Early Church Understandings of Jesus as the Female Divine: The Scandal of the Scandal of Particularity

by Sally Douglas

Overview

Central to debates about Jesus is the issue of whether he uniquely embodies the divine. While this discussion continues unabated, both those who affirm and those who dismiss, Jesus' divinity regularly eclipse the reality that in many of the earliest strands of the Christian tradition when Jesus' divinity is proclaimed, Jesus is imaged as the female divine.

Sally Douglas investigates these early texts, excavates the motivations for imaging Jesus as Woman Wisdom and the complex reasons that this began to be suppressed in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The work concludes with an exploration of the powerful implications of engaging with the ancient proclamation of Jesus-Woman Wisdom in contemporary context.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780567667144
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/19/2016
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Sally Douglas is an Honorary Postdoctoral Associate in the University of Divinity in Melbourne, Australia. She is a Uniting Church minister with an inner city congregation and is an adjunct teacher within the University of Divinity at Pilgrim Theological College, Australia.

Table of Contents

List of Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
1.The Scandal of the Scandal of Particularity
2. Is He She?
3. Why is it So?
4. Where Shall Wisdom be Found?
5. Re-Recognising Jesus-Woman Wisdom
6. Scandalous Invitations
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

A detailed yet accessible treatment of a complex issue in the history of Christian theology. Douglas has made a valuable contribution to continued discussions about use of language associated with the female divine in relationship to Jesus, demonstrating that such terminology and concepts are a valuable, early, and even essential part of the Christian tradition. Those wishing to explore the concepts of the female divine, Woman Wisdom, and the development of Christology in the first three centuries CE will find an excellent resource that presents and interprets the textual evidence with scholarly acumen and clarity of thought.
Reading Religion

A thought-provoking book, opening up almost as many questions as it seeks to answer.
Regent's Reviews

Douglas provides a compelling thesis that is at once engaged in key modern debates and creatively 'orthodox' in its approach and implications.
Theology

From the Publisher