Fentress-Williams, in Remix 2: Moses Has Two Mommies, uses various skills to show it takes collaboration of all kinds of people to deliver people. She starts with some Form Criticism within this section by taking bits and pieces of the Exodus and referring back to similar wording within the creation story. She compares prior deliverances when talking about Moses being saved in a time of execution as a baby. She goes on about needing collaboration of others and how it is seen in previous stories. Later on, towards the middle-bottom of page 83 she switches to a little bit of Source Criticism. She is using the words of the text, and how it was written to also show the characteristics of God, being specific about what God's name was. Following this she uses, some translation analysis when comparing what Moses name would have meant in both languages. Towards the end she sort of uses the Source Criticism to compare various deliverances and what they show us about God. With a good understanding of this type of Criticism, one may be able to see which source is being noted, but I do not have a great understanding yet. Overall she is comparing the literary world and the contemporary world. How what was needed back then is still needed today, an understanding that regardless of our earthly boundaries, all off God's people can be redeemed. This redemption is best found through collaboration amongst various cultures and in God's eyes there are no divisions for redemption.
Michelle, you've well noted Fentress-Williams's powerful use of the *world in front of the text* to bring out meaning in Exodus. You're exactly right that she is using translation skills in Remix 2, and she is also using structural analysis to show how particular words show up in particular patterns.
I didn't really see her using source criticism, since that would require showing differences between the different strands of the text. A reader can talk about the characteristics of God from the standpoint of the *world in the text* even though Hiebert tried to show that the different sources present different characterizations of God by using a *world behind the text* approach (source criticism).
How do you understand Form Criticism? That's not a method that we focus on in BI100. It usually refers to particular types of stories that would have been passed down orally prior to the writing of any sources. For example, Genesis has different stories about women at wells that same to follow similar patterns.
When Fentress-Williams links Exodus 2 with Genesis 1, might she simply be talking about the use of a "familiar phrase" (p. 82)?
I struggle with understanding Documentary Hypothesis (Source Criticism) so I appreciate this information as I continue to try and figure it out.
That's how I understood Form Criticism and maybe what I'm missing is that the stories would be passed down and seen very similar throughout the text. We reviewed it a little in BI100. What I was looking at is the first paragraph in column 2 on page 83. The various stories of God's redemption through collaboration.
Remix 2 is an interesting analysis of God's redemption from the reeds. I use this metaphor to describe those women who are marginalized but who are types of God as redeemer. They are labelled by their relationship to the men in their lives from whom they draw their identity. Hence, Moses mother is the wife of the Levite and his savior is Pharaoh's daughter. This story reaches present day readers who like them are not given names of authority but who act on the agency which God designed into the tree of life from which Eve and Adam ate in the garden of Eden. This account is explored by Theodore Heibert on page 10 of the Theological Bible Commentary.
In this context, I think Judy Fentress-Williams uses another literary device probably closely related to a metaphor that provides cover for Moses and probably lined the basket in which he survived. In Genesis 22:15, Hagar placed her son under a bush perhaps protecting him from the sun and as she sat a bow shot away watching her son die in the wilderness as they had been abandoned by Abraham with the consent of God who saw the child, heard him cry and took pity on him. "I know their sufferings and I have come to deliver them...". (Ex.3:7)
Thank you Michelle for exploring this passage. I'm interested in Judy Fenster-Williams approach to redacting Scripture and exploring the world behind, within and beyond the word. Trying to help people know marginalized people and communities, it's necessary to learn about the reeds. As a lesbian I tell the story of watching shoes of people in gay bars which were our churches in the 70's, 80's and even today for many marginalized who are unable to connect with a church home but who are out there. The shoes were those that were worn often by government officials such as the Office of Special Investigations that would follow us in the dark of night to catch us and out us to our military units, communities and families and to unalterably damage our lives with dishonorable discharges given for their bias toward our sexual identity. That's my consciousness of then. But, as we come to the decisions of the UMC General Conference present (traditional plan) and to come (?), this is perhaps a prophetic moment for me and many who are feeling left out and once more abandoned in this process of deciding who is church today. We've been working 'in the reeds' educating and sharing very personal moments of our lives in the hope that the right people - those who have names - will see us, hear us, take pity and deliver us from shame and abandonment.
Mary, this is a powerful prophetic reflection.
FYI, it's helpful to reserve "redact" for those in the past who physically edited the text into the version we now have.
Fentress-Williams is weaving together biblical narrative with the story of her own people, but she isn't changing the text itself.
Thanks for highlighting Remix 2. Applying Fentress-Williams' discussion of the two mommies and remixing to the struggles of today, we often forget that collaboration is essential if we are to achieve what Congressman John Lewis describes as a "blessed community." Using remixing rather than sampling forces us to think about and identify unknown characters who collaborate and advance modern day causes.
One thing that I really enjoyed about Fentress-Williams is the way the world in front of the text is juxtaposed with the world of the text . This method, I think, allows the stories to be much more easily applied to a target context.