Product Description
Women in Their Place examines 1 Corinthians 11-14 within the larger context of gender models and sanctuary spaces by relating exegesis to space, gender and discourse theories, to comparative archeological and historical material, and to ancient Greek, Roman, and Jewish cultural and cultic practices. It establishes a distinction between private, public and sacred/sanctuary space and argues that, in much of 1 Corinthians, Paul is concerned with the marking of firm boundaries around the sanctuary space established by rituals in the eklesia, which would effectively gender the church as a male space. The statements concerned with women’s ritual roles and ritual clothing reflect ancient worldviews in which gender was cosmically founded. Jorunn Økland provides an informed and illuminating examination of what Paul can tell us about divisions between sanctuary and other space, men and women, and ideas of public and private.