“That girl from Andover”

I would not be a Bible scholar were it not for Phyllis Trible. In a religion class my senior year of college, I read God and The Rhetoric of Sexuality. Although I was familiar with the Bible from growing up as a minister’s daughter, the insights of this book were revelatory. Suddenly, the Bible wasn’t against me as a woman. I felt empowered to read scripture in emboldened ways that offered liberation instead of subjugation. The chance to study with Trible was a key reason I chose Union Theological Seminary for my ministerial training.

Since I wrote about her in my application essay, she was appointed as my adviser. Like every other MDiv student I knew, I found her intimidating. As an adviser, she was efficient. As a lecturer, she was brilliant. I remember sitting in the large classroom with my 70 classmates in Introduction to the Old Testament, at the end of her lecture on Judges 19 and the rape of the Levite’s concubine. The class was over, but for a few sacred moments no one spoke or moved. The woman sitting next to me had a tear streaking her cheek. Trible’s carefully crafted words made us see, hear, understand, and feel the power of scripture.

I wish I could tell you that she saw prodigious Old Testament talent in me and encouraged me to pursue doctoral studies. But my face was one in a sea of amorphous students, and the truth is she didn’t know me from Eve. Years later, I saw her again when I attended a lecture at Union shortly after being accepted into an Old Testament PhD program. When I nervously approached Dr. Trible (what we always called her) to tell her how her work had started me on this trajectory, she simply smiled and said, “Welcome.”