The Women Around Jesus

Is of vital relevance for all those concerned with greater freedom for women in the church today.

The author, a doctorate in theology who writes and teaches in Tubingen, provides insight into the author of each Gospel as well as places women into a cultural context in their relationship to Jesus. This contextual view of Jesus and his relationships to women opned my eyes to the depths of his loving and tender nature. Its is women who give us the story of the crucifixion and resurrection. Reading this book along with Margaret Hebblethwaite's Six New Gospels moved me to tears. I have been a life long student of church history and theology. Where was this Jesus and these women when I went to Sunday School and sat faithfully through more than half a century of sermons? Its like eating canned peas and carrots and thinking you have tasted vegetables, then eating of the harvest in a California vegetarian restaurant! After the delight of the fresh harvest from asparagus and artichoke to zucchini, the question is--who would be willing to return to the canned peas and carrots, only?