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Redeeming Eden: How Women in the Bible Advance the Story of Salvation
Redeeming Eden stands out by highlighting the often overlooked but significant role of women in shaping redemptive history. It weaves together a cohesive narrative that demonstrates how women, despite being frequently undervalued in Ancient Near Eastern cultures, courageously initiate and advance key movements in Scripture. From Eve, who anticipates God's redemption, to Tamar, whose boldness transforms Judah, Rahab, who saves the two spies, and many others, each chapter builds upon the next to reveal a comprehensive storyline. These women, driven by righteousness and justice, take risks and make a lasting impact without seeking recognition or acclaim.
Far from being a mere collection of stories, this book presents a compelling argument for women in ministry by simply telling the interwoven stories of intrepid women in Scripture. It challenges common misconceptions and brings these women to life within their cultural and canonical contexts, using linguistic, literary, and archaeological evidence. Through careful analysis and an easy-to-understand style, it aims to correct mistaken vilification and provide a fresh perspective that is accessible to non-academic, without excluding academic, listeners.
Redeeming Eden not only sheds light on the inspiring stories of these women but also underscores God's attention to their courage and faithfulness. They are a testament to the preservation of life and the ultimate fulfillment of God's plan through the line of the Messiah.
With relatively short chapters and a storytelling approach, Redeeming Eden offers an engaging and impactful listening experience. It is our hope that listeners will be inspired by the stories of these remarkable women and gain a deeper appreciation for their significant contributions to the narrative of Scripture.
Far from being a mere collection of stories, this book presents a compelling argument for women in ministry by simply telling the interwoven stories of intrepid women in Scripture. It challenges common misconceptions and brings these women to life within their cultural and canonical contexts, using linguistic, literary, and archaeological evidence. Through careful analysis and an easy-to-understand style, it aims to correct mistaken vilification and provide a fresh perspective that is accessible to non-academic, without excluding academic, listeners.
Redeeming Eden not only sheds light on the inspiring stories of these women but also underscores God's attention to their courage and faithfulness. They are a testament to the preservation of life and the ultimate fulfillment of God's plan through the line of the Messiah.
With relatively short chapters and a storytelling approach, Redeeming Eden offers an engaging and impactful listening experience. It is our hope that listeners will be inspired by the stories of these remarkable women and gain a deeper appreciation for their significant contributions to the narrative of Scripture.
240 pages, Paperback
Published October 21, 2025
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381 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 21, 2025
This is the book I wish I'd had as a young woman. I hope tens of thousands of Christians will read it and discover the strategic role that women play in God's redemptive story. It's ideally suited for Bible studies and book clubs. each chapter ends with thoughtful questions for reflection and discussion. Dr. Faro's careful reading of the Hebrew text yields so many fresh insights and unravels so many harmful stereotypes about women in the Bible. I couldn't put it down!!
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January 22, 2026Beautiful. I listened to this. I want to read it again with my eyes.
February 14, 2026
I did a tandem read with Faro and Dalrymple's much buzzed about 2025 book Redeeming Eden: How Women in the Bible Advance the Story of Salvation (Kobo e-book), and Meggan Watterson's 2025 book The Girl Who Baptized Herself: How a Lost Scripture About a Saint Named Thecla Reveals the Power of Knowing Our Worth (audio format). A tendem read I sort of stumbled into unintentionally (which I find seems to be happening more often than not).
What a fascinating conversation piece the two books present. Two books tackling the same concern but taking two very different inroads into a similar conversation with conclusions that simitaneously agree and diverge.
For me, Faro and Dalrymple is the stronger of the two, although I found both to be worthwhile.
