Close Up Radio Spotlights Author Joan Schaupp

Green Bay, WI – Joan Schaupp is a political theologist and author of Woman: Image of the Holy Spirit (1975), an exploration of the divine feminine in the Hebrew Bible. Woman: Image of the Holy Spirit is groundbreaking study of the feminine spirit implicit in the Holy Trinity.

In her studies of the Hebrew Bible, as well as the Apocrypha, Joan discovered numerous instances of the feminine identified with the Holy Spirit.

“I'm looking at the scriptures as literature. We're reading it as theological truth when it's poetry,” says Schaupp. “Every literary work draws some inspiration from these sacred texts. It stands to reason we can engage these texts just as we would with any other work of literature. Somehow the Bible and the Torah is always relevant. As time progresses, we are always finding new ways to interpret these texts.”

According to Schaupp, the feminine imagery of God in the Torah is very significant. Women have traditionally been associated with and used as a symbol for wisdom. Joan’s studies have been focused on finding the relationship between wisdom and spirit.

The idea for Woman Image of the Holy Spirit sat in my subconscious for so many years until I mentioned it to Gertrude Maciek, a Dominican sister, which led me on this study of finding profound imagery of God and the Holy spirit as feminine in the Hebrew Bible. This is the long journey of my life and what a journey it's been.”

Woman: Image of the Holy Spirit has been republished this month by Peregrino Press.

Woman: Image of the Holy Spirit is available on Amazon