The Long Promised Additional Resource List for The Making of Biblical Womanhood....
Did you know that before I wrote The Making of Biblical Womanhood, I only used my title on my c.v. and in my undergraduate classes. I learned early in my career that undergraduate students often assume male instructors are “Dr.” or “Professor” yet don’t extend the same courtesy to female instructors. So, I would introduce myself as Dr. Barr, explaining that I earned my undergraduate degree from Baylor and my graduate degrees (MA and PhD) from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
For everyone else in my life, though, I was just Beth. Some of the teenagers in our youth group, not to mention their parents, didn’t even know I was a professor. To them, I was just the youth pastor’s wife.
While (twitter threads aside) I still mostly don’t care what people call me, I do care about helping folk understand the significance of academic scholarship. It isn’t that academics have all the answers (we don’t), or that we don’t make mistakes (we do). It is because academic scholarship is based on evidence that has been rigorously reviewed and critiqued by other scholars. I remember my advisor telling me it was fine to have folk argue with my thesis as long as the evidence supporting that thesis was sound.
While The Making of Biblical Womanhood isn’t a research monograph in the same way as my first book The Pastoral Care of Women in Late Medieval England, it is built on the same foundation: the evidence from peer-reviewed scholarship. Folk certainly can argue with my interpretation of the evidence (my thesis), but what they can’t do is dismiss the reality of that evidence. Honestly, I never expected to change people’s minds with just one book. My goal was to disrupt the certainty of complementarianism—to get people to pause and consider that they might be wrong.
This resource guide and accompanying video series continues what The Making of Biblical Womanhood started: introducing folk to the enormity of accessible peer-reviewed scholarship, especially scholarship written by Christian academics, that counters both the historical and theological narrative of complementarianism. While this list is far from exhaustive, it is a beginning. If you feel overwhelmed by how much is out there, I’m so glad! Because the evidence is overwhelming. As I wrote in the intro to The Making of Biblical Womanhood—so much scholarly evidence exists, I am dumbfounded we are still having this conversation……
You do not need to read or watch everything on this list. Some of the purely academic texts are rather expensive, but I want you to know what they are. The expensive texts are offset by the many affordable ones as well as the free resources I have listed (from videos to blogs to websites). Also, don’t forget I
have created a free video series that you can gain immediate access to by signing up on my website https://bethallisonbarr.com. My goal for the video series was to help folk facilitate discussion groups and book clubs, especially in churches.
May 2023 be the year evangelical women finally embrace the freedom we were always meant to have.
I hope you enjoy, and Happy New Year!
Oh, don’t forget the new year eBook sale for The Making of Biblical Womanhood ($4.99).
Beth Allison Barr
Resources directly connected to The Making of Biblical Womanhood and my scholarship
http://www.bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/the-making-of-biblical-womanhood/404050
Book Discussion Guide: http://cdn.bakerpublishinggroup.com/processed/book-resources/files/334258_BarrBiblicalWomanhood_StudyGuide_rev031421.pdf?1615900482
Chapter Excerpt: http://cdn.bakerpublishinggroup.com/processed/book-resources/files/Excerpt_9781587434709.pdf?1611069478
Public website: https://bethallisonbarr.com
Anxious Bench https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/author/bbarr/
Substack Marginalia with Beth Allison Barr
Google scholar profile (list of all my publications) https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=0&q=Beth+Allison+barr&hl=en&as_sdt=0,44
The Unmaking of Biblical Womanhood, New Yorker Profile by Eliza Griswold: https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/the-unmaking-of-biblical-womanhood
Find a list of my writings and podcast appearances on my website here: https://bethallisonbarr.com/media/
Twitter, Instagram, Facebook: @bethallisonbarr
Some alternative web resources to TGC and Desiring God
Missio Alliance: https://www.missioalliance.org (my new favorite—check it out!)
Christians for Biblical Equality website: https://www.cbeinternational.org
Marg Mowczko resources on Paul and women (just search her blog): https://margmowczko.com/margs-articles/
Renita Weems, https://renitaweems.com/listening-for-god/
Terran Williams https://terranwilliams.com/articles/ and blogpost introducing Terran Williams and Andrew Bartlett and their responses to Mike Winger https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2022/12/the-next-generation-of-complementarianism-a-response-to-mike-winger/
https://www.bibleodyssey.org/about-us/ : a public scholarship website created by biblical scholars
--see for example Yi-Jan Lin, Associate Professor of NT at Yale Divinity School on Junia: https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/people/related-articles/junia
The Bible Project: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVfwlh9XpX2Y_tQfjeln9QA
Some accessible videos (and one podcast) by academics on women, gender, & biblical text—check out their books too
Mary Beard
---Breaking down the Patriarchy https://breaking-down-patriarchy.captivate.fm/episode/women-and-power-a-manifesto-by-mary-beard
Renita Weems: Women of Color in Church Leadership
Beth Allison Barr & Scot McKnight on bible translations (podcasts) & blog https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2021/07/what-evangelicals-just-dont-know-about-bible-translations/
Scot McKnight: Why Women have been silenced in the church
Carolyn Muessig: Medieval Female Preaching
Wilda Gafney: Biblical Language for a God who transcends Gender
Beverly Gaventa: Listening to Phoebe Read Romans
Nijay Gupta and Michael Bird: Why Romans 16 change both their minds on women in ministry
Nijay Gupta: Hidden Figures Lecture on the importance of Bible translations
N.T. Wright—Does the Bible support women in ministry? https://www.facebook.com/OfficialNTWright/videos/510776099833908/
Esau McCauley—Does the Bible prohibit women in ministry?
