There have been many studies of women in the Gospels, but this is a new kind of book on the subject. Rather than offering a general overview or focusing on a single theme, Richard Bauckham examines the individual women who appear in the Gospels and the specific passages in which they appear.

This unique approach reveals much more about these characters than previous studies have assumed. Employing historical and literary readings of the biblical texts, Bauckham successfully captures the particularity of each woman he studies.

An opening look at the Old Testament Book of Ruth introduces the possibilities of reading Scripture from a woman’s perspective. Other studies examine the women found in Matthew’s and Luke’s geneaologies, the prophet Anna, Mary of Clopas, Joanna, Salome, and the women featured in the Gospel resurrection narrative.

Bauckham’s work is not dominated by a feminist agenda and does not presume in advance that the Gospel texts support patriarchal oppression. He does, however, venture some of the new and surprising possibilities that arise when the texts are read from the perspective of their women characters.