The differences in the books essentially stem from how their interest in reclaiming the story and voice of women from a history of unfortunate prejudice and oppression at the hands of scripture and the patriarchal powers that wielded it leads them into a necessary conversation about those scriptures. For Watterson, her thesis is simple. Her studies of the lost and now recovered scriptures The Acts of Paul and Thecla, inspired by an on the ground revelation and discovery of a still standing statue which opens up her awareness of how such a story fits within the history of canonization, leads her to want to forge a path into a fresh and renewed embrace of this scripture for us in the West. She wants to be a starting point readers within and outside of the Christian Tradition coming to find Thecla as a key figure within that Tradition. More than this, she wants to cut through the noise of the ways in which we've been taught to see these extant writings as gnostic and therefore unwelcome entries into what becomes a curated selection. Learning to see this writing as a reflection of an authentic voice within the shared history of all these other writings can not only reframe how we think about and incorporate the scriptures into our lives, but open up fresh inroads into open participation within the faith for those long outcast by the canon's construction.
This is where her particular conceptions and readings of the scriptures comes into play. She believes that the Western canon was controlled and put together by men in power, and thus reflects that voice. This is the reason, she insists, that a story like Thecla's ends up lost and buried in time. Here we find a Paul whom affords Thecla a voice and a liberty that the scriptures these men in power wielded looked to strip away.
Now, to reflect on this in good faith, Watterson isn't trying to attack the scriptures. She simply wants to open up pathways into the whole of the history and world that gives us them. To free us to be able to approach them in ways that are aware of the complexities of this intersection where we find a history of canonization, edited compositions, disagreement and infighting, politization. She wants to make space for it to be okay to see a story like Thecla's speaking something that is antithetical to what we find elswhere in this larger collection of writings. To a point I agree with and appreciate some of these observations. Although I do think she conflates later cultural conceptions and readings with the scriptures themselves, leading to what I would say are some suspect readings both of that composition history and the texts themselves, in spirit I would say reading the scriptures as a closed canon, which usually goes along with certain theologies of inerrancy, is not a good way to read them. Embracing those complexities is a good and necessary thing, and I have no issues with setting something like The Acts of Paul and Thecla alongside the rest in tandem and in conversation. And if nothing else, Watterson does a great job of bringing this work to life.
What did feel very clear to me though is Watterson's particular interest in this work directing her into certain gnostic tendencies that I would say don't quite capture why that historical backdrop matters. The pictures she pulls from Thecla's story is one where the Gospel is framed within that typical gnostic tendency for the inner life of the individual, where its all about this inner revelation. She baptizes herself becomes both emblematic and symoblic of this move towards the spirits illumination of her individualized self, a phrase that gets repeated often as "she needed to save herself." This, I think, is where I think Watterson's conflation of the fourth century history and politics from which we find the process of canonization with the scriptures themselves leads to a persistant obsession with setting this particular work over and against the rest. As though the scriptures that we have are reflective of the patriarchy and the voices that were buried opposed it. This becomes slightly polemical as the book goes on, although to be fair I found she brings in a more charitable and nuanced view in the latter quarter of the book (chapters 17-22), which I think are the best and strongest chapters in the book (chapters that are grouped together in sections divided by stages of personal transformation).
Contrast this with Faro and Dalyrmple, whom take the same concern for the oppression of the woman's voice and seek an answer to that problem through recovering the abused scriptures themselves. From there point of view, it is the way these scriptures have been used that is the problem, not the scriptures themselves, a point they make by walking through the canonized Bible and recovering the narrative thread of women contained within. For me, the work they do in bringing these stories back to life challenges Watterson's polemic. More importantly, I would think its impossible to read these two books and not see the different conclusions they draw when it comes to the kind of transformation the world of these scriptures are teaching. Over and over again the stories and figures and texts in Redeeming Eden challenge the emphasis on the inner self in Watterson's book, helping to see this contrast as an essential part of the larger conversation. For Redeeming Eden, transformation is found in the tranformation of creation, in setting ourselves aside for the sake of God's work in Christ.
As they say, "The way a story begins is important," (page 34) as it sets the stage for the rest of the story. And the stories we believe (about God and about this world) shape how we see ourselves and value others. In the beginning of this story we find God's good creation, a fact that awakens us to the pattern of creation, a process that "involves envisioning something that inspires actions to create something new."
