Volume 2 of Women in the Biblical World: A Survey of Old and New Testament Perspectives encompasses the latest research in feminist biblical scholarship. New angles of interpretation and fresh perspectives regarding often overlooked biblical women will be gained from the pages of this volume. This volume focuses on such women as Tamar, Deborah, Manoah's wife, Queen Vashti, and Job's wife. Attention is also given to socio-historical backgrounds lurking behind the biblical text (such as women in Greco-Roman education and syncretism in Ephesus), demonstrating how these backgrounds directly influenced the writings about women. Some emphasis on contemporary application is also stressed regarding problematic passages, such as 1 Corinthians 11:2-16. This multi-faceted approach to women in the Bible will prove to be invigorating, refreshing, and enlightening for all to read.

What were the lives of women and men like in ancient Israel? How does it affect their thinking about gender? Recent discussions of “biblical womanhood and manhood” tend to reflect our current concepts of masculinity and femininity, and less so the lived world of the biblical authors. In fact, gender does not often appear to be a noteworthy issue in Scripture at all, except in practical matters. Nonetheless, Genesis 1 invests the image of God itself with “male and female,” making sex central to what it means to be human. Instead of working out gender through Genesis’s creation and Paul’s household codes, we want to ask: What was life like on an ancient Israelite farmstead, in a Second Temple synagogue, or in a Roman household in Ephesus? Who ran things in the home, in the village, in the cities? Who had influence and social power, and how did they employ it? Taking insights from anthropology and archaeology, the authors of this collection paint a dynamic portrait of gender in antiquity that has been put into conversation with the biblical texts. The Biblical World of Gender explores gender “backstage” in the daily lives and assumptions of the biblical authors and “on-stage” in their writings. Table of Contents Introduction Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch: The Context of Gender in the Bible Celina Durgin and Dru Johnson Surprising Gender Roles in the Ancient World 1. The Importance of Bread: Archaeology, the Bible, and Women’s Power in Ancient Israel Carol L. Meyers 2. The Material World of Women and Men in Scripture: Gender and the Ancient Israelite Household Cynthia Shafer-Elliott 3. What We Can Learn from Women’s Roles in Ancient Synagogues Jeffrey P. Garcia 4. The Agency of Women in Ancient Rome Lynn H. Cohick Gender in the Biblical Texts: i. The Good 5. Freedom Fighters of the Exodus Carmen Joy Imes 6. Heroic Women of the New Testament James F. McGrath 7. Finding Good Men in the Old and New Testaments Beth M. Stovell Gender in the Biblical Texts: ii. The Bad 8. The Roots of Violence: Male Violence against Women in Genesis Matthew J. Lynch 9. Did Early Christians Give Dignity and Honor to Female Slaves? Nijay K. Gupta 10. For All Have Sinned: Learning from Bad Women in the Bible Dru Johnson Gender in the Biblical Texts: iii. The Misunderstood 11. Does God Really Command Women to Marry Their Rapists? A Study of Deuteronomic Law Sandra L. Richter 12. Veiling in Corinth: A Surprising Sign of Equality Janelle Peters 13. Paul and the Women He Greeted Erin Heim

In highly accessible essays, the book covers the history, achievements, and cutting-edge questions in the area of gender and biblical scholarship, including violence and the Bible, female biblical God imagery, and sexuality."--Jacket.

What makes a man masculine? A woman feminine? Did God design the two genders so differently? If so, why? The answers to these questions will free women and men to gladly embrace all that it means to be fully alive as gendered bearers of God's image who can profoundly impact others for good by the way they relate. Author and psychologist Dr. Larry Crabb presents a biblically grounded understanding of gender uniqueness. His illustration of a bridge of connection shows how the two genders can relationally come together in God-revealing harmony as they celebrate their God-designed uniqueness. Readers will discover that God created male and female to relate in gender-specific ways to make a difference in others by displaying God's relational character. Crabb clearly shows men and women what it means to live fully alive as feminine women and masculine men.

