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.

Kristina LaCelle-Peterson seeks both to affirm the central place of Scripture in the Christian life and to highlight the liberating nature of the gospel for both men and women. To do this the author considers the biblical ideal for human beings and then proceeds to offer a biblical foundation for each of the topics under discussion--identity, body image, personal relationships, marriage, church life, and language for God. Along the way she examines the cultural nature of gender roles and the ways in which they have become entangled with ecclesial expectations. This book will help women better appreciate themselves as women, gain a better understanding of their value in God's eyes, and recognize their potential for meaningful engagement in a variety of relationships and vocational callings.

This volume collects both classic and cutting-edge readings related to gender, sex, sexuality, and the Bible. Engaging the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and surrounding texts and worlds, Rhiannon Graybill and Lynn R. Huber have amassed a selection of essays that reflects a wide range of perspectives and approaches towards gender and sexuality. Presented in three distinct parts, the collection begins with an examination of gender in and around biblical contexts, before moving to discussing sex and sexualities, and finally critiques of gender and sexuality. Each reading is introduced by the editors in order to situate it in its broader scholarly context, and each section culminates in an annotated list of further readings to point researchers towards other engagements with these key themes.

Womanist Midrash is an in-depth and creative exploration of the well- and lesser-known women of the Hebrew Scriptures. Using her own translations, Gafney offers a midrashic interpretation of the biblical text that is rooted in the African American preaching tradition to tell the stories of a variety of female characters, many of whom are often overlooked and nameless. Gafney employs a solid understanding of womanist and feminist approaches to biblical interpretation and the sociohistorical culture of the ancient Near East. This unique and imaginative work is grounded in serious scholarship and will expand conversations about feminist and womanist biblical interpretation.

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