A Woman's Place Is in the Story: Seeing Women in the Biblical Narrative

Ignore them, vilify them, or treat them as isolated cameos―these have been common approaches to Christian teaching about the women in the Bible. As a result, we not only miss the significance of women in the biblical narrative but also misunderstand important questions in the text more broadly. Scholar Sandra Glahn argues that we need to rightly recognize the nature of biblical narrative by seeing the women in the stories as essential.

In A Woman's Place Is in the Story, Glahn models how we can better read stories in their literary context and understand why the original authors included what they did. She reexamines both well-known and neglected passages, such as Tamar and Judah, the Hebrew midwives, Abigail, and the Samaritan woman at the well. Even when they seem to be minor characters, biblical women are key to moving the plot forward and revealing truths about God.