The double message

"Turid Karlsen Seim's study of the Lukan treatment of women is a landmark in feminist studies of the New Testament." "In the Gospel women have considerable prominence: they occur in 'gender pairs' with men in such a way as to show their active participation in the ministry of Jesus; they are shown to exhibit ideal virtues of leadership, though they are not actually allowed to exercise it; they are custodians of the word up to the resurrection and bear witness, unsuccessfully, to the men." "But while they are highly visible in the Gospel, in its sequel, Acts, they are silenced. Women are silenced as the preaching of the church moves out of the new 'family' surrounding Jesus' preaching of the word to the public sphere of the world of men. Only in so far as women embrace a form of asceticism and so free themselves of men's control can they achieve a certain freedom. In this advocacy of asceticism Luke is strikingly different from the Pastorals to which he is often compared."--BOOK JACKET.