The story begins with the absence of conflict between God and creation. Faro and Dalyrmple do an excellent job of framing the context for the ones telling the story, anchoring this "beginning" as a temple text rich and overflowing with temple imagery from start to finish. Creation as a temple inaugeration with an emphasis on the idols commonly placed within the temple. Here we come to the relationship set in play between humans and the Divine, setting the stage for a countering of the common conception in the ANE of rulers being made into gods. One of the key motifs driving this story in the Judeo-Christian scriptures is the ways in which humanity as image bearers is precisely the place in which God's name is revealed within a world in which humanity, in all other ANE conceptions, were slaves to the deified rulers whom weilded the distant and extant workings of the gods. This elevation of the whole of humanity by way of the oppressed and marginized people becomes the defining storyline moving forward, and it happens in direct response to the conception of Empire and its rulers as being synonymous with "the Powers," often understood as the Powers of Sin and Death.
This becomes the imagery of the trees and the serpent. The threat encased in telling a different story is evidenced to the whole of creation in its division. Hence the temple and its movement between a creation enslaved to Death and the presence of God which is defined by Life.
A side note here- there are a few observations in translation that the authors work through that really stood out for me, and one of those was on page 61 where the author speaks of "the side" of the man out of which we find the woman, suggesting and showing that it is in the texts temple imagery that the word finds its proper meaning. Not as rib, but as the sides of the temple wall. Here the woman is conceived as the necessary side of the temple structure needed to contain the structure. it is an architectural word. If a woman is drawn from the side of Adam (meaning a whole human, not a man), the story that precedes is one in which every human being thereafter is drawn from the woman. In the story this temple text is telling, this directely relates to the conception of the "seed" which will crush the head of the serpent (the powers), and as the book goes on it is impossible to avoid the simple observation that at every turn and in every corner of the subsequent narratives the threads follow the same pattern of the firstborn in a patriarchal world and system failing in the keeping of the promise and finding these evidenced women figures carving a path back in line with the promise. Over and over again we find this pattern demonstrating itself. The seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent which threatens the temple structure (creation). From the first time the scacred covenant name is uttered, which is on the lips of a woman (Eve), to the first ones to the empty grave and proclaiming the truth of the resurrection (Mary),
Adam is called the universal human while Eve is called the mother of all the living. Abraham is called the father of our faith right alongside Sarah being proclaimed the mother of our faith (literally, the princess of Yahweh). Hagar becomes the promise to all the peoples of the world. Tamar becomes the antidote to Judah and his brothers handing their father the bloodied tunic, being the only woman to receive the designation "righteous" in the OT.
The full cast of women directing Moses' story.
Rahab (set alongside Joshua as "the faithful one") preparing the way into the new creation promise at a point in the story when Canaanites become Israelites and Israelites become Canaanites." (page 141)
Deborah, uniquely declared as both judge and prophet and called "a mother in Israel" and hands us one of the oldest passages in the scriptures (the Victory Song of Deborah), beginning a pattern of deterioration among the judges in contrast with Deborah as the lingering figure of God's saving work. Which is followed by the story of Ruth as "a reversal of expectations" in the face of Israel having become "like Sodom." Here "Rahab and Ruth form a kind of frame around Joshua and Judges" in a time of instability.
Hannah coming into this great reversal of expectation and changing the course of history, a legacy that looms over the entire story at this point in Samuel and Kings.
Or in one of the most powerful chapters, redeeming the figure of Bathseba. Although its spoken all the way through these narratives, there is this ongoing and replaying motif of the words "saw" and "took." linking the tree with all of these subsequent stories of those aligning with the powers and the women who's actions contiunue to support and change and redirect the stories trajecotry towards the promise. This chapter is worth the price of the book alone, as it tackles some long standing and unfortunate assumptions of this central figure. And it leads powerfully into the figure of Jehosheba, who's name means Yahweh is an oath, setting the stage for the NT to take these same patterns inherent in the women (often pulling forward interconnected themes of barrenness and promise) that we find pushing and pulling the story forward against the powers. There is a reason why the geneologies emphasize all these women in the OT as a way of evoking our imaginatin for the likes of Elizabeth and Mary.
