Description: The Gospel of Matthew recounts several interactions between Jesus and "marginal" women. The urban, relatively wealthy community to which Matthew writes faces issues relating to a number of internal problems including whether or how it will keep Jesus's inclusive vision to honor rural Israelite and non-Israelite outcast women in its midst. Will the Matthean community be faithful to the social vision of Jesus's unconventional kin group? Or will it give way to the crystallized gender social stratification so characteristic of Greco-Roman society as a whole? Employing...

This insightful study explores the significance of the interactions between Jesus and 'marginal' women recounted in the Gospel of Matthew. Employing social-scientific models and carefully using comparative data, Love examines the various aspects of this marginality, identifying the attempts of Matthew's Gospel to promote Jesus's vision of a new surrogate family of God that challenges the traditional structures of the household.