scholarly journals Women in the Bible: What can they teach us about gender equality?

2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christin E. Bøsterud

What can we learn about gender equality from the women in Scripture today? Can women in Scripture serve as role models for the women striving for leadership positions and could there be a potential correlation with current-day policies and practices supporting gender balance, and Christian ethical standards? This article, based on the Reformed paradigm, addresses women portrayed in formal and informal roles spanning from leaders, teachers, prophets and other prominent characters – each playing their roles in Scripture. It is argued that despite women often being placed in marginal positions in Scripture, they nevertheless permeate the Bible in narratives on resourcefulness, auto-leadership, and in their place in securing and upholding the Covenant with God. It will be demonstrated how women are presented as necessary partakers in the most significant of biblical narratives, and that their leadership exertion typically has a necessary role in the overarching scriptural scenarios. It will appear that by taking a closer approach to Scripture, we can take inspiration from female biblical leadership figures in most, if not all realms of today’s life.Contribution: It will be clear that Scripture lends sufficient support to promote full and complete gender equality, whether this be expressed in corporate life, government, or family. The examples gleaned from Scripture will demonstrate how gender equality not only is something that Scripture allows, but also expects.

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-48
Author(s):  
Øystein Gullvåg Holter ◽  
Lotta Snickare

Abstract: Gender-Equal Imbalance? Most staff and students at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at Oslo University want gender equality, both in the workplace and in their private lives. Yet, since they also assume that academia is a meritocracy, the faculty’s gender imbalance is seen as a result of women and men making different choices. Above all, the vertical gender balance, with more men at the top and in leadership positions, is explained by the fact that women prioritize children and family over an academic career. Our quantitative and qualitative data, however, refute the explanation that women deliberately opt out of an academic career in favour of active parenting. Instead, we show that more women than men have failed to fulfil their own career ambitions. On the other hand, we also note that the potential to combine work and family are different for women and men.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evriyani Lambang Mandi'

Seeing from the creation story, it can be said that gender equality has been determined according to God's own standards "Genesis 1:26 God said: "Let us make humans..." This passage refers to the understanding that men and women have the same equality, even though they have fallen. into sin but humans are required to be in their place and role even though in today's practice there are still gender differences that occur. This paper focuses on the implementation of the role of women in the church and the role of women in the Bible by referring to the two women in the OT and NT.


2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David T. Adamo

Most of the time, women’s names are not mentioned, words are not put in their mouths or they are not allowed to say a word, and their achievements are behind the scene in the narratives. Passages that mention the presence and contribution of African women in the Bible are especially neglected, perhaps because there are few African women biblical scholars and also deep prejudices against women. References to the African wife of Moses (Numbers 12) are so scanty in the Bible that very few critical biblical scholars noticed them. The purpose of this article is to discuss critically the narrative of the Cushite woman whom Moses married and her marginalisation by the author of the story in Numbers 12:1-10. The narrator of the text did not only refuse to give her a name, there is no single word put in her mouth despite the dominant and significant role her presence played in the narrative. Why is she silent and what does her silence mean? The answers to these questions are discussed in this article.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Candra Gunawan Marisi

The concept of choosing a life partner for young people today needs more attention. Incorrect selection will lead them to circumstances and family situations that are certainly not based on the Word of God. The planting of children's faith must begin at an early age so that it can become a guide for them when they grow up and start thinking about family life. The basics and criteria in choosing a marriage partner according to Christian teachings must be planted in children so that wherever they are or whatever environment they are in, they are still able to hold and have a principle of choosing the right life partner according to the Bible. , The family is a fellowship consisting of people who are bound by each other by the most close ties of blood and social relations. How a child grows into adulthood is influenced by the family. Parents must be good models of Christian faith in order to be effective role models for the internalization of Christian belief systems, values and patterns of behavior. Parents must first live in truth in order to be a model of faith for children, in 2 Corinthians 6: 14-15. The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to the Corinthians about a spouse because there were believers there who had a spouse who did not believe in Jesus. The Apostle Paul also said that no similarities could be found through marriage that did not worship the same God.


Author(s):  
Gerald West

This chapter takes its starting point from the African experience, across a range of African contexts, of Africa as both the subject and object of biblical narrative. When the Bible came to Africa, it came with well-established colonial metanarratives, constructed in part from biblical narratives. These colonial metanarratives were in turn partly reconstructed by the engagement with African others, from both a European and an African perspective along two diverging trajectories, with biblical narrative making a contribution to both. This chapter focuses on the capacity of biblical narrative, biblical story, to be both incorporated into “local” metanarratives and to shape these metanarratives. The contexts that are the focus of this chapter are largely “third world” contexts, across which there are significant family resemblances and important contextual differences.


