Jesus Was a Feminist - by Leonard Swidler (Paperback)

About the Book

The most up-to-date and comprehensive case for the feminist interpretation of Jesus and Christianity ever published. The fruit of decades of research and commitment, Swidler analyzes the role of women in each of the Gospels, asserts that women were involved in the writing of 2...

Book Synopsis

The result of four decades of research, Jesus Was a Feminist compellingly presents the case that Jesus treated women equally with men, and he boldly broke the customs of his day to involve them in his work. Renowned scholar and leader among liberal Catholics Leonard Swidler examines all gospel texts involving women, asserts that women were involved in the writing of two of the gospels, and outlines the importance of women in Jesus' ministry and the creation and development of the early church. He shows how Jesus was a feminist and modern Christians should be too.
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Review Quotes

"Leonard Swidler makes the case that Jesus respected, cared for and even advocated for the rights of women, not in the sense of Betty Freidan, but in the highly personal relationships he formed and the subtle societal changes he was able to bring about through them....The church as we know it couldn't have come into being without women leaders at its beginning. A well-researched, illuminating book, it asks, is our feminism today as deep as his?" --Linda Benninghoff, Reader Views

"One does not have to subscribe to all of Leonard Swidler's theories about the origins of the gospels to be deeply appreciative of this book. Swidler mines the biblical texts with zeal and skill to make his case that Jesus took his stand on the side of the marginalized women of the first century. I found this book powerful, insightful, and challenging." --John Shelby Spong, author of Jesus for the Non-Religious

"Swidler brings together a lifetime of academic research and personal involvement with one of the most pressing concerns for the Church: the rightful place of women. He convincingly shows that Jesus promoted the equality of women with men, looked on them as fully human persons, and expected them to be treated as such. The prejudice against women manifest in later Christian thought and practice cannot legitimately be attributed to anything Jesus said or did. This readable, compelling, passionate, and yet scholarly book is set to become another Swidler classic that Church authorities cannot afford to ignore." --John Wijngaards, author of Women Deacons in the Early Church

"The book Jesus Was a Feminist makes a convincing case for Jesus' feminism. According to Swidler, the church as we know it couldn't have come into being without women leaders at its beginning. A well-researched, illuminating book, it asks, is our feminism today as deep as his?" --Reader Views

Leonard Swidler makes the case that Jesus respected, cared for and even advocated for the rights of women, not in the sense of Betty Freidan, but in the highly personal relationships he formed and the subtle societal changes he was able to bring about through them....The church as we know it couldn't have come into being without women leaders at its beginning. A well-researched, illuminating book, it asks, is our feminism today as deep as his?

One does not have to subscribe to all of Leonard Swidler's theories about the origins of the gospels to be deeply appreciative of this book. Swidler mines the biblical texts with zeal and skill to make his case that Jesus took his stand on the side of the marginalized women of the first century. I found this book powerful, insightful, and challenging.

Swidler brings together a lifetime of academic research and personal involvement with one of the most pressing concerns for the Church: the rightful place of women. He convincingly shows that Jesus promoted the equality of women with men, looked on them as fully human persons, and expected them to be treated as such. The prejudice against women manifest in later Christian thought and practice cannot legitimately be attributed to anything Jesus said or did. This readable, compelling, passionate, and yet scholarly book is set to become another Swidler classic that Church authorities cannot afford to ignore.

The book Jesus Was a Feminist makes a convincing case for Jesus' feminism. According to Swidler, the church as we know it couldn't have come into being without women leaders at its beginning. A well-researched, illuminating book, it asks, is our feminism today as deep as his?

About the Author

Leonard Swidler is professor of Catholic Thought and Interreligious Dialogue at Temple University in Philadelphia, where he is the Founder/Director of the Institute for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue. He is the author of numerous books, including Making the Church Our Own.