Would it be possible to include Thecla in this mix? I would say absolutely. i would simply say that there is also needed room to recognize how this story being described above, with each figure I mentioned having their own chapter where the authors break down the clarify of their hsitorical and thematic presence, is one that challenges the gnostic tendencies of the emerging first and second century world. That the lens needs to include this important contrast and conversation. Thecla, I would argue, belongs not in a tradition of the self made individual, but in the long storied act of God's covenant movement. One which would agree with Watterson's concerns for the patriarchal powers, but finds the solution not in the self made self saved individual but rather the prolomation that God has acted in the world through Jesus as the incarnated Christ, calling us outside of ourselves to this greater vision of the new creation.
What a fascinating conversation piece the two books present. Two books tackling the same concern but taking two very different inroads into a similar conversation with conclusions that simitaneously agree and diverge.
For me, Faro and Dalrymple is the stronger of the two, although I found both to be worthwhile.
The differences in the books essentially stem from how their interest in reclaiming the story and voice of women from a history of unfortunate prejudice and oppression at the hands of scripture and the patriarchal powers that wielded it leads them into a necessary conversation about those scriptures. For Watterson, her thesis is simple. Her studies of the lost and now recovered scriptures The Acts of Paul and Thecla, inspired by an on the ground revelation and discovery of a still standing statue which opens up her awareness of how such a story fits within the history of canonization, leads her to want to forge a path into a fresh and renewed embrace of this scripture for us in the West. She wants to be a starting point readers within and outside of the Christian Tradition coming to find Thecla as a key figure within that Tradition. More than this, she wants to cut through the noise of the ways in which we've been taught to see these extant writings as gnostic and therefore unwelcome entries into what becomes a curated selection. Learning to see this writing as a reflection of an authentic voice within the shared history of all these other writings can not only reframe how we think about and incorporate the scriptures into our lives, but open up fresh inroads into open participation within the faith for those long outcast by the canon's construction.
This is where her particular conceptions and readings of the scriptures comes into play. She believes that the Western canon was controlled and put together by men in power, and thus reflects that voice. This is the reason, she insists, that a story like Thecla's ends up lost and buried in time. Here we find a Paul whom affords Thecla a voice and a liberty that the scriptures these men in power wielded looked to strip away.
Now, to reflect on this in good faith, Watterson isn't trying to attack the scriptures. She simply wants to open up pathways into the whole of the history and world that gives us them. To free us to be able to approach them in ways that are aware of the complexities of this intersection where we find a history of canonization, edited compositions, disagreement and infighting, politization. She wants to make space for it to be okay to see a story like Thecla's speaking something that is antithetical to what we find elswhere in this larger collection of writings. To a point I agree with and appreciate some of these observations. Although I do think she conflates later cultural conceptions and readings with the scriptures themselves, leading to what I would say are some suspect readings both of that composition history and the texts themselves, in spirit I would say reading the scriptures as a closed canon, which usually goes along with certain theologies of inerrancy, is not a good way to read them. Embracing those complexities is a good and necessary thing, and I have no issues with setting something like The Acts of Paul and Thecla alongside the rest in tandem and in conversation. And if nothing else, Watterson does a great job of bringing this work to life.
What did feel very clear to me though is Watterson's particular interest in this work directing her into certain gnostic tendencies that I would say don't quite capture why that historical backdrop matters. The pictures she pulls from Thecla's story is one where the Gospel is framed within that typical gnostic tendency for the inner life of the individual, where its all about this inner revelation. She baptizes herself becomes both emblematic and symoblic of this move towards the spirits illumination of her individualized self, a phrase that gets repeated often as "she needed to save herself." This, I think, is where I think Watterson's conflation of the fourth century history and politics from which we find the process of canonization with the scriptures themselves leads to a persistant obsession with setting this particular work over and against the rest. As though the scriptures that we have are reflective of the patriarchy and the voices that were buried opposed it. This becomes slightly polemical as the book goes on, although to be fair I found she brings in a more charitable and nuanced view in the latter quarter of the book (chapters 17-22), which I think are the best and strongest chapters in the book (chapters that are grouped together in sections divided by stages of personal transformation).
