Customer Reviews

Gender Roles & the Bible: Creation, the Fall, & Redemption: A Critique of Feminist Biblical Interpretation

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This book has proven invaluable to me in looking at the gender role controversy in light of the Bible. It takes a reasonable look at several arguments, and then compares those with how an original reader would have understood what the Bible writers meant. I highly recommend the book to anyone wanting to get a better understanding of what the Bible has to say about women and men.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well this book uses Scripture. To support their views, many authors tear a verse out of its context or gloss over what it really says. This book takes a careful look at several important passages in the Bible on the topic of gender roles. It does an exceptional job showing that feminism is contrary to the Bible.

This book is a highly insightful, systematic and thorough critique of feminism as compared to the Truth of Biblical doctrine. Honest and plausible answers are given as to the areas of divergence in thought between Feminism and Biblical Christianity. Cottrell's book is a highly recommended book to ground your beliefs and rest your mind on this pertinent subject, and is evidence that Christian beliefs are at their roots not marked by a mere blind leap of faith into the dark, but Christian beliefs are actually made up of by faith accompanied by reason.

Cottrell's book Gender Roles & the Bible is a fascinating read on the subject of feminism and its view of the Bible. Early on the book discusses the four major types of feminism common today.

The first form of Feminism that is mentioned is "Secular Feminism." Secular Feminism is a complete and total rejection of religion altogether. It views all formal religions as the enemy of Feminism and equal rights for women because religion equals oppression.

The second view Cottrell discusses is the so-called "Goddess Feminism." This view, like Secular Feminism, reject the Bible outright, as well as, all traditional religions. However in this case it prefers to hold on to a sense of spirituality and therefore is drawn towards "earth religions" or nature worship, etc. The pantheistic religions boast of a former time when women were considered the superior sex and there was a great goddess who was worshipped but eventually overthrown by male gods like the biblical Yahweh.

The next view presented is "Liberal Christian Feminism." This view wants to maintain roots with Christianity and the person of Jesus, but sees the Bible as fallible and antiquated and therefore values the interpreters own understanding and experience with the text of Scripture more than what the author of the text originally meant.

Finally, the fourth view is "Evangelical Feminism" or "Biblical Feminism" which holds a much higher regard for the Bible as an inerrant and infallible text because it is God breathed Scripture. It is this view of feminism that the main body of Cottrell book undertakes to understand and refute. While this view is more honorable in that it values the Bible as God word, Cottrell exposes the hermeneutic fallacies and hoop jumping that evangelical feminists perform in order to make their case that the Bible emphatically teaches Egalitarianism, the view that men and women are equal in all circumstances and with regard to being able to teach over men and hold the position of elder in the church, etc.

Cottrell spends the rest of the book tackling the toughest passages of the Bible dealing with gender issues and he powerfully and persuasively answers the toughest challenges raised by evangelical feminists. His exegesis of the relevant passages of Scripture is solid and irrefutable. Only those who are set on their egalitarian views (and are willing to dismiss clear biblical teaching in favor of their a priori assumptions) before reading this book will walk away convinced that the Bible favors a feminist ideology. This book is well worth the read if you are interested in the topic of women in ministry and gender roles according to the Bible.

Cottrell starts out with a strong opinion on this subject and (surprise!) makes the Bible agree with him. Do not read this if you want to wrestle seriously with difficult problems because clearly the author never doubted his own position; he both misrepresents and maligns other faithful and intelligent interpreters who disagree with his views. The way Cottrell distorts the ministry of Jesus is particularly tragic. The Jesus that Cottrell depicts brings no hope to the world; instead he reinforces the oppressive politics of his day.