Sandra M. Schneiders

Father Frank Maloney notes that five husbands would be beyond what Jewish practice normally allowed, which suggests something more symbolic may be at work here.

And Sandra Schneiders, another biblical expert, argues that the five husbands can be read as pointing to the historical infidelity of Samaria, a theological symbol.

rather than a moral judgment on this particular woman.

So what is this story really about? Certainly it speaks about inclusion.

That's definitely there.

The founder, the most explicit founder of the discipline of Christian spirituality, Sandra Schneiders, who's uh work prior to that point was as a biblical scholar and in some ways an early feminist in the catholic church in that very uh sort of rough period when uh sandra and and others dealt with um you know the full brunt of a kind of patriarchal consciousness if you will with all sorts of prejudices.

And so she went and faced that in her own work, previously established herself as a productive and insightful scholar.

And you could say in some ways that, here I'm getting into a bit of a Jungian way of speaking, that spirituality provides the compensation or what can be an overly rationalistic, sometimes a overly one-pointed, flighty approach to our Christian faith and attempts to bring out the suppressed voice of practitioners, in other words, real people.