Marriage in the Bible - by Jennifer Bird (Hardcover)

About the Book

This is an honest engagement with relevant passages in the two primary Testaments of the Christian Bible. Bird invites readers to be honest about what these biblical stories, laws, and sayings meant in their original contexts, highlighting the conflicting messages about "bibli...

Book Synopsis

This is an honest engagement with relevant passages in the two primary Testaments of the Christian Bible. Bird invites readers to be honest about what these biblical stories, laws, and sayings meant in their original contexts, highlighting the conflicting messages about "biblical marriage" from Jesus, St. Paul, and St. Augustine.

Review Quotes

A timely guidebook by a masterful teacher that provides frames, concepts, and contexts to think more carefully and have more productive conversations about what the Bible says about marriage.

Dr. Jennifer Bird's new book, Marriage in the Bible, is a landmark work on the topic that both scholars and everyday readers will find illuminating, insightful and educational. Bird's uncommon expertise in this area shines through on every page. Prepare to be surprised, challenged and astounded in every single chapter of this exceptional book. Highly recommended!

In her provocative book, Jennifer Bird challenges what we understand the Christian Bible to say about marriage. She provides scholarship in easy language about verses we thought understood. I promise you'll have some jaw-drops along the way!

In Permission Granted: Take the Bible into Your Own Hands (2015), Dr. Jennifer Bird proved she is uniquely gifted to make challenging biblical concepts accessible to a diverse audience. Scholars, students, and seekers alike resonate with the questions asked and the perspectives offered by Bird in Permission Granted. Bird brings that same facility with the text, its context, and her readers' concerns to Marriage in the Bible: What Do the Texts Say? Here, Bird not only interrogates the popular term, 'biblical marriage, ' and parses important aspects of the enterprise of and actors in marriage, but she also invites her reader to think deeply about matters of sex and sexuality in the biblical text. Teachers and preachers will do well to add Marriage in the Bible to their libraries and reach for it often.

Jennifer Bird unpacks the concept of "biblical marriage" in this refreshingly accessible and multifaceted book. In our present socio-political climate where the right to bodily autonomy and the safety of LGBTQ+ communities are threatened, Marriage in the Bible provides readers with a resource to critically examine the use of the bible in these debates. A major contribution of the work is that rather than enforcing a "correct" understanding of biblical marriage and relationality, it asks readers to examine the multiplicity, ambiguity, and mystery found within the biblical texts.

Jennifer Bird's Marriage in the Bible is the book that we need now. It delves deeply into how we interpret the Bible--a topic that has become increasingly important in both personal and political settings. In clear and accessible language, her book considers the context in which the biblical texts on marriage, gender and reproduction were written, the significance of word usage, and the dominant assumptions that we often bring to our reading of these texts. It will be a great resource for congregations, educational institutions, and the general public.

Marriage in the Bible meets readers where they are to present them with researched perspectives, thoughtful prompts, and an honest invitation for dialogue on complex matters. And it's a conversation piece that illustrates why Bird is among the premier public educators of the Bible.

Marriage in the Bible: What Do the Texts Do Say? is a sharp yet accessible reading of the Bible for Christians as well as people who are raised outside of Christianity or Judaism. Her chapter "Only Heteros" takes the readers through a nuanced understanding of not just the Bible but of relationships in ancient times as well as more modern day context of relationships, sex and sexuality. It's a must read for conservatives who are using the bible to discriminate against the LGBTQ population today.

This is that rarest of books on the Bible. Written by a trained biblical professional, it reads as though it were not, meaning that it is an engaging page-turner, personal and personable, on a topic of immense contemporary importance.

This lively and accessible volume is an eye-opening must-read for any Christian wrestling with biblical teachings about marriage and the family.

With refreshing candor and directness, Dr. Jennifer Bird confronts head-on the patriarchal, heteronormative, and often abusive assumptions undergirding the concept of "biblical marriage." Bird walks with her readers through a re-reading of key couples and passages in both testaments of Christian Scripture, offering linguistic, literary, and historical insight along the way to uncovering the vast chasm between the biblical world and today. She does not seek to impose her values upon her readers--though it is clear what her values are--but, rather, commends an honest interrogation of what modeling contemporary relationships after biblical precedent would really entail. Her work stands alongside Stephanie Coontz's Marriage, a History as mandatory reading in understanding and reframing contemporary conversations around love and marriage in light of the cultural influences of the past.

About the Author

Jennifer Bird has been writing, teaching, speaking, leading workshops, and creating videos for faith communities on what the Bible does and does not say about marriage since 2012, when North Carolina passed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Her upbringing in the United Methodist Church, Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, doctoral studies in New Testament and Early Christianity at Vanderbilt University, and thirty-plus years of teaching come together in this book, which is her effort to help people know how to handle the Bible in this conversation. She is the author of Permission Granted: Take the Bible into Your Own Hands and Abuse, Power, and Fearful Obedience: Reconsidering 1 Peter's Commands to Wives.