New Title Jesus and Marginal Women: The Gospel of Matthew in Social-Scientific Perspective By Stuart L. Love Employing ideas and methods drawn from anthropology and the social sciences, this is an original and illuminating study of gender inclusiveness and marginality in the Gospel of Matthew. ISBN-13: 9780227173169 Specifications: 229x152mm, 276pp, Paperback Price: £20.00 • US$42.50 Publication: May 2010 Order this Title Now

About this Book

The Gospel of Matthew recounts several interactions between Jesus and the “marginal” women of his society. The urban, relatively wealthy community for which Matthew writes faces a number of issues, including whether or how it will uphold Jesus’s inclusive vision to honour rural Israelite and non-Israelite outcast women in its midst.

Will the Matthean community be faithful to Jesus’s message of inclusiveness? Or will it give way to the crystallized gender social stratification so characteristic of Greco-Roman society as a whole? Employing social-scientific models and careful use of comparative data, Love examines structural marginality, social role marginality, ideological marginality, and cultural marginality relative to these interactions with Jesus. He also brings to bear models of gender analysis, social stratification, healing, rites of passage, patronage, and prostitution, models through which the reader can gain a better understanding of the community reaction to the social vision of Jesus’ unconventional kin group.

Reviews and Comments

"Stuart Love persuasively argues that while the Gospel of Matthew does not advocate social and gender egalitarianism, it does attempt to promote Jesus’s vision of a new surrogate family of God that challenges the structures of the agrarian household. This book is a welcome addition to studies on the Gospel of Matthew as well as those on women in early Christianity."
Alicia Batten, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Sudbury

"Love’s original studies of Matthean passages about women combine redaction criticism with Gerhard Lenski's macro-social model of an advanced agrarian society and anthropological themes such as male and female space. They show how the Matthean writer follows Jesus in granting dignity to women in a community-as-surrogate-family. Like the Matthean writer, Love brings out of his treasure room old and new; and like the Matthean disciples, students and scholars alike will understand with new insight."
Dennis C. Duling, Professor Emeritus, Canisius College

About the Author

Stuart L. Love is Professor of New Testament and Christian Ministry at Pepperdine University. He is also a member of The Context Group, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the Catholic Biblical Association.