"Distant voices drawing near is a tribute to the scholarly career of Antoinette Clark Wire, the Robert S. Dollar Professor of New Testament at the San Francisco Theological Seminary. In recognition of her work, the contributors to the volume have critically engaged the areas of Christian origins and the role of women in the biblical world, hermeneutics and feminist perspectives in biblical interpretation, and cross-cultural study of the Bible."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Virgin Mary has been idealized as a self-sacrificing mother throughout Christian history, but she is not the only ancient maternal figure whose story is connected to violent loss. This book examines several ancient representations of mothers and children in contexts of sociopolitical violence, demonstrating that notions of early Christian motherhood, as today, are contextual and produced for various political, social, and ethical reasons. In each chapter, the ancient maternal figure is juxtaposed with an example of contemporary maternal activism to show that maternal self-sacrifice can be understood as strategic, varied, politically charged, and rhetorically flexible.

Women in the Biblical World: A Survey of Old and New Testament Perspectives is a volume featuring the most current research in biblical scholarship. This collection will whet the reader's appetite for cutting-edge research and encourage a closer look at some of the familiar passages that may have been overlooked in the biblical text. New insights will be gained, a greater depth of understanding in the biblical text will be fostered, and a greater appreciation for women in the Bible will inevitably result from this unique compilation. Contributors featured in this volume have shared their papers in conference meetings at the regional or national levels at the Society of Biblical Literature or are already published authors as well as professors in biblical studies. Contributors: Lynn B.E. Jencks, Lee A. Johnson, Rev. Karen Fitz La Barge, William L. Lyons, Elizabeth A. McCabe, Julie Faith Parker, Victoria Phillips, Tammi J. Schneider, Hope Stephenson, Gail P.C. Streete

Theological conversations about violence typically frame the conversation in terms of victim and perpetrator. Comprehensive theological responses to violence must also address the role of collective passivity of bystanders of violence. Beyond Apathy examines the theological significance of bystander participation in patterns of violence and violation within contemporary Western culture, giving particular attention to the social issues of bullying, white racism, and sexual violence.In doing so, it constructs a theology of redeeming grace for bystanders to violence that foregrounds the significance of social action in bringing about Gods basileia.

Dealing with a time when "Christians" were moving towards separation from the movement's Jewish origins, this inaugural volume of A People's History of Christianity tells "the people's story" by gathering together evidence from the New Testament texts, archaeology, and other contemporary sources. Of particular interest to the distinguished group of scholar-contributors are the often overlooked aspects of the earliest "Christian" consciousness: How, for example, did they manage to negotiate allegiances to two social groups? How did they deal with crucial issues of wealth and poverty? What about the participation of slaves and women in these communities? How did living in the shadow of the Roman Empire color their religious experience and economic values?

Our lives are filled with objects—ones that we carry with us, that define our homes, that serve practical purposes, and that hold sentimental value. When they are broken, lost, left behind, or removed from their context, they can feel alien, take on a different use, or become trash. The lives of objects change when our relationships to them change. Maia Kotrosits offers a fresh perspective on objects, looking beyond physical material to consider how collective imagination shapes the formation of objects and the experience of reality. Bringing a psychoanalytic approach to the analysis of material culture, she examines objects of attachment—relationships, ideas, and beliefs that live on in the psyche—and illustrates how people across time have anchored value systems to the materiality of life. Engaging with classical studies, history, anthropology, and literary, gender, and queer studies, Kotrosits shows how these disciplines address historical knowledge and how an expanded definition of materiality can help us make connections between antiquity and the contemporary world.