I want to try here to make sense of the “scene” of feminist interpretation of the Book of Mormon. My aim is to look at what might be described as the seven years of plenty: 1993-2000. During those seven years, four very important and deeply interesting feminist studies of the Book of Mormon were published. In large part, those four studies are all we have of this genre. Other treatments—before, after, or even during those years—are half-hearted, unfortunately brief, or simply uninformed. Those years, then, seem to have been the seven years of plenty, and we have since seen the seven years (and then some) of famine. I wonder if it isn’t time to let it rain again.

But what is feminist interpretation of the Book of Mormon? That’s the question I want to tackle here. It took four drastically distinct shapes over the course of the 1990s, and it isn’t clear which of them—if any—should serve as a model for further work. Here I want just to probe those four shapes, asking what each of them is worth.

I should note that at least one overview of feminist concern for the Book of Mormon has appeared in print already. In 2002, Camille Williams published a very even-handed assessment of feminism and the Book of Mormon—though written from the obvious conviction that the Book of Mormon is an ancient book: “Women in the Book of Mormon,” published in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies. Williams had concerns quite distinct from my own, but her piece is worth reading. It is interesting to note that Williams not only published this piece just after the seven years of plenty were over (it appeared in 2002), but also wrote and published the first detailed exposition of women in the Book of Mormon (without any overt feminist concern) immediately before the seven years of plenty began (it appeared in 1992 in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism under the title “Women in the Book of Mormon). I’ll let Williams’ two piece serve as bookends to the period I want to look at.

But, to the years of plenty themselves. Read the rest of this entry »