T&T Clark Contextualizing Gender in Early Christian Discourse

This book offers an introduction to feminist and gender-critical perspectives on the New Testament and other early Christian writings.In this introductory book, Vander Stichele and Penner outline a gender-critical approach to the New Testament and discuss the issues involved. Building on feminist analysis, gender-criticism explores the place of both women and men in, behind, and in front of the text, but also understands sexual identities as part and parcel of the study of gender identities in both text and context, assessing the relative configuration of such identities through their broader, rhetorical, ideological, and socio-cultural contexts in the ancient (and modern) worlds.The authors clearly set out the methodology and hermeneutical issues and then give concrete examples of how gender-critical exegesis affects the reading of texts. The New Testament is not considered in isolation, rather the book deals with early Christian Literature in a more general sense, in that the issues discussed are related to the study of that broad body of literature and concrete examples either come from those texts or tackle issues at stake in them. This book is unique in terms of its range as well as in the explicit methodological focus that is fostered. Furthermore, it is a joint project of scholars from different cultural backgrounds, but with a similar interest and complementary skills. Review 'As two of the more accomplished and compelling editors, organizers, collaborators and thinkers (in their own right), Caroline Vander Stichele and Todd Penner have done it again. In getting us to "think beyond Thecla," their intersectional and boundary-crossing approach moves beyond biblical studies to grapple with some of the more important figures in the humanities (including Foucault, Butler, and Said among many others). Like so many manifestations and constructions of gender, their argument is complicated, yet accessible and insistently relevant. Such matters are important to learn and think about-something I aspire to do with students and colleagues alike... with, through, and beyond this book!' - Joseph Marchal, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Ball State University, Muncie, IN, USA 'Caroline Vander Stichele and Todd Penner are arguably the most creative and learned intellectual partnership in contemporary New Testament and Christian origins scholarship. Both are rightly known for their wide-ranging knowledge of critical theory, Christian origins scholarship and ancient sources. Contextualizing Gender in Early Christian Discourse is a predictably impressive addition to their published work but this time with a more introductory focus. In addition to functioning as a first-class introductory text, this book moves beyond standard introductions to the New Testament and Christian origins in that it offers readers valuable summaries of prominent thinkers (e.g. Foucault, Butler, Said, Bhabha), interwoven with their influence and potential applications in the study of the New Testament and Christian origins. There is a common and not unfair complaint that works grounded in contemporary critical theory can have a tendency to be near-impossible to understand for those outside the discourse. These authors, however, could not legitimately be accused of such a thing. Their book is clearly written, neatly laid out and full of valuable and creative examples from sources ancient and modern, both famous and not-so-famous. Not only does Contextualizing Gender in Early Christian Discourse deserve to be on the bibliography for New Testament and/or Christian origins courses, it would make a perfect entry point for more experienced scholars unfamiliar or out-of-touch with contemporary ideological criticism and critical theory. As the book contains plenty of original insights, seasoned ideological critics will also discover a thing or two. While we could all learn from the chapters in this book, the chapter on 'Gender