Jesus and Marginal Women

Description

The Gospel of Matthew recounts several interactions between Jesus and the 'marginal' women of his society. The urban, relatively wealthy community for which Matthew writes faces a number of issues, including whether or how it will uphold Jesus's inclusive vision to honour rural Israelite and non-Israelite outcast women in its midst. Will the Matthean community be faithful to Jesus's message of inclusiveness? Or will it give way to the crystallized gender social stratification so characteristic of Greco-Roman society as a whole? Employing social-scientific models and careful use of comparative data, Love examines structural marginality, social role marginality, ideological marginality, and cultural marginality relative to these interactions with Jesus. He also brings to bear models of gender analysis, social stratification, healing, rites of passage, patronage, and prostitution, models through which the reader can gain a better understanding of the community reaction to the social vision of Jesus' unconventional kin group.