Some blogposts & videos for Medieval Christianity & Women (and medieval history because I got carried away….)
Anchoresses: https://www.bl.uk/medieval-literature/articles/the-life-of-the-anchoress
Beth Allison Barr: Brigit of Kildare & Hagiography https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2021/11/deconstructing-the-complementarian-church-history-narrative-a-final-response-to-kevin-deyoung/
Beth Allison Barr—Did Medieval Christians accommodate paganism?https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2016/04/the-historical-reality-of-gregory-the-greats-pagan-accommodations/
St. Brigitta of Sweden project: https://www.uib.no/en/birgitta
Margery Kempe https://www.bl.uk/people/margery-kempe;
https://themargerykempesociety.wordpress.com
Carolyn Muessig. Lecture at Cambridge on Medieval Women Preaching.
Julian of Norwich home church: https://julianofnorwich.org/pages/who-is-julian-of-norwich
Medieval women’s letters: https://epistolae.ctl.columbia.edu
St. Winifred’s Well: https://www.stwinefridesholywell.co.uk (connected to my video series); St. Winifred’s sermon in John Mirk’s Festial: https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=1bQLAQAAIAAJ&pg=GBS.PA176&hl=en
The Medieval Church https://www.bl.uk/the-middle-ages/articles/church-in-the-middle-ages-from-dedication-to-dissent
Beth Allison Barr on top medieval bible verses. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2017/05/top-ten-bible-verses-in-medieval-england/
A fun website on medieval history: https://www.medievalists.net/about-us/
The Black Death Digital Archive website: http://globalmiddleages.org/project/black-death-digital-archive-project
Some accessible research by pastors and public authors grounded in scholarly work:
I’m going to save this for a separate post. So many books to recommend!
Secondary Resource Guide for Making Biblical Womanhood and Video Series (don’t forget books from the scholars in the video links above, too—as I said, the evidence is overwhelming; also, remember the notes in MBW)
Biblical
Amanda Benckhuysen, The Gospel According to Eve: A History of Women’s Interpretation. IVP, 2019.
Lisa M. Bowens, African American Readings of Paul: Reception, Resistance, and Transformation. Eerdmans, 2020.
Brian Blount and Cain Hope Felder, Clarice J. Martin, and Emerson B. Powery. True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary. Fortress, 2007.
Lynn Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians: Illuminating Ancient Ways of Life (Baker Academic, 2009).
Lynn Cohick and Amy Brown Hughes. Christian Women in the Patristic World: Their Influence, Authority, and Legacy in the Second through Fifth Centuries. Baker, 2017.
Wilda Gafney, Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne (Westminster John Knox Press: 2017). Home page for Rev. Wilda Gafney, PhD: https://www.wilgafney.com
Wilda Gafney, Daughters of Miriam: Women Prophets in Ancient Israel. Fortress Press, 2008.
Nijay Gupta. Tell Her Story: How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church. IVP, 2023.
Susan Hylen. Women in the New Testament World. Oxford University Press, 2018.
Susan Hylen, A Modest Apostle: Thecla and the History of Women in the Early Church. Oxford University Press, 2015.
Susan Hylen, Finding Phoebe: What New Testament Women Were Really Like. Eerdmans, 2023.
Dorothy A. Lee, The Ministry of Women in the New Testament: Reclaiming the Biblical Vision for Church Leadership. Baker, 2021.
Amy-Jill Levin, The Bible with and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently.
Clarice J. Martin’s article: “The Haustafeln (Household Codes) in African American Biblical Interpretation: ‘Free Slaves’ and ‘Subordinate Women’,” in ed. Cain Hope Felder Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation.
Kevin Madigan and Carolyn Osiek, eds. Ordained Women in the Early Church: A Documentary History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.
Scot McKnight. The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible. Zondervan, 2nd edition, 2018.
