The cover of this issue of Priscilla Papers shows Rembrandt’s depiction of the Apostle Paul poring over a book. In 2 Timothy 4:13, the verse that provides this issue’s theme, Paul asks Timothy, “. . . and bring the books.”
I just looked at a recent issue of a theological journal, sitting on my shelf within arm’s reach, to see how many book reviews it contains: forty-six. This is several more than the thirty published in Priscilla Papers since I became editor in the autumn of 2014.
One purpose of this issue is to inform our readers that the books reviewed in Priscilla Papers are not the only ones CBE International reviews. The fuller book-review collection is in the “Resources” drop-down menu at CBEInternational.org. There you will find Dr. Sue Bailey’s review of Diane Langberg’s Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church (Brazos, 2020), Dr. Mimi Haddad’s review of William Witt’s Icons of Christ: A Biblical and Systematic Theology for Women’s Ordination (Baylor, 2020), and many more.
It seems there has been a recent flourishing of egalitarian publishing, and it’s hard to keep up! Below is a partial list of recent books that might pique your interest—but first I should be clear that not everything in this issue is a book review. Instead, we begin with an article on Ephesians 5 that will be a game-changer for many readers’ thinking about headship.
- Alicia J. Batten and Kelly Olson, eds., Dress in Mediterranean Antiquity: Greeks, Romans, Jews, Christians (Bloomsbury, 2021).
- Jaime Clark-Soles, Women in the Bible (WJK, 2020).
- Lynn Japinga, From Widows to Warriors: Women’s Stories from the Old Testament (WJK, 2020) and From Daughters to Disciples: Women’s Stories from the New Testament (WJK, 2021).
- Dan Kimball, How (Not) to Read the Bible: Making Sense of the Anti-women, Anti-science, Pro-violence, Pro-slavery and Other Crazy-Sounding Parts of Scripture (Zondervan, 2020).
- Katie Lauve-Moon, Preacher Woman: A Critical Look at Sexism without Sexists (Oxford University Press, 2021).
- Dorothy A. Lee, The Ministry of Women in the New Testament: Reclaiming the Biblical Vision for Church Leadership (Baker, 2021).
- Ronald W. Pierce, Cynthia Long Westfall, and Christa L. McKirland, eds., Discovering Biblical Equality: Biblical, Theological, Cultural, and Practical Perspectives, 3rd ed. (InterVarsity Academic, forthcoming in November 2021).
- Susanne Scholz, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible (Oxford, 2020).
- Karen Strand Winslow, Imagining Equity: The Gifts of Christian Feminist Theology (Wesley’s Foundery Books, 2021).
One more thing: If you are interested in reviewing books for CBE, contact Elizabeth Beyer at EBeyer@CBEInternational.org to find out what that entails.
