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  • A Modest Apostle: Thecla and the History of Women in the Early Church

    A Modest Apostle by Hylen, Susan E.;

    Thecla and the History of Women in the Early Church

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    Product details:

    • Publisher OUP USA
    • Date of Publication 8 October 2015

    • ISBN 9780190243821
    • Binding Hardback
    • No. of pages200 pages
    • Size 236x160x25 mm
    • Weight 612 g
    • Language English
    • Illustrations 5 illustrations
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    Short description:

    A Modest Apostle studies women's leadership in the early church. Susan Hylen argues that complex cultural norms for women's behavior encouraged both the modesty and leadership of women, as exemplified by Thecla.

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    Long description:

    Scholars and mainline pastors tell a familiar narrative about the roles of women in the early church: that women held leadership roles and exercised some authority in the church, but, with the establishment of formal institutional roles, they were excluded from active leadership in the church. Evidence of women's leadership is either described as "exceptional" or relegated to (so-called) heretical groups, who differed with proto-orthodox groups precisely over the issue of women's participation. For example, scholars often contrast the Acts of Paul and Thecla (ATh) with 1Timothy. They understand the two works to represent discrete communities with opposite responses to the question of women's leadership.

    In A Modest Apostle Susan Hylen uses Thecla as a microcosm from which to challenge this larger narrative. In contrast to previous interpreters, Hylen reads 1Timothy and the ATh as texts that emerge out of and share a common cultural framework. In the Roman period, women were widely expected to exhibit gendered virtues like modesty, industry and loyalty to family. However, women pursued these virtues in remarkably different ways, including active leadership in their communities. Read against a background in which multiple and conflicting norms already existed for women's behavior, Hylen shows that texts like the ATh and 1Timothy begin to look different. Like the culture, 1Timothy affirms women's leadership as deacons and widows while upholding standards of modesty in dress and speech. In the ATh, Thecla's virtue is first established by her modest behavior, which allows her to emerge as a virtuous leader. The text presents Thecla as one who fulfills culturally established norms, even as she pursues a bold new way of life.

    Hylen's approach points to a new way of understanding women in the early church, one that insists upon the acknowledgment of women's leadership as a historical reality without neglecting the effects of the culture's gender biases.

    makes you think through your understanding of the role of women in the early church, and so also the role of women in the church today. Highly recommended. s

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    Table of Contents:

    Acknowledgments
    Abbreviations
    List of Figures
    Chapter 1: Introduction
    Chapter 2: Virtuous, Active Women in the Greco-Roman World
    Chapter 3: 1 Timothy
    Chapter 4: The Acts of Paul and Thecla
    Chapter 5: The Reception of Thecla in the Early Church
    Conclusion
    Endnotes
    Bibliography
    Notes
    Index

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