Angela Parker, If God Still Breathes, Why Can’t I? Black Lives Matter and Biblical Authority. Eerdmans, 2021.
Amy Peeler, Women and the Gender of God. Eerdmans, 2022.
Lucy Peppiatt, Rediscovering Scripture’s Vision for Women: Fresh Perspectives on Disputed Texts. IVP, 2019.
Ronald W. Pierce and Cynthia Long Westfall, Discovering Biblical Equality: Biblical, Theological, Cultural, and Practical Perspectives. IVP, 2021.
Elizabeth Schraeder, “Was Martha of Bethany added to the Fourth Gospel in the Second Century,” Harvard Theological Review 110:3 (July 2017), pp. 360-392.
Mitizi J. Smith and Angela Parker, etc.al. Bitter the Chastening Rod: Africana Biblical Interpretation after Stony the Road We Trod in the Age of BLM, SayHerName, and MeToo. Fortress, 2022.
Renita J. Weems, Just a Sister Away: A Womanist Vision of Women's Relationships in the Bible. Walk Worthy Press, 2005.
William G. Witt, Icons of Christ: A Biblical and Systematic Theology for Women’s Ordination (Baylor University Press, 2021). Home page for William Witt, PhD: http://willgwitt.org/about/
Medieval & Reformation
Judith Bennett, A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader and the World of English Peasants Before the Plague (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2nd ed: 2020).
Judith Bennett, History Matters: Patriarchy and the Challenge of Feminism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).
Cordelia Beattie, Medieval Single Women: The Politics of Social Classification in Late Medieval England (Oxford University Press, 2007).
Lisa M. Bitel. Landscapes with Two Saints: How Genovefa of Paris and Brigit of Kildare Built Christianity in Barbarian Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Alcuin Blamires. Woman Defamed, Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts. Oxford: Calrendon, 1992.
Paul LaChance, O.F.M., trans. Angelo of Foligno: Complete Works. New York: Paulist Press, 1993.
Gary Macy, The Hidden History of Women's Ordination: Female Clergy in the Medieval West (Oxford University Press, 2008).
Jo Ann McNamara, Sainted Women of the Dark Ages: Edited and Translated by Jo Ann McNamara, John E. Halborg, with E. Gordon Whatley (Duke University Press, 1992).
Laura Saevit Miles. The Virgin Mary’s Book at the Annunciation: Reading, Interpretation, and Devotion in Medieval England. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer, 2021.
Carolyn Muessig, George Ferzoco, and Beverly Mayne Kienzle. A Companion to Catherine of Siena. Brill, 2011.
Julian of Norwich. The Showings of Julian of Norwich. Norton Critical Editions. Norton, 2004.
Christine de Pizan. The Book of the Cities of Ladies, trans. Earl Jeffry Richard. New York: Persea, 1982.
Elizabeth Spearing, ed. Medieval Writings on Female Spirituality. New York: Penguin, 2002.
Larissa Tracy. Women of the Gilte Legende: A Selection of Middle English Saints Lives. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer, 2014.
Jacobus de Voraigne, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012).
Karen Winstead. Chaste Passions: Medieval English Martyr Legends. Cornell University Press, 2000.
Early Modern and Modern
Anthea Butler, Women in the Church of God in Christ: Making a Sanctified World (UNC Press, 2007).
Wendy Belcher, The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros: A Seventeenth Century African Biography of an Ethiopian Woman. Princeton University Press, 2015.
Margaret Bendroth, Fundamentalism and Gender: 1875 to the Present. Yale University Press, 1993.
Seth Dowland, Family Values and the Rise of the Christian Right. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015.
Leanne M. Dzubinski and Anneke H. Stasson, Women in the Mission of the Church: Their Opportunities and Obstacles throughout Christian History (Baker Academic, 2021).
Elizabeth Flowers, Into the Pulpit: Southern Baptist Women and Power Since World War II (UNC Press, 2003).
Curtis Freeman. A Company of Women Preachers: Baptist Prophetesses in Seventeenth Century England (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2011).
Sally Gallagher, Evangelical Identity and Gendered Family Life. Rutgers, 2002.
Argula von Grumbach, A Woman’s Voice in the Reformation, ed. Peter Matheson. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995.
Kirsi Stjerna. Women and the Reformation. Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).
Nora E. Jaffary, ed., Gender, Race and Religion in the Colonization of the Americas (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007)
Beverly Maine Kienzle and Pamela J. Walker, eds., Women Preachers and Prophets through Two Millenia of Christianity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999).
Eunjoo Mary Kim. Women Preaching: Theology and Practice through the Ages. The Pilgrim Press, 2004.
Sherrin Marshall, ed., Women in Reformation and Counter-Reformation Europe: Public and Private Worlds (Bloomington, Indiana UP, 1989).
