Customer Reviews

Women in Scripture: A Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books and New Testament

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This is not as specialized a reference work as you would suspect from the title. The six introductory articles are among the best I have read on the development of the canon, hermeneutics, and the status of biblical scholarship. These run a mere ten or sixteen columns each, yet feel comprehensive. They reveal the editors' infatutuation with statistical information (numbers of male named in the Bible vs. the number of females; the number of named women vs. the number of unnamed women; names that recur most frequently, etc.), and their interest in exploring what these statistics hint at. Clearly the editors and authors enjoyed creating this landmark publication. While the authors are not timid scholars, they seem to know when they have reached a dead end or hit an informational barrier. When the Bible is silent on an issue, they are comfortable acknowledging it.

Also worth praising is the organization of the book. Part I consists of all the women named in the Bible (including the Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal books) in alphabetical order; Part II lists all the unnamed women (or groups of women, such as, "Daughters of Lot" and "Women at Vashti's Banquet") in Bible book order (following the NRSV sequencing) by their earliest significant Scripture reference; Part III, perhaps the most fascinating section, is a compilation of female deities and personifications (such as, "Asherah/Asherim," "Female Images of God in the Hebrew Bible," "Woman Wisdom," and "No 'Male and Female' in Christ Jesus"). While great care has been made in providing cross-referencing, there is no general index to the volume. Readers will need to be very intuitive (and perhaps keep a concordance handy) if they want to find entries in Part II (the largest section of the book) by any method other than Bible book order. The volume is completed by an annotated listing of "Additional Ancient Sources," which directs the reader to some important texts that never made it successfully through the maze known as canonization, but which are sure to provide some interesting information on the status and role of women at different points in the ancient world.

Women in Scripture is just the resource I have been waiting for; in one volume I can find brief, but thorough, well written articles on all the women of the Bible, which incorporate the insights of the best of contemporary critical biblical scholarship. And don't miss the introductory articles. They are worth the price of this book by themselves. This book is a must for all pastors, serious Bible students, and all laypersons interested in learning about the women of the Bible as they are presented in the Bible, not as they have been culturally presented. I highly recommend it!

Leading Biblical scholars provide the best, latest scholarship on biblical women and provides an important volume bringing together the works of over seventy scholars who provide entries on over two hundred named and six hundred unnamed women. All the women of the Bible, from deities to personifications of symbols, are represented in a fine dictionary reference.

I regularly conduct Bible workshops on the topic of Women Prophets and frequently recommend this dictionary to my audiences. This book is easy to use and is an update of the classic by Edith Deen.

This book is rigorously researched and very readable. It is a fantastic reference book for anyone teaching Bible or writing homilies or sermons. It is on my shelf for ready reference, and it can be bought new for as little as $21. I know of no other compendium that covers the content of this book as deeply. I only wish there were an equivalent volume by these authors on the men in the Bible. As stated by other reviewers, the articles at the beginning of the book are excellent.

The seller was incredibly fast (not like me in writing this review) and was very open and personal. I would love to buy from her again :)

I got this book because I'm getting ready to study a few women of the Bible. I was greatly disappointed and had to stop ready when I looked up Ruth. The first sentence states that Ruth is probably a work of FICTION! Excuse me, but why are you presenting a book on the BIBLE and state anywhere in your book that any part of the BIBLE is FICTION? I had to shut the book and it will be returned. I'm shocked there are only 5 star reviews stating how great this book is for learning about the women when it states that the Bible is Fiction. My mind can not grasp this. The Bible is God - Breath Word of God. Period.