INTRODUCTION Is the Bible good for women? Growing up in the conservative South, I never considered that question. I didn''t understand anything of women''s rights except the caricatures I saw on the news during attempts to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. But I was one of three daughters, no sons, born to a Christian dad who valued his girls well. Though I experienced my fair share of struggles growing up, female oppression in a patriarchal society did not seem to be one of them. As I got older and watched the news with a more critical eye, a different view of women came into my line of sight. There were countries where women couldn''t vote? There were cultures that would put victims of rape to death in honor killings? Then I moved to Seattle, where women''s rights and feminist issues are often center stage in local news and conversation. I couldn''t hide from these issues anymore. Female mutilation, legal oppression, and culturally accepted rape were much bigger issues affecting many more women worldwide than I had ever under- stood.

And domestic abuse, the blaming of sexual abuse survivors, and discrimination in the workforce occurred closer to home. My experience of being valued as a female by the men in my life was not the norm worldwide, but I also came to realize it wasn''t the norm in the conservative South either. I was bombarded by women''s issues. As a believer in Jesus since childhood and one who loved and valued the Bible, I was barraged with criticism of the Scripture around women''s issues as well. Does the Bible address oppression of women in helpful ways? Or does it only perpetuate such oppression among its followers? In a world that is quite often very bad for women, does the Bible help or does it make it worse? HARMFUL WORLDWIDE PRACTICES National Public Radio recently highlighted a disturbing practice in western Nepal in which young women are banished to outdoor sheds when they are on their periods.1 The families interviewed believe that the girls could cause illnesses among the family''s elderly if they touch them while menstruating. The humiliation and stigma those girls endure is worth public outcry. Hinduism is the primary religion (81 percent) in Nepal.

2 Al- though Judaism and Christianity have made small inroads into the country, this practice of barring young menstruating women from their homes does not seem to have a direct relationship to Old Testament Law. Yet I can''t help but think of similar instructions in the Law (see Leviticus 15:19-33) when I hear of the Nepali practice. I know from Scripture that despite the similarities, the Nepali practice is a perversion of God''s intent in the Law. The Nepali tradition attributes to girls on their periods something Old Testament Law never does, it does so without the Law''s corresponding instruction to men, and it perpetuates a practice that Jesus said two thousand years ago was brought to completion through Him. (We will work this out in greater detail in chapters 6 and 7.) But the comparison puts a question to us, one that many women ask themselves: Is the Bible good for women? How can a book that includes instructions on where a woman can sleep or sit when menstruating be trusted by women today when similar modern practices like that of the Nepalese are clearly harmful for women? We have not always been suspicious about the Bible''s take on women''s issues. For long periods in history, people viewed the Bible and Christianity as powers that lifted the downtrodden and demoralized to new places of respect. During the twentieth century, the first wave of feminism gave voice to women whom society had long marginalized.

In 1920, women finally won the right to vote in the United States, due in large part to the efforts of Christians. The Woman''s Christian Temperance Union led this movement, seeking to apply biblical principles of social justice to larger society.3 Based in part on their understanding of Jesus and the Bible, men and women of faith fought together for women to have the right to vote. This first wave of feminism resulted in women''s right to vote and inherit land, along with subsequent benefits to both women and children as women gained a voice in legislation. But as the century wore on, there came a fork in the road in which orthodox Christianity seemed to go in one direction concerning the rights of women, and second-wave feminism (which focused on birth control, abortion rights, and equal pay) in another. In the last few years, many pro-women authors (for lack of a better name), even Christian ones, have painted a picture of women in the Bible that is troubling, even referring to certain pas- sages concerning women in the Bible as "texts of terror."4 According to many books and popular blogs, the view in our current culture is that an orthodox understanding of the Bible is threatening and even downright harmful to women. The similarities be- tween Old Testament Law having to do with women on their periods and the Nepali practice that results in shaming menstruating girls seem to only reinforce such a distrust of Scripture.

Other books have dissected the history of evangelical Christianity and the secular women''s movement.5 Rather than looking at how we arrived at the twenty-first-century general mistrust of the Bible regarding women, I would like instead to simply challenge it by encouraging us to discover and use a Jesus-centered under- standing of Scripture when reading the Bible. In turn, this gives us a Jesus-centered understanding of how the Bible speaks about women and to women in its pages. I believe this process will give us all a life-giving perspective of our gendered selves in God''s kingdom. It will help us see the profound difference in the shame that fathers project onto menstruating Nepali daughters and the dignity God places on His. CHECK YOUR BAGGAGE FIRST Before we develop a Jesus-centered understanding of Scripture, let''s examine any personal baggage we might bring to this study. What presuppositions and suspicions do you carry into a discussion of gender in the Bible? What can we agree on as a basic foundation to start the discussion? Secular or Christian, feminist or conservative, most everyone agrees that men and women are not exactly the same. The biological differences are obvious; the role culture takes in influencing other differences is debated.

One thing is clear: the basic biological differences in XX and XY chromosomes play out both physically and mentally at some level in differences between the genders for 99 percent of humanity. * Male and female are overlapping but distinct identifiers. Men and women have similarities as well as differences. In a Venn diagram comparing the two genders, an overlapping middle part exists between male and female. But here is where our baggage comes into play. The conversation around gender in the church often seems to involve two camps: one that loves the overlapping part of the Venn diagram of gender but feels threatened by any reference to distinctions, and one that loves the distinctions but has a narrow view of the overlap. * According to the Intersex Society of North America, www.isna.

org/faq/frequency, some form of biological disorder concerning gender affects approximately 1 percent of the human population. Although biological abnormalities are real, we are focusing here on the predominant statistical norms of gender. How do you feel about the disparate nature of gender? Do you prefer to focus on the overlapping parts? Do you feel threatened by those who emphasize the distinctions? Or perhaps you find the distinctions more comfortable and feel discomfort with those who emphasize the overlap. It is helpful to acknowledge your preconceptions as you start this study. Personally, I see a big fat middle part of overlap in my mental Venn diagram of gender as presented in Scripture. Men and women share much responsibility and authority in God''s king- dom. But I also love and value the distinct elements of manhood and womanhood. I see value in both sides of the debate, and I have baggage from both sides.

We have much to work through here--both you as the book''s reader and I as its author! CHECK YOUR MOTIVE Once you have checked your baggage, it is also helpful to ac- knowledge your motive for reading this book. Maybe, for in- stance, you believe in Jesus and are curious to understand what the Bible says on women''s issues. Because you love Jesus, you want to understand better the Scriptures that speak of Him. Or maybe you don''t believe in Jesus and want to explore more about the Bible as you decide about Him. How can He be good in general if He is not good for women, right? There is a third type of reader as well. You might generally believe in Jesus but are not sure what you believe about the Bible. Gandhi famously said that he liked what he knew of Christ but not what he knew of Christians. In this book, I will deal with a similar but different issue.

What happens when people like what they know of Christ but not what they know of the Bible, particularly when it comes to women''s issues? This certainly presents a problem for someone wanting to know more about Christ. How can we know Jesus in truth without confidence in the primary historical document that speaks of Him? Despite having come to Christ at a young age, I deeply wrestled with the goodness and trustworthiness of the Bible. I knew that factual evidence existed for some of its supernatural claims. For instance, as a math teacher who appreciates science, I was.