JoAnn Kay McNamara, Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millenia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).
Lisa Weaver Swartz, Stained Glass Ceilings: How Evangelicals Do Gender and Practice Power. Rutgers, 2022.
Bettye Collier-Thomas, Jesus, Jobs, and Justice: African American Women and Religion (Alfred A. Knoff, 2010).
Bettye Collier-Thomas, Daughters of Thunder: Black Women Preachers and Their Sermons, 1850-1979
Merry Wiesner-Hanks Gender in History: Global Perspectives. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
Merry Wiesner-Hanks, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge University Press, several editions.
Primary Sources used in writing The Making of Biblical Womanhood (and thanks to Katherine Goodwin for compiling this bibliography; some of these are mixtures of primary and secondary, and some are sourcebooks)
Ancient
Danny P. Jackson, trans., The Epic of Gilgamesh. Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci, 1997.
Mary. R. Lefkowitz and Maureen B. Fant. Women’s Life in Greece and Rome. London: Bloomsbury, 2016.
Sarah B. Pomeroy, The Murder of Regilla: A Case of Domestic Violence in Antiquity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.
Medieval
Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff, ed. Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
John H. Arnold and Katherine J. Lewis. A Companion to The Book of Margery Kempe. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2004.
Ellen Babinsky, trans. Marguerite Porete: The Mirror of Simple Souls. New York: Paulist Press, 1993.
Lisa M. Bitel. Landscapes with Two Saints: How Genovefa of Paris and Brigit of Kildare Built Christianity in Barbarian Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Alcuin Blamires. Woman Defamed, Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.
Monica Furlong. Visions and Longings: Medieval Women Mystics. New York: Shambala, 1997.
Heather Gregory, trans. ed. Selected Letters of Alessandra Strozzi. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1997.
Margery Kempe. The Book of Margery Kempe, ed. B.A. Windeatt. New York: Penguin, 1985.
Paul LaChance, O.F.M., trans. Angelo of Foligno: Complete Works. New York: Paulist Press, 1993.
Kevin Madigan and Carolyn Osiek, eds. Ordained Women in the Early Church: A Documentary History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.
John Mirk. John Mirk’s “Festial,” ed. Susan Powell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Coral Neel. Handbook for William: A Carolingian Woman’s Counsel for Her Son. Washington D.C.: Catholic University Press, 1991.
Christine de Pizan. The Book of the Cities of Ladies, trans. Earl Jeffry Richard. New York: Persea, 1982.
Christine de Pizan. The Selected Writings of Christine de Pizan. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Kevin Brownlee, trans. New York: W.W. Norton, 1997.
Veronica Mary Rolf. An Explorer’s Guide to Julian of Norwich (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2018).
Catherine of Siena. The Letters of Catherine of Siena. Suzanne Noffke O.P., trans. Tempe, AZ: ACMRS, 2000.
Patricia Skinner and Elizabeth van Houts, trans. and intro. Medieval Writings on Secular Women. London: Penguin, 2011.
Elizabeth Spearing, ed. Medieval Writings on Female Spirituality. New York: Penguin, 2002.
Larissa Tracy. Women of the Gilte Legende: A Selection of Middle English Saints Lives. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer, 2014.
Jacobus de Voraigne, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012).
Early Modern
Lancelot Andrewes, Apospasmatia Sacra: or A Collection of Posthumous and Orphan Lectures Delivered at St. Paul’s and St. Giles His Church by the Right Honourable Reverend Father in God, Lancelot Andrews. London: R. Hodgkinsonne, 1657).
Curtis Freeman. A Company of Women Preachers: Baptist Prophetesses in Seventeenth Century England (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2011).
Argula von Grumbach, A Woman’s Voice in the Reformation, ed. Peter Matheson. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995.
Writings of Edward the Sixth, William Hugh, Queen Catherine Parr, Anne Askew, Lady. Jane Grey, Hamilton and Balnaves. London: Religious Tract Society, 1836.
William Gouge, “VIII. Duties of Masters,” in Of Domesticall Duties: Eight Treatises (London: John Haviland, 1622; Ann Arbor: Text Creation Partnership, 2011).
Modern
James Dobson. Love for a Lifetime: Building a Marriage That Will Go the Distance. 1987; repr., Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 1998.
Elisabeth Elliot. Let Me Be a Woman: Notes to My Daughter on the Meaning of Womanhood. 1976; repr., Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2013.
Coventry Patmore, The Angel in the House. London: Cassell & Cassell, 1887.
Dorothy L. Sayers. Letters to the Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of the Christian Doctrine. Nashville: Nelson, 2004.
______________. Are Women Human? Penetrating, Sensible, and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society. 1971; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005.
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1929.