the encounter with the risen Christ at verse 40.

There is also some dissension about the inclusion of v. 12 in the text. While Craddock believes it belongs in the text, he explains this verse is often cited in footnotes due to the belief that it is a direct borrowing from John 20:3-10 and that it creates a contradiction with v.34. His conclusion is that the inclusion was to maintain an atmosphere of “confusion, disturbance and doubt”.

The role of silence plays a strong part in the images. None of the women are shown in conversation or speaking. Yet their story can still be told. Women on the margins of theology and Christian culture can be and are subversive influences on received wisdom. The images also question the language based and andocentric understanding of communication – are all stories told verbally by humanity? Might belief come through other means. The stone having been rolled away tells its own story and recalls the text at Luke 19:40 – if my disciples keep silent – the stones will shout aloud.

Conclusion

As the viewer engages with the image, even more theology can emerge in particular the narrative of “passage” as we travel from the cross, to the closed tomb, to the empty tomb.

A theology of time emerges as we witness the eternal circuit of death and life, and how new meanings emerge as hermeneutical approaches are adopted, discarded and resurrected.

The central panel allows us to sit waiting for new understandings to emerge as something happens in that closed tomb, and as life continues around us.

The visual and feminist hermeneutic meld and play to remind viewers, that each communication between texts is always a new communication between texts.
Bibliography

Craddock, Fred. Luke Interpretation, ed. James L. Mays. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990.

Johnson, Luke Timothy. The Gospel of Luke Sacra Pagina Series ; 3. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991.

Karris, Robert. “Women and Discipleship in Luke.” In A Feminist Companion to Luke, ed. Amy-Jill Levine, 23-43. London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.

O’Kane, Martin. “The Artist as Reader of the Bible. Visual Exegesis and the Adoration of the Magi.” Biblical Interpretation 13, no. 4 (2005): 337-373.

Reid, Barbara. Women in the Gospel of Luke. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1996.

Schneiders, Sandra. “A Case Study: A Feminist Interpretation of John 4:1-42.” In The Revelatory Text: Interpreting the New Testament as Sacred Scripture, 180-99. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1991.

Seim, Turid Karlsen. The Double Message: Patterns of Gender in Luke-Acts Studies of the New Testament and Its World, ed. John Riches. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994.

Tannehill, Robert C. Luke Abingdon New Testament Commentaries. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1998.

Watson, Natalie. Feminist Theology. Michigan: Wm. B Eerdmans, 2003.