Her Image of Salvation: Female Saviors and Formative Christianity / Edition 1

by Gail P. C. Streete

Overview

This book examines the image of the savior and the experience of salvation, two concepts that are inextricably entwined. Gail Streete asserts that Christianity set aside female images of salvation by emphasizing the maleness of Jesus. She draws on solid knowledge of the Jewish sources of Christianity and from the Greek-speaking classical world, from which Christianity assimilated so much, to show that the image of God could be seen as both male and female.

The Gender and the Biblical Tradition series brings to a wide audience important new discoveries concerning women and the Bible, ancient Israel, and early Christianity. The books explore the role of sexuality within the biblical tradition and document the continuing influence of biblical treatments of gender on subsequent life and thought.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780664253899
Publisher:	Westminster John Knox Press
Publication date:	11/01/1992
Series:	Gender and the Biblical Tradition
Edition description:	1st ed
Pages:	228
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.52(d)
Lexile:	1610L (what's this?)

About the Author

Gail P. C. Streete is W. J. Millard Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. Her books include The Strange Woman: Power and Sex in the Bible and Her Image of Salvation: Female Saviors and Formative Christianity, both available from WJK.

Editorial Reviews

Corrington's (religious studies, Rhodes Coll.) powerfully presented study of female soteriological models and early Christianity provides superior analysis. Corrington seeks to prove that female savior figures like Mary, the Egyptian Isis, and Sophia/Wisdom ``embrace the opposites, in whom virgin and mother, human and divine, spirit and flesh, savior and saved meet.'' Certainly, she argues, these models don't necessarily require a male to fulfill their redemptive function. As fleshed out by its early, formative practitioners, however, Christianity proclaimed that only a male could meet the salvific directive. Corrington stays the course well, avoiding angry feminist barbs and clearly illustrating how early Christian theology helped solidify our conceptions of male savior figures. The heavily footnoted text is academic in tone, and those conversant with the debate surrounding Christian history and gender issues will reap interesting fruit from this work. Recommended for large religious and women's studies collections.-- Sandra Collins, SLIS, Univ. of Pittsburgh

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