"... an important contribution to current literary concerns with the ideologies of texts... " --Society of Old Testament Study Book List "... she points the way into as yet little-explored territory, broadly engaging literary theory as well as ideological criticism... she moves beyond both narrowly historical and exclusively text-centered criticism... " --Theology Today "... Bal has given us both a coruscating feminist critique of biblical scholarship and a fund of provocative exegetical insights... required reading for anyone who wants to know where serious biblical scholarship is heading." --Shofar