BOTH MEN AND WOMEN UNIQUELY REFLECT THE IMAGE OF GOD--BUT HOW WILL WE TREAT ONE ANOTHER? Being male and female means much more than figuring out who's "in charge" or whether men or women get to perform certain roles. Far from being bad news, God's word on gender is great news when we live as he intended. Not pitting one gender against another--elevating women or men above the other--On Gender charts a third way, the way of embracing and enjoying our gender differences. Amid the arguments of rigid complementarians and liberal egalitarians, find clarity by reading this book. Renée Sproles challenges both men and women by inviting them to obey Scripture with imagination and joy. Brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, church leaders and lay persons alike will find in this book a fresh and winsome perspective on what it means to be male and female. We can glorify God in our daily lives and bring out the best in each other to give the world an in-the-flesh picture of Christ and the church. "Biblically grounded and winsome, On Gender offers a generous and beautiful picture of complementarianism for the 21st century. It's not a mere list of prohibitions and restrictions but rather a lovely portrait of how God has designed males and females to live together in such a way that each person is elevated to their fullest dignity. Read this book and live its truths." --DAVID YOUNG, Senior Minister, North Boulevard Church of Christ "This books contains the best explanation of husband-wife relationships I have ever read. It's a much-needed woman's perspective that I will surely use in my own marriage and in counseling with married couples. Many of us never received sufficient instructions in this area, and boy do we need it. Sproles is spot-on." --GEOFF GIESEMANN, Spiritual Growth Minister, Burnt Hickory Church of Christ "On Gender is filled with relevant Scriptures and accurate interpretations, consistently buttressed with simple explanations of Hebrew and Greek words. If your congregation is struggling with this issue, use this resource in your church classes as well in your youth and college programs. Unlike any book I know on this subject, this one is uniquely both scholarly and self-confessional." --JOHN HARRIS, former Orlean Bullard Beeson Professor of Education, Samford University RENÉE WEBB SPROLES and her husband, David, married in 1992 and have taught parenting classes together for twenty years. A homeschooling mother of two, Renée helped launch the Discipleship Tutorial in 2016 as part of North Boulevard Church's School of Christian Thought. Discipleship Tutorial is dedicated to academic excellence, building a Christian worldview, and mentoring students. She is passionate about cooking, happy families, and homeschooling--all done as unto the Lord.

This book explores the early Jewish understanding of divine knowledge as divine presence, which is embodied in major biblical exemplars, such as Adam, Enoch, Jacob, and Moses. The study treats the concept of divine knowledge as the embodied divine presence in its full historical and interpretive complexity by tracing the theme through a broad variety of ancient Near Eastern and Jewish sources, including Mesopotamian traditions of cultic statues, creational narratives of the Hebrew Bible, and later Jewish mystical testimonies. Orlov demonstrates that some biblical and pseudepigraphical accounts postulate that the theophany expresses the unique, corporeal nature of the deity that cannot be fully grasped or conveyed in some other non-corporeal symbolism, medium, or language. The divine presence requires another presence in order to be transmitted. To be communicated properly and in its full measure, the divine iconic knowledge must be "written" on a new living "body" which can hold the ineffable presence of God through a newly acquired ontology. Embodiment of Divine Knowledge in Early Judaism will provide an invaluable research to students and scholars in a wide range of areas within Jewish, Near Eastern, and Biblical Studies, as well as those studying religious elements of anthropology, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and gender studies. Through the study of Jewish mediatorial figures, this book also elucidates the roots of early Christological developments, making it attractive to Christian audiences.

What does the Bible teach about gender roles? Is there a difference as seen in Scripture? Understanding the debate over biblical feminism is essential to answering the questions about the role of women in the church. In this book, Dr. Cottrell "stands squarely in the path of the evangelical feminists who want to prove that the Bible agrees with their egalitarian views" (Clark H. Pinock, Ph.D., McMaster Divinity College). Lightning Print On Demand Title.

