Phyllis Trible, longtime professor and feminist scholar of biblical studies, passed away on October 17. She was 92 years old.
A native of Richmond, Virginia, Dr. Trible earned her bachelor’s degree in religion from Meredith College – a women’s liberal arts institution in Raleigh, North Carolina – and her doctorate in Old Testament studies through a joint program at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University in New York City.
In 1963, Dr. Trible began her career at Wake Forest College (now University) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she was the first woman assistant professor of religion. In 1971, she transitioned to the faculty at Andover Newton Theological School (now part of Yale Divinity School), where she taught for eight years, before joining the faculty at her doctoral alma mater, Union Theological Seminary. There, she served as the Baldwin Professor of Sacred Literature. In 1999, Dr. Trible returned to Wake Forest as a professor of biblical studies and associate dean of the newly established School of Divinity, where she remained until her retirement in 2012.
As a scholar, Dr. Trible was known for challenging patriarchal interpretations of the Bible and the idea that only men were made in the image of God. For ten years, she led the annual Phyllis Trible Lecture Series, which brought leading scholars to the Wake Forest campus to discuss feminist thought and theology. Dr. Trible’s research led to numerous scholarly articles and books, including God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality (Fortress Press, 1978) and Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Fortress Press, 1984).