If you aren’t new around here, you know that occasionally be discuss things that we don’t recommend. In this episode we provide commentary on a book that we heartily do not recommend, and that is Beth Allison Barr’s The Making of Biblical Womanhood.

Barr’s central argument is that complementarianism is patriarchy, and patriarchy is very, very bad for women. Further, Jesus is against patriarchy and we have totally been misreading Paul. If you’ve been around this discussion for any length of time, you know that Paul’s writings must be taken out at the knees and interpreted through an ahistorical lens if we are to shrug off patriarchy entirely.

So, let’s think together. Do her arguments make sense? Why is this book so unhelpful for women that want to know what the Bible has to say about gender roles? Let’s chat!

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4 Comments

Jeremy on January 20, 2022 at 11:00 am

Why do you guys keep saying her introductory thesis statements and say those are her arguments? It was very frustrating to listen to because it seemed like a deliberate misrepresentation of the author’s book. Her book demonstrated what her arguments actually are but you two just cited isolated sentences and said that was her argument. You could do this with any author and any book and make that book seem unconvincing. You never actually cited any of the author’s arguments and misled your audience by saying that the author just asserted things without defending them. Aside from the fact that it seems dumb to have a book review where only one person “read” the book, this was just the most dishonest review of a book I’ve ever heard. Again, your methods could be used to make any author or any book look like it’s not actually providing arguments and just asserting things. All you have to do is just never quote the detailed arguments in the book and you succeed in destroying the straw man.
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- Summer Jaeger on January 31, 2022 at 12:08 pm
  
  Jeremy: Like I said in the review, she gave a lot of reasons why she believes what she believes. She did not give any biblical argumentation to actually support her positions, which is why I would say that she did not have “detailed arguments” to quote. She had a lot of detailed positions without any *biblical support*. Her thesis is not supported by biblical arguments. She has an entire belief system that’s based off of postmodern/feminist thought. So…that’s why I said what I said. God bless.
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- Sarah on March 28, 2022 at 1:34 pm
  
  YES JEREMY, I agree with you. It’s messages such as “book reviews” like these that are actually keeping women in bondage to the sexism within the church that is spiritualized but is in reality totally unbiblical.
  Reply
Alan on January 28, 2023 at 2:40 pm

Here is a fantastic analysis of both the methodology and the conclusions from the book … and I read every word of the book … and I’m in agreement with the points made in this review:
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/the-making-of-biblical-womanhood-a-review/
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