Walk in the Ways of Wisdom

When she published In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins in 1983, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza revolutionized the world of New Testament studies. She offered in that book a method for interpreting early Christian history that recovers the role of women in pre-Pauline Christian communities. She then painted a portrait of the early Christian ekklesia of women as a point of departure for a feminist biblical spirituality. Later works engaged subjects such as hermeneutics, the book of Revelation, and rhetoric and ethics. The editors of this Festschrift all studied with Schussler Fiorenza at the Harvard Divinity School and collected these essays to honor the leading feminist New Testament scholar in the world. Contributors include Harvey Cox, Francis Schussler Fiorenza, Ronald F. Thiemann, Francois Bovon, Ellen Bradshaw Aitken, Karen L. King, John R. Lanci, Barbara Rossing, Ann Graham Brock, Steven J. Friesen, Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker, Bernadette J. Brooten, Denise Kimber Buell, Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre, Laura S. Muench-Nasrallah, Allen Dwight Callahan, Dieter Georgi, Richard Horsley, Cynthia Briggs-Kittredge, Shelly Matthews, and Demetrius Williams. Shelly Matthews is Assistant Professor of Religion at Furman University. Cynthia Briggs-Kittredge is the Ernest J. Villavaso, Jr. Assistant Professor of New Testament at the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest. Melanie Johnston-DeBaufre is Assistant Professor of Religion at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.