Description: 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. 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. 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. 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.
Brief description: Jaime Clark-Soles is a professor of New Testament and Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor at Perkins School of Theology. She speaks and preaches frequently in churches and contributes to various online resources, including workingpreacher.org. She is the author of several books, including Reading John for Dear Life: A Spiritual Walk with the Fourth Gospel and Engaging the Word: The New Testament and the Christian Believer. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Religion and Disability. As an ordained Baptist minister, she has served in both parish and hospice settings.