2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 166-177
Author(s):  
Christina Landman

In 2005 Allan Boesak published a book entitled Die Vlug van Gods Verbeelding (“The Flight of God’s Imagination”). It contains six Bible studies on women in the Bible, who are Hagar, Tamar, Rizpah, the Syrophoenician woman, the Samaritan woman as well as Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus. This article argues that women of faith in South Africa have, throughout the ages, in religious literature been stylised according to six depictions, and that Boesak has, in the said book, undermined these enslaving depictions skilfully. The six historical presentations deconstructed by Boesak through the Bible studies are the following: 1) Women are worthy only in their usefulness to church and family without agency of their own; 2) A good woman is submissive on all levels, privately and publicly; 3) Women should sacrifice themselves to the mission of the church, without acknowledgment that they themselves are victims of patriarchy; 4) A good white woman is one that is loyal to the nation and to her husband while black women are to reject their cultures; 5) Women’s piety is restricted to dealing with their personal sins, while they are not to express their piety in public; 6) Women are forbidden by the Bible to participate in ordained religion.After references to these discourses in Christian literature of the past 200 years, the contents of Boesak’s Bible studies will be analysed to determine how—and how far—he has moved from these traditional views of women of faith. Finally the research findings will be summarised in a conclusion.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-11
Author(s):  
Joanna Pyrkosz-Pacyna

The idea for this Special Issue actually originated during a conference devoted to gender equality in business settings: “It’s complicated. Gender balance in leadership” organized in 2018 by Diversity Hub, an organization focused on Diversity and Inclusion. Inspired by Professor Katarzyna Leszczyńska (AGH University of Science and Technology) and supported by Dr Tomasz Dąbrowski (Diversity Hub) the idea of an entire issue of an academic journal devoted to research and case studies on gender equality in science and business came to life. We opened the journal to sociologists, psychologists, cultural studies researchers, anthropologists, journalists and practitioners to share with us their work in this area. We received a broad variety of articles that tackled the notion from different perspectives and chose five articles that in our opinion provide the most interesting and professional contribution to the topic of gender representation in STEM and high business positions.


2019 ◽  
pp. 150-162
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Jakubowska

This article provides an insight into the contemporary level of gender equality that characterizes Swedish news programs. The study is based on available data and reports regarding women’s status in the newsroom, as well as their opportunities and access to the process of making news. The study analyses Swedish public service channels’ policy concerning women’s and men’s equal rights in the newsroom and the reflection of this in practice. The main aim of the article is to explore whether Swedish news is really as gender neutral as expected and what needs to be improved to achieve actual gender balance.


Author(s):  
Tomasz Widłak

This article focuses on the issue of applicability of virtue theory to legal theory in civil-law (statutory) jurisdictions and suggests research areas and problems in that respect. The author starts with an assumption that the notion of “virtue” and virtue ethics should be used for the purposes of legal theory starting from references to judicial ethics and normative theory of judicial decision-making. This approach looks especially promising for the purpose of systematizing the chaotic moral language that is being currently used in Poland in reference to judges, their skills, and qualities of their character, which in turn may lead to formulating an explanatory and normative theory of the judicial role that better addresses the observable deficiencies of legal deontology. The author suggests research that could proceed from interpretatively uncovering what are believed to be specific judicial virtues and vices, considering different aspects of the wider Polish and European legal culture of civil law countries (included but not limited to legal and ethical standards, public discourse, legal and other literature, historical and fictional examples, and role models). With respect to judicial ethics, existing virtue theories, including non-eudaimonistic ones, may be examined for the purpose of identifying the model of virtue best suited to the particular nature of the judicial profession. The aretaic (rather than deontological or consequentialist) perspective may enable legal scholarship to take a new path in the debate on the status and qualities of the judiciary, including the problems relating to judicial independence and the selection of candidates for judicial offices.


Philotheos ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 240-259
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Danilović ◽  

The story of David and Goliath is one of the most famous biblical stories. It had an impact on many branches of contemporary art. It is also an inevitable part of religious education and general education in all schools. Knowing the fact that the Church Fathers have an essential part in the lives of many Christians today (in the Orthodox Church, they were role models from the very beginning), it is interesting to see how did they, these original theologians, read and interpret the story of David and Goliath. Was it for them, in the time when the Bible was the most sacred book for all, important as it is for us today? Did people during the sports events of that time talk on the markets about the underdog who struck the giant? Additionally, if one looks at the ancient Greek and Hebrew text, one will find out that the Hebrew version, which was used as the source for most modern translations, is 40% longer than the Greek one. Could the works of the Fathers help us to determine which version of the story is the Holy Scripture for Christians today?


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