Jesus: Miriam's Child, Sophia's Prophet: Critical Issues in Feminist Christology

Jesus: Miriam's Child, Sophia's Prophet is the long-awaited sequel to the author's best-selling scholarly work of a decade ago, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Reconstruction of Christian Origins. Translated into eight languages, In Memory of Her is undoubtedly the best-known work throughout the world to date by a feminist biblical scholar. In her new book, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza charts the rise and fall into "historical amnesia" of the liberating movement gathered around Jesus as the prophet and messenger of Divine Sophia, or Woman Wisdom, the all-powerful female figure in early Jewish Scriptures and theology. While teachings about Women Wisdom permeate the texture of the Christian ("New") Testament, they were quickly clothed in what the author calls kyriocentric (ruling-male) language. Not simply a work of historical reconstruction, Jesus: Miriam's Child, Sophia's Prophet is a work of constructive feminist theology, showing how the historically unrealized possibilities of Woman Wisdom can offer the vision of a different world and a different church. Re-imagining the Jesus movement in a feminist key transgresses the boundaries set by history, gender, and doctrine. By assessing various Jesus traditions and interpretations as to whether they can engender liberating visions for today the book seeks to challenge and transform masculine Christian identity formations and exclusivist theological frameworks toward the basileia vision of justice and well-being for all.