Contrast this with Faro and Dalyrmple, whom take the same concern for the oppression of the woman's voice and seek an answer to that problem through recovering the abused scriptures themselves. From there point of view, it is the way these scriptures have been used that is the problem, not the scriptures themselves, a point they make by walking through the canonized Bible and recovering the narrative thread of women contained within. For me, the work they do in bringing these stories back to life challenges Watterson's polemic. More importantly, I would think its impossible to read these two books and not see the different conclusions they draw when it comes to the kind of transformation the world of these scriptures are teaching. Over and over again the stories and figures and texts in Redeeming Eden challenge the emphasis on the inner self in Watterson's book, helping to see this contrast as an essential part of the larger conversation. For Redeeming Eden, transformation is found in the tranformation of creation, in setting ourselves aside for the sake of God's work in Christ.
As they say, "The way a story begins is important," (page 34) as it sets the stage for the rest of the story. And the stories we believe (about God and about this world) shape how we see ourselves and value others. In the beginning of this story we find God's good creation, a fact that awakens us to the pattern of creation, a process that "involves envisioning something that inspires actions to create something new."
The story begins with the absence of conflict between God and creation. Faro and Dalyrmple do an excellent job of framing the context for the ones telling the story, anchoring this "beginning" as a temple text rich and overflowing with temple imagery from start to finish. Creation as a temple inaugeration with an emphasis on the idols commonly placed within the temple. Here we come to the relationship set in play between humans and the Divine, setting the stage for a countering of the common conception in the ANE of rulers being made into gods. One of the key motifs driving this story in the Judeo-Christian scriptures is the ways in which humanity as image bearers is precisely the place in which God's name is revealed within a world in which humanity, in all other ANE conceptions, were slaves to the deified rulers whom weilded the distant and extant workings of the gods. This elevation of the whole of humanity by way of the oppressed and marginized people becomes the defining storyline moving forward, and it happens in direct response to the conception of Empire and its rulers as being synonymous with "the Powers," often understood as the Powers of Sin and Death.
This becomes the imagery of the trees and the serpent. The threat encased in telling a different story is evidenced to the whole of creation in its division. Hence the temple and its movement between a creation enslaved to Death and the presence of God which is defined by Life.
A side note here- there are a few observations in translation that the authors work through that really stood out for me, and one of those was on page 61 where the author speaks of "the side" of the man out of which we find the woman, suggesting and showing that it is in the texts temple imagery that the word finds its proper meaning. Not as rib, but as the sides of the temple wall. Here the woman is conceived as the necessary side of the temple structure needed to contain the structure. it is an architectural word. If a woman is drawn from the side of Adam (meaning a whole human, not a man), the story that precedes is one in which every human being thereafter is drawn from the woman. In the story this temple text is telling, this directely relates to the conception of the "seed" which will crush the head of the serpent (the powers), and as the book goes on it is impossible to avoid the simple observation that at every turn and in every corner of the subsequent narratives the threads follow the same pattern of the firstborn in a patriarchal world and system failing in the keeping of the promise and finding these evidenced women figures carving a path back in line with the promise. Over and over again we find this pattern demonstrating itself. The seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent which threatens the temple structure (creation). From the first time the scacred covenant name is uttered, which is on the lips of a woman (Eve), to the first ones to the empty grave and proclaiming the truth of the resurrection (Mary),
Adam is called the universal human while Eve is called the mother of all the living. Abraham is called the father of our faith right alongside Sarah being proclaimed the mother of our faith (literally, the princess of Yahweh). Hagar becomes the promise to all the peoples of the world. Tamar becomes the antidote to Judah and his brothers handing their father the bloodied tunic, being the only woman to receive the designation "righteous" in the OT.
The full cast of women directing Moses' story.
Rahab (set alongside Joshua as "the faithful one") preparing the way into the new creation promise at a point in the story when Canaanites become Israelites and Israelites become Canaanites." (page 141)
Deborah, uniquely declared as both judge and prophet and called "a mother in Israel" and hands us one of the oldest passages in the scriptures (the Victory Song of Deborah), beginning a pattern of deterioration among the judges in contrast with Deborah as the lingering figure of God's saving work. Which is followed by the story of Ruth as "a reversal of expectations" in the face of Israel having become "like Sodom." Here "Rahab and Ruth form a kind of frame around Joshua and Judges" in a time of instability.
