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Jewish and Christian Women of Antiquity

Jewish and Christian Women of Antiquity

Monday, September 25, 2023
8:00 – 9:00 pm Eastern Time
Facebook Event Page

Dr. Sara Parks (with host Dr. Shirley Paulson)

It is difficult to learn about the lives of Jewish and Christian women in antiquity because most of the written history of the period was written by men who embodied the prevalent attitudes of the era. Their general orientation toward women – that they were less than human – is apparent in both the absence of women and the obvious downplaying of their importance and worth in ancient writings. But with a more thorough awareness of the types of literature, the goals of the writers, and the religious beliefs of both Jews and Christians, careful readers can use different lenses to discover the hidden stories of women in general. In the Bible and Beyond Discussion, we will have a chance to think about some of the women we have discussed before, but we will also be introduced to some women most of us have never heard of before. We will learn to identify subtle symptoms of the negative attitudes toward women and why our religious education has failed to teach them to us. We will be introduced to new women, but most importantly, we will learn how to find the hidden women and their issues ourselves.

Book of Susana

Background reading: “Women’s Work in the Greco-Roman World” by Lynn H. Cohick