What was it like to be a woman in the biblical period? It depended, in part, on who you were: a queen, a judge, a primary wife, a secondary wife, a widow, a slave, or some other kind of "ordinary woman." In Women in the Bible, Jaime Clark-Soles investigates how women are presented in Scripture, taking into account cultural views of both ancient societies as well as our own. While women today are exercising leadership in churches across a number of denominations and our scholarly knowledge related to women in the Bible has grown immensely, challenges remain. Most of Christendom still excludes women from religious leadership, and many Christians invoke the Bible to circumscribe women's leadership in the public square and in the home as well. It is more urgent than ever, therefore, to investigate closely, honestly, and intrepidly what the Bible does and doesn't say about women. In a multipronged approach, Clark-Soles treats well-known biblical women from fresh perspectives, highlights women who have been ignored, and recovers those who have been erased from historical memory by particular moves made in the transmission and translations of the text. She explores symbolic feminized figures like Woman Wisdom and the Whore of Babylon and reclaims the uses of feminine imagery in the Bible that often go unnoticed. Chapters focus on themes of God's relationship to gender, women and violence, women as creators, and women in the ministry of both Jesus and Paul. Clark-Soles aims to equip clergy and other leaders invested in the study of Scripture to consider women in the Bible from multiple angles and, as a result, help people of all genders to live God's vision of better, more just lives as we navigate the challenges of our complex, globally connected world. --- Table of Contents Series Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Of Canaanites and Canines: Matthew 15 2. God across Gender 3. Women and Violence in the Bible: Truth Telling, Solidarity, and Hope 4. Women Creating 5. The Book of Ruth: One of the "Women's Books" in the Bible 6. Magnificent Mary and Her Magnificat: Like Mother, Like Son 7. Women in Jesus’s Life and Ministry 8. Jesus across Gender 9. Women in Paul’s Ministry 10. The Muting of Paul and His Female Coworkers: Women in the Deutero-Pauline Epistles Conclusion: In the End, Toward the End (Goal): Truth, with Hope Works Cited Scripture Index Subject Index

Modern readers of the New Testament often notice its varying ideas about women. Some passages encouraged women to be submissive and remain silent. Yet in others, women characters owned property, headed households, or spoke with approval. Women in the New Testament World helps readers understand this conflicting evidence. It argues that social norms of the time encouraged traditional feminine virtues. However, as Susan Hylen argues, women in the culture enacted these virtues in a variety of ways, including active leadership in households, associations, and cities. In contrast to earlier approaches that divided the evidence into groups that either allowed or forbade women's leadership, this book points to a tension that was pervasive across different groups and regions of the Roman world. Society widely viewed women as inferior to men yet applauded their active pursuit of familial and civic interests. Thus, it was not the case that some women led while others were silent; instead, women were praised for modesty at the same time as they exerted influence in their communities. Elaborating on this rich historical background, Hylen illuminates new possibilities in New Testament texts.

Kevin Giles has been writing on women in the Bible for over forty years. In this book, What the Bible Actually Teaches on Women, he gives the most comprehensive account to date of the competing conclusions to this question and the issues surrounding it. To understand the bitter and divisive debate among evangelicals over the status and ministry of women, it needs to be understood that those who since 1990 have called themselves "complementarians" argue that in creation before the fall God set the man over the woman. Thus, the leadership of the man and the subordination of the woman in the home, the church, and wherever possible in the world (the whole creation) is the God-given ideal that is pleasing to God. It is this "theology" that Kevin Giles deconstructs and shows to be without a biblical foundation. Giles shows that he is fully conversant with the complementarian position and yet is unpersuaded by it. He sees it as an appeal to the Bible to preserve male privilege, similar to the appeals to the Bible to validate slavery and Apartheid; appeals to the Bible made by some of the best Reformed and evangelical biblical scholars, and now seen to be special pleading. Carefully studying the limited number of texts on which complementarians predicate their theology of the sexes, Giles finds not one of them actually teaches what complementarians claim. Furthermore, complementarians too often ignore the texts that are very difficult for them. In this book the ordination of women gets only passing mention. The constant focus is on whether or not the Bible subordinates women to men as an abiding theological principle.