Much has been written about the various ways to understand what the Bible has to say about women, and it is no new debate.
George Eliot (1819-1880)
In a number of her books, George Eliot (1819-1880) took note of the Dissenters, Protestant sects who recognized God’s call on women and men both to publicly preach and teach.[1]
Margaret Fell (1614-1702)
Before her came Margaret Fell (1614-1702), who composed the pamphlet “Women’s Speaking,” and showed by scriptural exegesis God’s anointing on women to preach.[2] In her discourse, Margaret Fell touched on many of the stories of women throughout the Gospels and Acts. In her summation on Jesus’s reception of and support for women, she wrote,
“What had become of the Redemption of the whole Body of Mankind, if they had not cause to believe the Message that the Lord Jesus sent by these Women, of and concerning his Resurrection?”
Margaret Fell, Women’s Speaking, Quaker Heritage Press, 16, August 1, 2023, http://www.qhpress.org/texts/fell.html.
The stories of women in the Bible need to be retold from this perspective, as active agents in God’s great plan of redemption, and from there, to illustrate how involved women were in the early centuries of the Church’s formation.
One way to encourage growth and change is to appeal to those who teach in seminary, who write commentaries, who join Bible translation teams, and who train the next generation of pastors and instructors. Commentaries penned by women, for example, several of whom are represented in the “Women’s Bible Commentary,” seek to influence the source: seminary professors, reverends and ministers, and scholars writing for Oxford Press.
Dr. Ann Nyland
Dr. Ann Nyland, a classical Greek scholar, created a translation of the New Testament, using the past fifty years’ worth of research on engravings and papyri from archaeological discoveries. She made available a better understanding of previously obscure words and phrases, not yet migrated to Greek lexicons. Finally, women scholars are writing papers about women in the Bible, asking new questions of old stories, and sometimes unearthing astonishing answers.
The writer of Hebrews assures us the words of God are “living and active” (Hebrews 4:12), and Paul adds, “useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16 NRSVUE). God’s Spirit gives the Scriptures their living and active power, ready to reveal previously unseen truths when the right questions are asked.
It is for these reasons that I pursue my research as well, asking those new questions of the stories recorded and preserved concerning women. I hope to join in encouraging growth and change in our understanding of women, as seen in the lives of women who people the stories of the Bible.
Below is a podcast series hosted by Dr. Max Botner. He invited me to spend an episode with him, talking about my own work in telling the stories of women in the Bible. He’s got a great series, and I am honored to be a (small) part of what he is doing.
[1] The Mill on the Floss might be an example.
[2] Jacqueline Broad, “Margaret Fell,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), August 1, 2023, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/margaret-fell/.