Hannah coming into this great reversal of expectation and changing the course of history, a legacy that looms over the entire story at this point in Samuel and Kings.
Or in one of the most powerful chapters, redeeming the figure of Bathseba. Although its spoken all the way through these narratives, there is this ongoing and replaying motif of the words "saw" and "took." linking the tree with all of these subsequent stories of those aligning with the powers and the women who's actions contiunue to support and change and redirect the stories trajecotry towards the promise. This chapter is worth the price of the book alone, as it tackles some long standing and unfortunate assumptions of this central figure. And it leads powerfully into the figure of Jehosheba, who's name means Yahweh is an oath, setting the stage for the NT to take these same patterns inherent in the women (often pulling forward interconnected themes of barrenness and promise) that we find pushing and pulling the story forward against the powers. There is a reason why the geneologies emphasize all these women in the OT as a way of evoking our imaginatin for the likes of Elizabeth and Mary.
Would it be possible to include Thecla in this mix? I would say absolutely. i would simply say that there is also needed room to recognize how this story being described above, with each figure I mentioned having their own chapter where the authors break down the clarify of their hsitorical and thematic presence, is one that challenges the gnostic tendencies of the emerging first and second century world. That the lens needs to include this important contrast and conversation. Thecla, I would argue, belongs not in a tradition of the self made individual, but in the long storied act of God's covenant movement. One which would agree with Watterson's concerns for the patriarchal powers, but finds the solution not in the self made self saved individual but rather the prolomation that God has acted in the world through Jesus as the incarnated Christ, calling us outside of ourselves to this greater vision of the new creation.
October 6, 2025
There is so much myth and misinformation about stories in the Bible. Some of which has been ingrained in the Christian psyche for centuries. "Redeeming Eden" seeks to discover whether or not what we think we know accurately reflects what the source document actually says. The scholars who wrote the book take a serious look at the Biblical text, digging into the stories of many women whose actions are important parts of God's unfolding plan of salvation for the human race.
In our culture many of these women are known and called by their sin, rather than their bold faith. "Redeeming Eden" uncovers that their actions demonstrate their faith in God over and above their fear of men. Akin to Queen Esther's response that if she did not do it, God would just raise up another, these are the stories of the women who did respond to God's call upon their lives.
This is not a feminist cry that women should rule, that women do not need men. This is a seeking out of the proper place of women in God’s creation. When God, as written in Genesis 2:22, built (וַיִּבֶן֩) woman out of the side (הַצֵּלָ֛ע) of Adam, she was to be his helper (עֵ֖זֶר). “Redeeming Eden” details that the “side” of Adam from which Eve was formed is like a side of the temple. Without it, the temple is open and vulnerable to attack. Each side is necessary and required for the completeness of the building. Andrew Shead, in his book “Walk His Way,” notes that in all the Psalms God is the only one to be called the helper (עֵ֖זֶר) (chapter 6). The authors are not arguing that woman is equal to God. They are pointing out that Adam and Eve, man and woman, are to serve together, two parts of the same whole. Woman is to be there with Adam, to be a help in his need. More than just bearing his children, she is to have dominion with him and to be a part of the salvation story alongside with him.
Set aside what you think you know, and read “Redeeming Eden.” It may change your mind about who the women of the Bible have been all along.
In our culture many of these women are known and called by their sin, rather than their bold faith. "Redeeming Eden" uncovers that their actions demonstrate their faith in God over and above their fear of men. Akin to Queen Esther's response that if she did not do it, God would just raise up another, these are the stories of the women who did respond to God's call upon their lives.
