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Imitating Paul: A Discourse of Power; By Elizabeth A. Castelli Louisville, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1991. 168 pp. $15.95

biblical scholars who make it their task to comment on books of the Bible that are already in their arena of expertise. So far as I know, it is, indeed, the “first comprehensive attempt to gather some of the fruits of feminist biblical scholarship on each book of the Bible.” The introduction admits that this is not intended as a general or complete commentary; it proceeds by providing an overview of each book of the Bible followed by commentary on passages selected because they either focus on women or are of special interest to women. General articles on feminist hermeneutics and on women in the biblical worlds are most helpful, especially the essay on extracanonical writings, until recently an overlooked source of information “ripe for harvest” by feminist scholars. As with any collection of essays, these are uneven. And within the community of women biblical scholars there will be healthy (and perhaps heated!) discussion of some of the readings. But no one will go away from the volume with her or his old assumptions about biblical texts intact. Who would have thought to bring the plight of abused women to bear on the reading of Hosea or to have faulted the logic of marriage in the household code in Ephesians? The challenge and pleasure of this work is its tendency to upset expectations about familiar books. Newsome and Ringe are to be commended for bringing together such a collection of scholarship and for groundbreaking work. It is greatly to be hoped that we shall see other commentaries of this sort in the near future to further the task of empowerment “that comes from reading the Bible as a woman in the company of women.”