Priscilla Papers | Academic Journal | Winter 2002
An interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed academic journal exploring Bible interpretation, theology, church history, and other disciplines as they address a biblical view of women’s equality and justice in the home, church, and world.
"Priscilla and Aquila instructed Apollos more perfectly in the way of the Lord." (Acts 18:26)
Academic JournalsThe opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of CBE International or its members.
Winter 2002
Volume: 16 | Number: 1
The Early Church and Women's Roles
Individually and together, these articles break new ground for many of us and provide new information about the roles of women in the early years of the church.
Contents
Individually, and taken together, these articles break new ground for many of us and provide new information about the role of women in the early years of the church. I hope you will find each of them as helpful as I did.
Is there a divinely ordained hierarchy in the life of the church and home that is based on gender alone?
In the time of Jesus there was no separation of the sexes in the synagogue and women could be counted as part of the ten individuals needed for a religious quorum. This allowed women to be much more active in the religious life of the community than they are today.
In the evangelical world, we stress the importance of context for understanding Scripture rightly. We warn against “taking a verse out of context,” because the meaning of a verse is shaped or influenced by the paragraph or chapter in which it appears. Context may not be everything in interpretation, but the literary context is undeniably [...]
Before the nineteenth century, a Chinese woman’s life was wrapped around three men: father, husband, and son. When missionaries brought the gospel to China, the destiny of Chinese women began to change.
Sometimes, in the midst of this pleasant change, women and men have been set against one another, as if we were enemies rather than allies, competitors rather than teammates, aliens rather than fit companions. That grieves me. I’m sure that grieves God.
Forbes now is in secular academia, teaching rhetoric in writing, and she's turned her research attention to selected women who have unwittingly wielded a great deal of influence if not power, particularly in the twentieth century: devotional writers or compilers.
Val Webb has written an engaging, readable, and mostly historical approach to feminist theology. Her thesis is straightforward and often restated: "The goal of this book is to look at the diversity of the feminist movement and show how limited and inaccurate negative stereotyping is."
