All of the Women of the Bible

There is one good thing about this book which is that it is well organized and has a comprehensive list of the Biblical women so could be a useful tool as a spring board for further research. However, beyond this, it is extremely heavily opinionated and unsupported. Almost every page in the book contains multiple sentences that begin with conditionals like "perhaps," "It is probable," and "let us imagine" which greatly reduces the credibility of the material. Although some of this material seems to be educated assumptions based on known anthropological material regarding the time period (like typical food, clothing, a woman's life course, marriage customs, etc.) the fact that the author never states this or cites any sources for the information makes it seem unreliable. She also feels the need to constantly make narrow absolutist value statements about the material covered. I understand that the bible doesn't always have the best views on women and don't feel it is appropriate to erase or gloss over this and I certainly wouldn't expect a "feminist" reading if the book wasn't specifically advertised as such. However, the author is not just presenting the attitudes about women present in her source material, she is inserting her own. Many of her value statements either have no support or are supported by quotes from other parts of the bible taken out of context. For example she frequently uses quotes from the New Testament to justify her value judgement on women in the Old Testament. Most frustrating of all, she uses accounts of individual women to make generalizations about "woman's nature" which frequently do not make any sense. For example, women who behave immorally are held up as examples of "woman's evil nature" despite the fact the bible also contains many accounts of immoral men. In fact, in her account of Miriam she explains that both she and her brother Aaron commit the same crime, chastising Moses and, yet, this is somehow, only a testament to Miriam flawed female nature. Amazon also carries several books which are faith based assessments of biblical women. I know this even though I have not read these books because their descriptions contain labels like "devotional" or reference the lessons that can be learned from the women. The description for this book on the other hand is much more neutral in tone. The only hint is that it mentions the inclusion of the author's "comments." However, this does not make the book's nature clear at all, as scholars may, indeed are often expected to, comment on the material they study...they are just supposed to provide citations to support their comments. Even as a devotional, the book falls flat as the faith based material does not provide any deep reflections on the intricacies of the moral dilemmas these women faced and rarely goes beyond "How amazing!" or "How horrible!" variations of which appear every couple sentences throughout the text.

This is a wonderful book! I learned so many things and gained insights into the lives of biblical women that I never had before reading.

We love this book it is a good reference and study guide I am learning so much history of the women backed up with scripture . Just wonderful.

The presence of each woman is documented with a place in the King James Version of the Bible. There is also speculation given about the women.

Great

Enjoyed

A lot of fantasy going on but a good source book for ALL the women of the Bible

Very good reference book.

I read this book before and decided I needed it in my personal library. The book is very informative and a wonderful aide in bible study.

We purchased this book to use with our womens bible study. It is a great resource. We have learned a lot and it triggers a lot of discussion.