Women In The Bible For Progressive Christians Hebrew Scriptures

Women make up over one-half of the world's population, yet throughout history women have been kept out of power; they have been oppressed and disregarded, and have often had their stories ignored. This is a tragedy not only for women but for all humankind, because we all have much to gain by hearing one another's stories, and by experiencing one another in all of our rich fullness – not from a preconceived notion that one group or sex is superior to another. This is important to note at the beginning, because history has largely been told by men. In particular, the stories we have preserved from ancient times tell things from a male perspective, and often ignore women. Thus, we often need to read between the lines and behind the words to really hear the stories of the women who played such a significant role in the events described in the biblical stories, and by extension, in our tradition. Of course there are real differences between women and men, just as there are real differences between men, and between women. We are not all the same; as individuals, we are all different from each other. Rather than a problem, however, we can see this as one of the greatest gifts God has given us – the wonderful and amazing gift of difference. The sessions in this study will invite you to explore the stories of some amazing biblical women, to get to know them and to learn from them. How might we live our lives in response to that?

"This study guide, Women in the Bible for Progressive Christians: Hebrew Scriptures, explores the stories of 14 of the most prominent female characters in the Old Testament: Eve, Bathsheba and Vashti, Rahab and Ruth, Hagar and Sarah, Puah, Shiphrah and Miriam, and Deborah and Jael. The guide is divided into 7 sessions and is meant as an adult or young adult Bible study."--

Although women often play a crucial role in the most significant events in the Bible, they are typically cast as secondary characters who are less important than the male lead. Or they are are presented as bit players who aren’t even named. Yet these are strong women and we do an injustice to the biblical narrative and a disservice to ourselves if we gloss over them. This guide takes an intriguing look at some of the women in the New Testament (a second volume is planned), including Mary the mother of Jesus, Anna and Elizabeth, Mary and Martha, Thecla and Junia, the female disciples (including Mary Magdalene), and women who are healed or set free from their burdens – women who helped shape and were shaped by Jesus and the early Christian community. Outside of Ephesus, in modern-day Turkey, an intriguing discovery was made in 1906. It was of a cave, and inside was found a painting of a man and a woman. There were two especially significant things about the painting. The first was the identity of the pair; they were Paul and Thecla, a woman of the ancient church and probable travelling companion of St. Paul, at least for part of his ministry. The other significant fact was that Thecla’s eyes had been scratched out, and her hand – raised in the traditional stance to suggest one speaking with authority – had been smudged out. It is a telling image on a number of fronts, not least of which is the desire of some early vandal to attempt to remove the woman’s ability to see or speak. There has always been in Christianity a concerted effort on the part of men to silence women, to obliterate them, to remove their ability to speak or to act with any kind of authority. Yet when we look at the New Testament we can also clearly see the presence of women with Jesus, that they were integral to his everyday life and ministry. If we look a little harder, we will see that women played significant roles at the centre of the early Christian community, including as preachers and teachers.

If you’ve ever suspected there’s nothing new to be discovered in the field of biblical studies, think again. In New Testament Women for Progressive Christians, Volume 2, Donald Schmidt uses the latest, up-to-the-minute, ground-shifting biblical research to explore the story of Jesus’ encounter with Mary and Martha in John 11 – except maybe Martha wasn’t part of the original story at all! And so it goes. Like most ancient texts, the stories in the Bible – including those from the New Testament – are told from a male perspective, often for purposes that have more to do with supporting traditional male roles than representing the radical inclusiveness Jesus and the earliest Christian communities modeled. In this six-session study, in addition to Mary Magdalene, Schmidt explores the stories of the women at the cross and tomb, in the early church (Acts), and in the letters of Paul, to reveal characters too often distorted by layers of tradition.

Feminist analysis of the Bible offers clues to the beginnings of gender bias in Western culture. In this book, the essays range from feminist strategies for understanding the social world of the time of the production of the Hebrew Bible to interpretations of key female literary figures such as Ruth, Sarah, Judith, Esther, Rachel, and Leah.

In this volume, Richard Hiers challenges the popular assumption that the Bible has a low view of women and that biblical law either ignores women or requires them to be subject and subservient to men. He does so by identifying and carefully examining hundreds of biblical texts and allowing them to speak for themselves. Among the findings: - that biblical tradition generally represents women positively, as strong and independent persons; - that no text represents wives as subject to their husbands and that no biblical law requires such subjection; - that biblical laws provide many protections for women's rights and interests--in several instances, rights equal to those enjoyed by men. The book focuses particularly on the Old Testament and Old Testament law, and argues that Old Testament laws and their underlying values provide important resources for Christian ethics and social policy today.

“This splendid reference describes every woman in Jewish and Christian scripture . . . monumental” (Library Journal). In recent decades, many biblical scholars have studied the holy text with a new focus on gender. Women in Scripture is a groundbreaking work that provides Jews, Christians, or anyone fascinated by a body of literature that has exerted a singular influence on Western civilization a thorough look at every woman and group of women mentioned in the Bible, whether named or unnamed, well known or heretofore not known at all. They are remarkably varied—from prophets to prostitutes, military heroines to musicians, deacons to dancers, widows to wet nurses, rulers to slaves. There are familiar faces, such as Eve, Judith, and Mary, seen anew with the full benefit of the most up-to-date results of biblical scholarship. But the most innovative aspect of this book is the section devoted to the many females who in the scriptures do not even have names. Combining rigorous research with engaging prose, these articles on women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, and the New Testament will inform, delight, and challenge readers interested in the Bible, scholars and laypeople alike. Together, these collected histories create a volume that takes the study of women in the Bible to a new level.

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