Consider the Women: A Provocative Guide to Three Matriarchs of the Bible

by Debbie Blue

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2019

Overview

A timely and compelling new look at three key women in the biblical narrative 

Among the mostly male-dominated narratives in Scripture, the stories of women can be game-changing. In this book Debbie Blue looks closely at Hagar (mother of Islam), Esther (Jewish heroine), and Mary (Christian matriarch)—and finds in them unexpected and inviting new ways of navigating faith and life. 

As she sets out to explore these biblical characters who live and move in places and ways outside of the strict boundaries of tradition, Blue encounters many real life characters who challenge her expectations and renew her hope—a Muslim tattoo artist, a Saudi Arabian sculptor, a rabbi in a Darth Vader costume, Aztec dancers at a feast of Guadalupe, an Islamic feminist scholar, and more.

Readers who embark with Blue on the sometimes unorthodox, subversive paths of these curious and lively figures will be led to envision more expansive and hopeful possibilities for faith, human connection, and love in our divided, violent world.

Praise for Consider the Women

With her signature wit, eccentricity, and sweeping curiosity, Blue vividly imagines these ancient matriarchs in new and nuanced light. Beautifully written and meticulously researched, Consider the Women is just the book we need in a world suffused with inconsideration and misogyny.

—— author of Very Married

Consider the Women is part playful reminder of all the stories we’ve forgotten and part frustrated disapproval of where we’ve ended up. Blue delves deep into women who couldn’t be regulated, who didn’t recede into the background, who persevered. It’s an encouraging read in an era of physical and spiritual threat. What if, even for a moment, we consider the women?

—— Douglas Frank

three matriarchs of the Bible.

—— author of Maybe God Is Like That Too and Love You More

Product Details

• Title : Consider the Women: A Provocative Guide to Three Matriarchs of the Bible
• Author: Blue, Debbie
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Publication Date: 2019
• ISBN: 9781467452496

About Debbie Blue

Debbie Blue is a founding pastor of House of Mercy (HOM) in St. Paul, Minnesota. HOM is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches in the USA and is committed to the diverse and rich theology and worship of the Christian church, worldwide and historical. A graduate of Yale Divinity School, Blue is also the author of Sensual Orthodoxy.