Encountering God in Tyrannical Texts

Encountering God in Tyrannical Texts

Reflections on Paul, Women, and the Authority of Scripture

Frances Taylor Gench
Westminster John Knox Press 2015
ISBN 9780664259525

Softcover, 212 pp.

The Bible includes any number of "tyrannical texts" that have proved to be profoundly oppressive in the lives of many people. Among them are Pauline texts that have circumscribed the lives and ministries of women throughout Christian history. What are people who honor Scripture to do with such texts, and what does it mean to speak of biblical authority in their presence? In Encountering God in Tyrannical Texts, Frances Taylor Gench provides strategies for engaging such texts with integritythat is, without dismissing them, whitewashing them, or acquiescing to themand as potential sources of edification for the church. Gench also facilitates reflection on the nature and authority of Scripture.

Encountering God in Tyrannical Texts provides access to feminist scholarship that can inform preaching and teaching of problematic Pauline texts and encourages public engagement with them.

Frances Taylor Gench is Herbert Worth and Annie H. Jackson Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. She is the author of Back to the Well: Women’s Encounters with Jesus in the Gospels as well as Hebrews and James in the Westminster Bible Companion series, all published by WJK.