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Contemporary debates about the proper role of women in church, society and family are often grounded on claims about the Bible and early Christianity. How true are these claims? In this class, you'll explore the way women were viewed in Greco-Roman society and the revolutionary, if not entirely liberating, way Christians regarded women instead. In particular, we'll explore the theme common to much early Christian (and male-authored) literature that women could not be saved as such, but that their path to salvation--and church leadership--lay in "becoming men" first. What was it about the cultural construction of women that placed that extra hurdle in their path on the way to heavenly life? How did early Christian women deacons, missionaries, prophets, martyrs and ascetics take up that challenge? And why did so many early Christian men write women's stories in this way?
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