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Reclaiming Biblical Truth about Mary, the Mother of Jesus
With apologies to those who have always held her in high regard, I’ve always felt a bit squeamish about focusing on Mary, the mother of Jesus. I grew up Protestant in a largely Roman Catholic area of the Southwest. Even today, while religious affiliation has diminished, in my hometown of El Paso, Texas, 43.2% identify as Catholic and 42.3% identify with no religion. The remaining 14.5 per cent of residents are divided among Evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and other groups. As a Methodist girl curious about Mary in my largely Catholic community, I noticed she was frequently adorned with a halo in many paintings and icons. I was guilty of…
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Tamar in Genesis: Rabbit Trail or Key to Understanding the Joseph Story?
I’m happy to have Carolyn Custis James as my guest today. In Vindicating the Vixens, she contributed the chapter on Tamar. In November she served on a panel of contributors who talked about narrative analysis at the national meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in Providence, Rhode Island. Here are some quotes from her remarks: [In the Genesis narrative] just as the Joseph story reaches a fever pitch and readers are on the edge of their seats, instead of following Joseph into Egypt, the narrator follows Judah away from his family into Canaanite territory and into a salacious R-rated story involving prostitution with his daughter-in-law, Tamar. From a literary perspective, the narrator’s…
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Vindicating the Vixens
Vindicating the Vixens (Kregel Academic, forthcoming, Octobre 2017) is the work of a diverse team of sixteen male and female theologians who’ve partnered to take a second look at vilified and marginalized women in the Bible. The church has often viewed women’s stories through sexist eyes, resulting in a range of distortions that cause us to miss what we should actually see in the text. In this panel discussion three theological professors and three seminary graduates talk about the women they revisited. SaveSave SaveSave
