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Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels

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Richard Bauckham does a nice job discussing some of the ladies that are mentioned in the Gospels. He begins with a discussion of Ruth, who appears in our Lord's geneology in Matthew 1. He states that Ruth and the other women are mentioned in Matthew 1 because they are Gentiles and because they foreshadow the Gentile mission to be given in Matthew 28. This sounds plausible at first, though it is not altogether clear if Bathsheba and Tamar are Gentile. It may be better to asume that these women are mentioned because of the extraordinary way God worked in their lives to preserve the messianic line.

There is also an engrossing discussion of Joanna, who appears in Luke chapter 8. It takes up a full third of the book, and in it, Bauckham makes the highly speculative suggestion that Joanna in Luke 8 is the same person as Junia in Romans 16 (even though these two women have different husbands with different names). Bauckham doesn't discuss how common the names Joanna and Junia may have been in antiquity.

On the plus side, Bauckham passionately rebuts the contention of Burer and Wallace that Romans 16:7 ought to be translated in a way where Junia is held in high esteem by the apostles rather than herself being one of the apostles.

Bauckham then writes an imaginative biography depicting how he sees the mysterious Joanna wife of Cuza. It was the best part of an already great chapter.

There are also chapters about the women witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus and the witness of Anna in Luke chapter two. Bauckham defends the possibility and the probability behind not only Anna's historicity, but her being of the tribe of Asher.

As usual, Dr. Bauckham brings his enormous knowledge of early Jewish and early Christian literature to bear on this important study. It is a very scholarly work, but worth reading.