This is not a feminist cry that women should rule, that women do not need men. This is a seeking out of the proper place of women in God’s creation. When God, as written in Genesis 2:22, built (וַיִּבֶן֩) woman out of the side (הַצֵּלָ֛ע) of Adam, she was to be his helper (עֵ֖זֶר). “Redeeming Eden” details that the “side” of Adam from which Eve was formed is like a side of the temple. Without it, the temple is open and vulnerable to attack. Each side is necessary and required for the completeness of the building. Andrew Shead, in his book “Walk His Way,” notes that in all the Psalms God is the only one to be called the helper (עֵ֖זֶר) (chapter 6). The authors are not arguing that woman is equal to God. They are pointing out that Adam and Eve, man and woman, are to serve together, two parts of the same whole. Woman is to be there with Adam, to be a help in his need. More than just bearing his children, she is to have dominion with him and to be a part of the salvation story alongside with him.
Set aside what you think you know, and read “Redeeming Eden.” It may change your mind about who the women of the Bible have been all along.
October 14, 2025
This book presents a fresh and in-depth examination of the role of women in the Bible. Reading it has been an eye-opening experience of learning new perspectives and details of familiar stories. This book has shifted my perspective on Biblical femininity, providing more concrete, Biblical support for God's design for women, giving solid grounding to counter some of the damaging perspectives still prevalent today. While the authors take a deep academic dive into Scripture looking into the theology, archaeology, and literary features behind the texts studied, everything is presented in an accessible way for readers from varied backgrounds. I also appreciated the reflection and application questions at the end of each chapter, both as a tool for using this book in a group study, but also to help readers process the material more deeply and apply the insights in their own lives. I highly recommend this book for both women and men seeking to understand better what God's Word reveals about women (and hope that many will seek this!), and for groups desiring to study this topic.
January 1, 2026
This was a remarkable book. I want everyone to read it!
This book is both accessible and overflowing with deep scholarship. It is one of the best books I’ve read that explores women of the Hebrew Bible. Dr. Faro manages both to write in a very understandable way and also to jam-pack each paragraph with an immense volume of theology.
I would love for every man and woman in the church to read this book. I would especially love for every pastor who preaches on biblical womanhood from the pulpit to read this. Women are vital pieces in God’s great story, just as men are too. This book is amazing at highlighting the stories we often overlook or skim over in the Bible. It shares fresh insights into how God has always used and continues to use women in the grander story of redemption.
Thank you Dr. Faro for the immense amount of research and diligence that certainly went into writing this. This is a good word for the church. In this book, you too contributed to this beautiful legacy of women furthering the good news.
This book is both accessible and overflowing with deep scholarship. It is one of the best books I’ve read that explores women of the Hebrew Bible. Dr. Faro manages both to write in a very understandable way and also to jam-pack each paragraph with an immense volume of theology.
I would love for every man and woman in the church to read this book. I would especially love for every pastor who preaches on biblical womanhood from the pulpit to read this. Women are vital pieces in God’s great story, just as men are too. This book is amazing at highlighting the stories we often overlook or skim over in the Bible. It shares fresh insights into how God has always used and continues to use women in the grander story of redemption.
Thank you Dr. Faro for the immense amount of research and diligence that certainly went into writing this. This is a good word for the church. In this book, you too contributed to this beautiful legacy of women furthering the good news.
November 19, 2025
Great read about women in scripture and corrective to many ideas about Eve. Academic enough to study but easy enough to read with a group
Would make a great group Bible Study.
My only quibble is that Naomi gets short shrift.
Would make a great group Bible Study.
My only quibble is that Naomi gets short shrift.
November 29, 2025
Excellent, comprehensive, inspiring. I couldn't put it down and now realize how much has been missed in teachings about women and our actual role for the Kingdom. Thank you to the authors for writing this! I will be studying and digging deeper because of what I've learned in this book.
January 31, 2026
concise but insightful. a wonderful inspection of the role of women to preserve the line of salvation. the subversive nature of the inclusion of these women is not always obvious nor the recycling of themes and motifs across the entire text of the Bible which are both observed here
November 7, 2025
Just a fantastic survey of the Pentateuch and Historical books with an eye toward the women who imaged God and advanced the redemptive story. Have your highlighter at the ready.
November 24, 2025
Very encouraging. Would make a great book for a women's book study.
February 4, 2026
This was an excellent book over how women have helped advance the biblical story. Highly recommend.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews