The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth
by Beth Allison Barr
View on GoodreadsA Baylor historian (and Southern Baptist pastor's wife) argues that "biblical womanhood" — the complementarian package of submission, headship, and prescribed roles — is a recent invention dressed up as ancient teaching, traceable through history.
Core ideas
- Medieval Christianity, often imagined as the high point of patriarchy, actually offered women more theological agency than modern complementarianism does — the "biblical" pattern is younger than the tradition.
- The 20th-century construction of biblical womanhood is downstream of inerrancy battles, Cold War politics, and intentional translation choices in modern Bibles — not faithful exegesis.
- Written from inside the tradition by someone who loved it, which makes the critique harder to dismiss as outsider hostility.
Published2021
Pages245
ISBN9781587434709
ReadFeb 2023
