Jesus and Marginal Women

This book employs a variety of social scientific models, and includes chapters that respectively analyze contextual issues and specific stories of Jesus and women in the Gospel of Matthew. Stuart Love persuasively argues that while the Gospel of Matthew does not advocate social and gender egalitarianism, it does attempt to promote Jesus's vision of a new surrogate family of God that challenges the structures of the agrarian household. This book is a welcome addition to studies on the Gospel of Matthew as well as those on women in early Christianity.

--Alicia Batten, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Sudbury



Love's original studies of Matthean passages about women combine redaction criticism with Gerhard Lenski's macro-social model of an advanced agrarian society and anthropological themes such as male and female space. They show how the Matthean writer follows Jesus in granting dignity to women in a community-as-surrogate-family. Like the Matthean writer, Love brings out of his treasure room old and new; and like the Matthean disciples, students and scholars alike will understand with new insight.

--Dennis C. Duling, Professor Emeritus, Canisius College