A succinct and authoritative overview of each book of the Bible, including the apocryphal books, setting them in their religious, historical, and literary contexts.

Synopsis:

In this volume, Richard Hiers challenges the popular assumption that the Bible has a low view of women and that biblical law either ignores women or requires them to be subject and subservient to men. He does so by identifying and carefully examining hundreds of biblical texts and allowing them to speak for themselves. Among the findings:

--that biblical tradition generally represents women positively, as strong and independent persons;
--that no text represents wives as subject to their husbands and that no biblical law requires such subjection;
--that biblical laws provide...