The twelve essays in this volume explore, through various approaches, not only the biblical portraits of Mary but also both "the quest for the historical Mary" and the understandings of those portraits through the centuries. Valerie Abrahamsen, Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, John Dominic Crossan, Mary F. Foskett, Beverly Roberts Gaventa, Deirdre Good, Jorunn Økland, Jane Schaberg, George H. Tavard, John van den Hengel, Pieter W. van der Horst, and George T. Zervos offer contributions that address such topics as the understandings of sexuality, the divine feminine, soteriology, first-century social history, christology, Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox hermeneutics, ecumenical and interfaith relations, and the meaning of "virginity." Volume 10 of the Feminist Companions to the Bible Series>

The eighth volume in this series continues the exploration of women's representations and roles, constructions of gender, and attitudes toward sexuality in the early church. Jim Aageson, Judith Applegate, Warren Carter, Pamela Eisenbaum, Ruth Hoppin, Luke Timothy Johnson, Catherine Clark Kroeger, Magda Missett van de Weg, John Elliott, Betsy Bauman-Martin, and Timothy Cargal tackle a variety of complex issues involving slavery, prostitution, widows, church leadership, suffering, women's agency, and Evangelical responses to the so-called "texts of terror". This volume advances discussion on these often overlooked and misunderstood general letters.

In its twelth volume this text examines a number of Patristic texts and early Christian documents from a feminist perspective.

This book attempts to read the character of Mary in the infancy narratives of Luke and Matthew alongside the lives of experiences of the Indian surrogate mother living a postcolonial India. Reading Mary through these lenses helps us see this mother and her actions in a more ambivalent light, as a mother whose love is both violent and altruistic.

Hail Mary? examines the sexist and misogynist themes that underlie the socially constructed religious imagery of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Maurice Hamington explores the sources for three prominent Marian images: Mary as the "the blessed Virgin," Mary, the "Mediatrix"; and Mary, "the second Eve." Hamington critiques these images for the valorization of sexist forces with the Catholic Church that serve to maintain systems of oppression against women. In challenging dominant, religious representations of Mary, Hamington surveys a variety of emerging reinterpretations of Mary. He then provides a framework for further study of "non-alienating" images of Mary.